Sunday, February 8, 2026

Society.....................

 

Society is concerted action, cooperation.

     Society is the outcome of conscious and purposeful behavior.  This does not mean that individuals have concluded contracts by virtue of which they have founded human society.  The actions which have brought about social cooperation and daily bring it about anew do not aim at anything else than cooperation and coadjuvancy with others for the attainment of definite singular ends.  The total complex of the mutual relations created by such concerted actions is called society.  It substitutes collaboration for the—at least conceivable—isolated life of individuals.  Society is division of labor and combination of labor.  In his capacity as an acting animal man becomes a social animal. 

     . . . The individual lives and acts within society.  But society is nothing but the combination of individuals for cooperative effort.  It exists nowhere else than in the actions of individual men.  It is a delusion to search for it outside the actions of individuals.  To speak of a society's autonomous and independent existence, of its life, its soul, and its actions is a metaphor which can easily lead to crass errors.

-Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics


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