Mises’s uncompromising nature was legendary. At the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, when the topic of progressive income taxes was discussed, Mises famously stood up and declared to the assembled economists, “You’re all a bunch of socialists,” because some were open to the idea of progressive taxation. His bluntness sometimes led to personal rifts, such as when he refused to speak to his former student Fritz Machlup for three years after Machlup questioned the gold standard at a meeting.