Without property we are utterly vulnerable and without agency, standing naked on a patch of earth. The first calorie, the first drop of water, the first stitch of clothing all represent property. What we create or produce from nature represents our will and actions made manifest in physical (or digital) form. Property, not vague ideals of personal liberties or individual rights, sets the stage for all human activity.

Without freedom, by which Mises meant independence from the arbitrary state power, we lose mastery over our lives and labors. For Mises, freedom is not some inchoate aspiration or muddled set of conditions to "live your best life." It is not liberation from worldly wants, from unhappiness, or from social opprobrium. It is the ability to live and direct one's life largely free of state coercion, nothing more and certainly nothing less. Misesean liberalism recognizes involuntary servitude as a tremendous evil, but it also necessarily recognizes partial servitude to a rapacious government as contrary to our nature.

Without peace, man loses his ability to enjoy property or exercise freedom. War symbolizes the refusal of men to deal with one another cooperatively and the descent into an animalistic state of nature. "War, carnage, destruction, and devastation we have in common with the predatory beasts of the jungle; constructive labor is our distinctively human characteristic"

- Jeff Deist