From The Quotable Mises — surrounding passage

“Some experts have declared that it is necessary to tax the people until it hurts. I disagree with these sadists.”

Defense, Controls, and Inflation , p. 333 If the present tax rates had been in effect from the beginning of our century, many who are millionaires today would live under more modest circumstances. But all those new branches of industry which supply the masses with articles unheard of before would operate, if at all, on a much smaller scale, and their products would be beyond the reach of the common man. Planning for Freedom , p. 16 Taxing profits is tantamount to taxing success.