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Mises Wire
Roman Kireev
07/18/2025
Human beings act. That is: they engage in purposeful behavior aimed at transforming their conditions into a state they prefer more. This fundamental axiom is apodictically certain. To deny it is to affirm it—for even the act of denial is itself an action: a purposeful attempt to assert a position. Thus, the truth of human action is not contingent on empirical verification; it is valid in all possible worlds where action occurs. It is a category of the mind, a necessary precondition for understanding human behavior.
This is not relativism. Nor is it ideology. You do not test “2 + 2 = 4” in a laboratory. Likewise, you do not need psychological experiments to prove that man acts to relieve felt uneasiness according to his own preferences. Both are non-empirical, a priori truths.
But collectivists insist: “We observe altruism, love, or collectivist behavior—so praxeology must be mistaken!”
Such objections misunderstand the nature of action. Praxeology does not deny that people act in ways that benefit others. It simply explains that even those acts are chosen by the actor because they reflect his own value scale. Every action—no matter how selfless it appears—is an expression of what the actor, in that moment, values most.
All human action is necessarily “selfish” in the praxeological sense—because it stems from an individual’s own choice to relieve uneasiness. The notion of “unselfish action” collapses under scrutiny. Every choice is made because it satisfies the actor more than the forsaken alternatives. The term “selfish,” then, becomes tautological: all action is self-originated and aimed at securing a more desirable state from the actor’s own point of view.
Without the selfish ego—the acting, choosing, valuing individual—there is no foundation for any conceptual framework. All categories such as love, justice, sacrifice, or even society itself presuppose a self-conscious being capable of assigning value, making judgments, and acting upon them.
Every higher-order concept—duty, compassion, loyalty, even logic—rests on the presence of an “I” that chooses them. If there were no ego to prefer, to feel uneasiness, to seek improvement, there would be no reason, no morality, no language, no value, no life.
Consider the idea of “unconditional love.” It presupposes an acting individual—a subject who feels, chooses, and values. There is no love without an “I” who loves and a “thou” who is loved. To claim that love is “unconditional” is to obscure the nature of choice. One must first conceive of the object of love, weigh alternatives, and then choose to sustain that commitment. This cannot occur in a vacuum—it arises from an individual value hierarchy.
When someone says, “I love unconditionally,” he is expressing a value judgment. He loves because doing so brings satisfaction—perhaps emotional peace, spiritual fulfillment, or fidelity to an ideal. But the act of loving is still a choice, taken because it best relieves uneasiness or fulfills a personal aim.
Altruism, too, is not the negation of self. It is a self-chosen preference to satisfy another’s need, only because that outcome is more valuable to the actor than any alternative. Even the soldier on the battlefield, or the mother forgoing comfort for her child, acts in accordance with what they deem most important—be it honor, love, duty, or faith. It is always what is most valuable to the actor. It is always an egoistic act.
At this point, the collectivist mind begins to cry. Indeed, their tears flow not from refutation, but from confrontation with a truth they cannot escape: that even their exalted notions of “love” and “altruism” are grounded in self-originated valuation. They cry because the myth collapses. They weep because the mask of self-denial is torn away to reveal the sovereign ego behind every gesture of care or sacrifice.
It is not cruelty to expose this; it is clarity. It is the task of praxeology to remove the fog of sentimentality and show that no action exists apart from choice, and no choice apart from the chooser. What they call “unconditional” and “altruistic” is merely a condition they value above all others.
And this is when the collectivist hand begins to reach for a gun—ironically, a gun born of selfish desire conceived in liberty—not to grieve, but to silence. When truth cannot be denied by logic, it is met with force and ideology.
Therefore, anything that denies the primacy of the individual as the sole source of action is inherently evil—it is not only destructive to individual life and economic coordination, but to liberty, dignity, and civilization itself. The attempt to build ethics, politics, or economics without the ego is metaphysical nonsense. The self-oriented ego is not a moral failing; it is the very condition for meaning, choice, and for life itself. Destroy the self and you destroy the very space in which truth, love, or altruism could even be thought.
The collectivist seeks to replace the acting man with the abstraction of a collective will. But such a will does not exist; it cannot choose; it cannot value. It is always a mask—worn by the tyrant, the planner, the bureaucrat—who supplants the individual and extinguishes the only genuine source of progress: the spontaneous actions of free men.
All collectivist doctrines—whether socialist, fascist, nationalist, or theocratic—demand the subjugation of the individual to a fictitious whole. They are not only morally repugnant; they are irrational. For they seek to annihilate the very mechanism of life: human action itself. So when we say that anything other than liberty—anarchy in a proper sense—is anti-human, we are not making an ideological claim, nor engaging in partisan rhetoric. We are stating a logical truth—one rooted in the nature of man as an acting being.
Liberty is not a “value” in the relativist sense. It is a necessary condition for human action. Only a free individual can choose, prefer, and act. Without liberty, there is no actor—only obedience and decay.
A system that denies liberty—by decree, coercion, and collectivist abstraction—seeks to extinguish the only agency through which human life is sustained: the individual choosing mind. To abolish liberty is to abolish action. To abolish action is to abolish life.
mises.org
Roman Kireev
07/18/2025
Human beings act. That is: they engage in purposeful behavior aimed at transforming their conditions into a state they prefer more. This fundamental axiom is apodictically certain. To deny it is to affirm it—for even the act of denial is itself an action: a purposeful attempt to assert a position. Thus, the truth of human action is not contingent on empirical verification; it is valid in all possible worlds where action occurs. It is a category of the mind, a necessary precondition for understanding human behavior.
This is not relativism. Nor is it ideology. You do not test “2 + 2 = 4” in a laboratory. Likewise, you do not need psychological experiments to prove that man acts to relieve felt uneasiness according to his own preferences. Both are non-empirical, a priori truths.
But collectivists insist: “We observe altruism, love, or collectivist behavior—so praxeology must be mistaken!”
Such objections misunderstand the nature of action. Praxeology does not deny that people act in ways that benefit others. It simply explains that even those acts are chosen by the actor because they reflect his own value scale. Every action—no matter how selfless it appears—is an expression of what the actor, in that moment, values most.
All human action is necessarily “selfish” in the praxeological sense—because it stems from an individual’s own choice to relieve uneasiness. The notion of “unselfish action” collapses under scrutiny. Every choice is made because it satisfies the actor more than the forsaken alternatives. The term “selfish,” then, becomes tautological: all action is self-originated and aimed at securing a more desirable state from the actor’s own point of view.
Without the selfish ego—the acting, choosing, valuing individual—there is no foundation for any conceptual framework. All categories such as love, justice, sacrifice, or even society itself presuppose a self-conscious being capable of assigning value, making judgments, and acting upon them.
Every higher-order concept—duty, compassion, loyalty, even logic—rests on the presence of an “I” that chooses them. If there were no ego to prefer, to feel uneasiness, to seek improvement, there would be no reason, no morality, no language, no value, no life.
Consider the idea of “unconditional love.” It presupposes an acting individual—a subject who feels, chooses, and values. There is no love without an “I” who loves and a “thou” who is loved. To claim that love is “unconditional” is to obscure the nature of choice. One must first conceive of the object of love, weigh alternatives, and then choose to sustain that commitment. This cannot occur in a vacuum—it arises from an individual value hierarchy.
When someone says, “I love unconditionally,” he is expressing a value judgment. He loves because doing so brings satisfaction—perhaps emotional peace, spiritual fulfillment, or fidelity to an ideal. But the act of loving is still a choice, taken because it best relieves uneasiness or fulfills a personal aim.
Altruism, too, is not the negation of self. It is a self-chosen preference to satisfy another’s need, only because that outcome is more valuable to the actor than any alternative. Even the soldier on the battlefield, or the mother forgoing comfort for her child, acts in accordance with what they deem most important—be it honor, love, duty, or faith. It is always what is most valuable to the actor. It is always an egoistic act.
At this point, the collectivist mind begins to cry. Indeed, their tears flow not from refutation, but from confrontation with a truth they cannot escape: that even their exalted notions of “love” and “altruism” are grounded in self-originated valuation. They cry because the myth collapses. They weep because the mask of self-denial is torn away to reveal the sovereign ego behind every gesture of care or sacrifice.
It is not cruelty to expose this; it is clarity. It is the task of praxeology to remove the fog of sentimentality and show that no action exists apart from choice, and no choice apart from the chooser. What they call “unconditional” and “altruistic” is merely a condition they value above all others.
And this is when the collectivist hand begins to reach for a gun—ironically, a gun born of selfish desire conceived in liberty—not to grieve, but to silence. When truth cannot be denied by logic, it is met with force and ideology.
Therefore, anything that denies the primacy of the individual as the sole source of action is inherently evil—it is not only destructive to individual life and economic coordination, but to liberty, dignity, and civilization itself. The attempt to build ethics, politics, or economics without the ego is metaphysical nonsense. The self-oriented ego is not a moral failing; it is the very condition for meaning, choice, and for life itself. Destroy the self and you destroy the very space in which truth, love, or altruism could even be thought.
The collectivist seeks to replace the acting man with the abstraction of a collective will. But such a will does not exist; it cannot choose; it cannot value. It is always a mask—worn by the tyrant, the planner, the bureaucrat—who supplants the individual and extinguishes the only genuine source of progress: the spontaneous actions of free men.
All collectivist doctrines—whether socialist, fascist, nationalist, or theocratic—demand the subjugation of the individual to a fictitious whole. They are not only morally repugnant; they are irrational. For they seek to annihilate the very mechanism of life: human action itself. So when we say that anything other than liberty—anarchy in a proper sense—is anti-human, we are not making an ideological claim, nor engaging in partisan rhetoric. We are stating a logical truth—one rooted in the nature of man as an acting being.
Liberty is not a “value” in the relativist sense. It is a necessary condition for human action. Only a free individual can choose, prefer, and act. Without liberty, there is no actor—only obedience and decay.
A system that denies liberty—by decree, coercion, and collectivist abstraction—seeks to extinguish the only agency through which human life is sustained: the individual choosing mind. To abolish liberty is to abolish action. To abolish action is to abolish life.
The Axiom of Action and the Inescapability of Liberty | Mises Institute
Socialists despise individual liberty because they believe that allowing humans to make free choices supposedly leads to selfish and anti-social behavior.
