It is true that some secluded intellectuals in their esoteric circles talk differently. They proclaim the priority of what they call eternal absolute values and feign in their declamations—not in their personal conduct—a disdain of things secular and transitory. But the public ignores such utterances. The main goal of present-day political action is to secure for the respective pressure group memberships the highest material well-being. The only way for a leader to succeed is to instill in people the conviction that his program best serves the attainment of this goal.

" We were discussing the distribution of income and whether you should have progressive income taxes. There he became a visiting professor at New York University. In America Mises' work first influenced that of economists such as Benjamin Anderson Leonard Read and Henry Hazlitt as well as writers such as former radical Max Eastman legal scholar Sylvester J.

He became a prominent figure in the Austrian School of economic thought and is best known for his work on praxeology. Mises had a significant influence on the libertarian movement in the United States in the mid-20th century. Fearing a Nazi takeover of Switzerland where he was living at the time Mises emigrated to the United States in 1940.