Remembering Ludwig von Mises
Today, we honor the memory of the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, who was born on this date in 1881. Mises championed free market economics at a time when socialist delusions ran rampant. For this, we remember him.
Born in what was then Austria-Hungary to Jewish parents, Mises would receive his formal education at the University of Vienna. Mises worked as a professor there from 1913 to 1938.
In 1940, facing the threat of Nazism, Mises fled to the United States. There, he found work at New York University, where he taught until his retirement in 1969.
Mises' magnum opus, “Human Action,” was published in 1949. In the sprawling treatise, Mises argued for centering individual decision-making and choice at the start of economic analysis.
A free market system, according to Mises, is the only means by which human beings can meaningfully and actually cooperate with each other on a grand scale. Socialist fantasies of central planning cannot do.
“A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society,” Mises wrote in “Human Action.”
He continued, “Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.”
Mises' hostility to socialism was the stuff of legend.
The great economist Milton Friedman recounted the gatherings of the free market Mont Pelerin Society, founded in 1947, which drew both Friedman and Mises, as well as fellow Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek.
During a discussion of whether progressive income taxes were justified, Mises reportedly stood up, declared “You're all a bunch of socialists” and stormed out of the meeting.
Mises had little patience for advocates of the welfare state.
In the epilogue to his book, “Socialism,” Mises took aim at intellectuals who promoted socialism.
“The intellectual leaders of the peoples have produced and propagated the fallacies which are on the point of destroying liberty and Western civilization,” he wrote. “The intellectuals alone are responsible for the mass slaughters which are the characteristic mark of our century. They alone can reverse the trend and pave the way for a resurrection of freedom.”
He characterized supporters of socialism thusly: “They ascribe their own failures and frustrations to the unfairness of this `mad' competitive system and expect that socialism will assign them that eminent position and high income which by right are due to them. They are Cinderellas yearning for the princesaviour who will recognize their merits and virtues. The loathing of capitalism and the worship of communism are consolations for them.”
No truer words have ever been written about the psychology of those who champion socialism.
Fighting back against socialism is necessary, Mises argued, and not that hard.
“What is needed to stop the trend towards socialism and despotism is common sense and moral courage,” he concluded.
Amen to that.