Pharisaic self-righteousness
June 3rd, 2009 by 
bkmarcus
Here’s an update to my previous post on the denotation and connotation of the word
I had read this passage of Mises before (from Human Action, chapter 15: “The Market”), but had somehow failed to notice the irony of an Austrian Jew using this particular term in this particular way:
It is quite common nowadays to deprecate the capitalists and entrepreneurs. A man is prone to sneer at those who are more prosperous than himself. These people, he contends, are richer only because they are less scrupulous than he. If he were not restrained by due consideration for the laws of morality and decency, he would be no less successful than they are. Thus men glory in the aureole of self-complacency and Pharisaic self-righteousness.
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