Socialism. Людвиг фон Мизес
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men is always the result of a consumers’ plebiscite, and, once acquired, this wealth can be retained only if it is employed in the way regarded by consumers as most beneficial to them. The average man is both better informed and less corruptible in the decisions he makes as a consumer than as a voter at political elections. There are said to be voters who, faced with a decision between Free Trade and Protection, the Gold Standard and Inflation, are unable to keep in view all that their decision implies. The buyer who has to choose between different sorts of beer or makes of chocolate has certainly an easier job of it.
The socialist movement takes great pains to circulate frequently new labels for its ideally constructed state. Each worn-out label is replaced by another which raises hopes of an ultimate solution of the insoluble basic problem of Socialism—until it becomes obvious that nothing has been changed but the name. The most recent slogan is “State Capitalism.” It is not commonly realized that this covers nothing more than what used to be called Planned Economy and State Socialism, and that State Capitalism, Planned Economy,
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and State Socialism diverge only in non-essentials from the “classic” ideal of egalitarian Socialism. The criticisms in this book are aimed impartially at all the conceivable forms of the socialistic community.
Only Syndicalism, which differs fundamentally from Socialism, calls for special treatment (Chapter 16, Section 4).
I hope that these remarks will convince even the cursory and superficial reader that my investigation and criticisms do not apply solely to Marxian Socialism. As, however, all socialistic movements have been strongly stimulated by Marxism I devote more space to Marxian views than to those of other varieties of Socialism. I think I have passed in review everything bearing essentially on these problems and made an exhausting criticism of the characteristic features of non-Marxist programmes too.
My book is a scientific inquiry, not a political polemic. I have analysed the basic problems and passed over, as far as possible, all the economic and political struggles of the day and the political adjustments of governments and parties. And this will, I believe, prove the best way of preparing the foundation of an understanding of the politics of the last few decades and years: above all, of the politics of tomorrow. Only a complete critical study of the ideas of Socialism will enable us to understand what is happening around us.
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The habit of talking and writing about economic affairs without having probed relentlessly to the bottom of their problems has taken the zest out of public discussions on questions vital to human society and diverted politics into paths that lead directly to the destruction of all civilization. The proscription of economic theory, which began with the German historical school, and today finds expression notably in American Institutionalism, has demolished the authority of qualified thought on these matters. Our contemporaries consider that anything which comes under the heading of Economics and Sociology is fair game to the unqualified critic. It is assumed that the trade union official and the entrepreneur are qualified by virtue of their office alone to decide questions of political economy. “Practical men” of this order, even those whose activities have, notoriously, often led to failure and bankruptcy, enjoy a spurious prestige as economists which should at all costs be destroyed. On no account must a disposition to avoid sharp words be permitted to lead to a compromise. It is time these amateurs were unmasked.
The solution of every one of the many economic questions of the day requires a process of thought, of which only those who comprehend the general interconnection of economic phenomena are capable. Only theoretical inquiries which get to the bottom of things have any real practical value. Dissertations on current questions which lose themselves in detail are useless,
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for they are too much absorbed in the particular and the accidental to have eyes for the general and the essential.
It is often said that all scientific inquiry concerning Socialism is useless, because none but the comparatively small number of people who are able to follow scientific trains of thought can understand it. For the masses, it is said, they will always remain incomprehensible. To the masses the catchwords of Socialism sound enticing and the people impetuously desire Socialism because in their infatuation they expect it to bring full salvation and satisfy their longing for revenge. And so they will continue to work for Socialism, helping thereby to bring about the inevitable decline of the civilization which the nations of the West have taken thousands of years to build up. And so we must inevitably drift on to chaos and misery, the darkness of barbarism and annihilation.
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I do not share this gloomy view. It may happen thus, but it need not happen thus. It is true that the majority of mankind are not able to follow difficult trains of thought, and that no schooling will help those who can hardly grasp the most simple proposition to understand complicated ones. But just because they cannot think for themselves the masses follow the lead of the people we call educated. Once convince these, and the game is won. But I do not want to repeat here what I have already said in the first edition of this book, at the end of the last chapter.3
I know only too well how hopeless it seems to convince impassioned supporters of the Socialist Idea by logical demonstration that their views are preposterous and absurd. I know too well that they do not want to hear, to see, or above all to think, and that they are open to no argument. But new generations grow up with clear eyes and open minds. And they will approach things from a disinterested, unprejudiced standpoint, they will weigh and examine, will think and act with forethought. It is for them that this book is written.
Several generations of economic policy which was nearly liberal have enormously increased the wealth of the world. Capitalism has raised the standard of life among the masses to a level which our ancestors could not have imagined. Interventionism and efforts to introduce Socialism have been working now for some decades to shatter the foundations of the world economic system. We stand on the brink of a precipice which threatens to engulf our civilization. Whether civilized humanity will perish forever or whether the catastrophe will be averted at the eleventh hour and the only possible way of salvation retraced—by which we mean the rebuilding of a
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society based on the unreserved recognition of private property in the means of production—is a question which concerns the generation destined to act in the coming decades, for it is the ideas behind their actions that will decide it.
Vienna, January 1932
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The Success of Socialist Ideas
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Socialism is the watchword and the catchword of our day. The socialist idea dominates the modern spirit. The masses approve of it. It expresses the thoughts and feelings of all; it has set its seal upon our time. When history comes to tell our story it will write above the chapter “The Epoch of Socialism.”
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As yet, it is true, Socialism has not created a society which can be said to represent its ideal. But for more than a generation the policies of civilized nations have been directed towards nothing less than a gradual realization of Socialism.1 In recent years the movement has grown noticeably in vigour and tenacity. Some nations have sought to achieve Socialism, in its fullest sense, at a single stroke. Before our eyes Russian Bolshevism has already accomplished something which, whatever we believe to be its significance, must by the very magnitude of its design be regarded as one of the most remarkable achievements known to world history. Elsewhere no one has yet achieved so much. But with other peoples only the inner contradictions of Socialism itself and the fact that it cannot be completely realized have frustrated socialist