1. Four years after the demise of the Habsburg Empire, Mises (1922) found a replacement: "The wars waged by England during the era of Liberalism to extend her colonial empire and to open up territories which refused to admit foreign trade, laid the foundations of the modern economy ... In judging the English policy for opening up China, people constantly put in the foreground the fact that it was the opium trade which gave the direct, immediate occasion for the outbreak of war complications. But in the wars which the English and French waged against China between 1839 and 1860 the stake was the general freedom of trade and not only the freedom of the opium trade ... It was not cant for English free traders to speak of England’s vocation to elevate backward people to a state of civilisation. England has shown by acts that she has regarded her possessions in India, in the Crown colonies, and in the Protectorates as a general mandatory of European civilisation." According to Mises, opium addicts were expressing consumer sovereignty.
2. "Mises was an early critic of National Socialism in the German-speaking world. In two articles, “Socialism Liberalism” (1925) and “Anti-Marxism” (1926), he already saw the forces at work in Germany that would bring Hitler to power in 1933."
“Socialism Liberalism” (1925) does not exist. If Dick is referring to "Social Liberalism" this is a standard diatribe about the School of Economics that Menger deferred to until Austria was excluded from the Second Reich.
3. According to Mises ("Anti-Marxism" 1926) "The most eminent literary spokesmen for national socialism are Oswald Spengler and Othmar Spann."
Spann was the Austrian School economist who introduced Hayek to Menger.
4. There is continuity between "Anti-Marxism" (1926) - in which Mises competed for market share: "A great deal of intellectual work remains to be done" - and *Liberalism in the Classical Tradition* (1927): if Fascism “wanted really to combat socialism it would oppose it with ideas... There is however only one idea that can be effectively opposed to socialism, viz, liberalism".
5. "Mises rejected all connection with the Nazi regime. In 1938, after the German annexation of his Austrian homeland by National Socialist Germany, he attended in Paris the international colloquium devoted to a discussion of Walter Lippmann’s 1937 book, 'The Good Society'.”
When did Mises flip-flop on Anschluss?
----- Original Message -----
From: "richard ebeling" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, 22 May, 2014 12:07:29 PM
Subject: Re: [SHOE] can we please get back to business
I believe that Per Bylund has sufficiently explained and interpreted Ludwig
von Mises’ text on fascism from his 1927 book on, “Liberalism.”
However, Julian Wells has asked, “What did Mises (or, if you will, von
Mises) have to say in 1941 and after” on fascism and Nazism.
To begin with, Mises was an early critic of National Socialism in the
German-speaking world. In two articles, “Socialism Liberalism” (1925) and
“Anti-Marxism” (1926), he already saw the forces at work in Germany that
would bring Hitler to power in 1933. (Both essays appear in his, “Critique
of Interventionism” [1929].)
Mises argued that the rising force in opposition to Marxian socialism in
Germany was “national socialism.” In post-World War I Germany and Austria a
“movement has been steadily gaining significance in politics and the social
sciences that can best be described as Anti-Marxism,” he said. But “they
are not attacking socialism, but Marxism, which they reproach for not being
the right kind of socialism, for not being the one that is true and
desirable.”
Mises went on to explain that the great conflict in Germany was between the
Marxian socialists who advocated class warfare and proletarian revolution
and those national socialists who advocated national unity and war against
foreign enemies. The national socialists insisted that “proletarian
interests” has to be submerged in the wider interests of the “fatherland.”
The strong state would also control and repress the profit motive for the
wider national good.
Mises warned that, in this conflict and confusion, a growing number of
Germans were “setting their hopes on the coming of the ‘strong man’ – the
tyrant who will think for them and care for them.”
Anyone who knows any thing about Mises’ defense of individual freedom,
private property, democracy, peaceful market competition, and Rule of Law
will appreciate that such a trend in Germany was opposite of everything
that Mises considered the foundation of a free, good, and prosperous
society.
Mises also stated that these national socialists were also determined to
unite all the German-speaking people in Europe under one German state, as
well as to expand the territory of such a united German state to the point
necessary to assure “living-space” and resources for the German standard of
living to be equal to and greater than the other major nations of the
world. To achieve these ends these “national socialists” were willing to
use force and risk a new world war.
Again, anyone familiar with Mises’ writings knows that he opposed war. He
believed that free enterprise and free trade were the avenues for
prosperity for all nations, and that war led only to destruction and
dissolving of the international division of labor upon which the well-being
of all are dependent. Mises also believed that boundary disputes should be
solved by peaceful self-determination in towns, cities, regions, and
provinces through plebiscite by the individual residents themselves; not
conquest or war.
In addition, Mises anticipated the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact to divide up
Eastern Europe, a pact that resulted in the mutual annexations of parts of
Poland and the beginning of the Second World War.
Said Mises in his essay on “Anti-Marxism”:
“If Germany, a nation surrounded by other nations in the heart of Europe,
were to assault in accordance with this principle [of violent unification
of the German people and conquest of “living space”], it would invite a
coalition of all its neighbors into a world-political constellation:
enemies all around. In such a situation Germany could find only one ally:
Russia, which is facing hostility by Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, and
possibly Czechs, but nowhere stands in direct conflict with German
interests. Since Bolshevist Russia, like Czarist Russia, only knows force
in dealing with other nations, it is already seeking the friendship of
German nationalism. German Anti-Marxism and Russian Super-Marxism are not
too far apart.”
What was Mises’ view in, say, 1941, as Julian Wells asked? I have edited a
volume of Mises’ writings from the early 1940s, after he arrived in America
from war-torn Europe in the summer of 1940. See, Richard M. Ebeling, ed.,
“Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises” vol. 3: ‘The Political Economy of
International Postwar Reconstruction’ (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000).
In a lecture delivered the Yale Economic Club at New Haven, Ct. on May 22,
1941 (before Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, and when Great Britain
virtually stood alone against the Nazi war machine):
“We are witness to the most frightful and phenomenal occurrence in human
history: the decay of Western Civilization. London, one of the centers of
this civilization, the city of the most eminent representatives of this
culture, is almost completely destroyed. The buildings of the Parliament of
Westminster are in ruins; the House of Commons holds its assemblies in the
catacombs. Every day brings us news of some eminent contemporary has been
killed in his home by enemy action. One of the most distinguished
economists of our day, Lord [Josiah] Stamp, met with this fate. The theater
of war is spreading, and the day seems not distant when peace will have
lost its last refuge. It is a moral and material collapse without
precedent. The horsemen of the apocalypse are riding roughshod.”
Seventy years ago this month, in May 1944, Ludwig von Mises published,
“Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War” (Yale
University Press). The main theme of the book is to explain how nationalist
and socialist ideas laid the intellectual and ideological foundations in
Germany in the decades before the First World War that led Germany down the
path of starting two World Wars. He also has a lengthy chapter on the
crudity and destructiveness of anti-Semitism both in Germany and many other
parts of the world.
He considered the Nazi system to be even more ruthless and comprehensive in
its collectivism and planning than even the Soviets. As he explained in his
1947 volume, “Planned Chaos”:
“The Nazi plan was more comprehensive and therefore more pernicious than
that of the Marxians. It aimed at abolishing laissez faire not only the
production of material goods, but no less in the production of men. The
Fuhrer was not only the general manager of all industries; he was also the
general manager of the breeding-farm intent upon rearing superior men and
eliminating inferior stock.”
Furthermore, Mises said:
“There were nowhere more docile disciples of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin than
the Nazis . . . They imported from Russia: the one party system and the
preeminence of the party in political life; the paramount position assigned
to the secret police; the concentration camps; the administrative execution
or imprisonment of all opponents; the extermination of the families of
suspects and of exiles; the method of propaganda.”
Mises rejected all connection with the Nazi regime. In 1938, after the
German annexation of his Austrian homeland by National Socialist Germany,
he attended in Paris the international colloquium devoted to a discussion
of Walter Lippmann’s 1937 book, “The Good Society.”
In the transcript of the proceedings, there is a page listing the attendees
and their national affiliation. Ludwig von Mises and Wilhelm Roepke (who
had left Germany shortly after Hitler’s rise to power) both listed their
national affiliation as the “Austrian School.” They wished to have no
identification with the “new Germany” they both opposed. They preferred to
be identified with a “school of economic thought.” Their allegiance, if you
will, was to a set of ideas, not a repulsive nation-state.
The Nazis plundered Mises’ Vienna apartment shortly after the German
invasion in March 1938. The Gestapo boxed up and carted away his papers,
manuscripts, articles, policy papers for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce,
his correspondence, the documents relating to his service in the Austrian
Army during the First World War, and his family papers and materials.
After the war these papers ended up in a secret KGB archive in Moscow,
captured by the Red Army in the last days of the war in May 1945, along
with numerous other collections of papers and documents the Nazis had
looted in the countries they had occupied.
These recovered “lost papers” of Ludwig von Mises are the basis of volume
one and two of the “Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises,” for which I
also served as the editor: Volume I: ‘Monetary and Economic Policy Problems
Before, During, and After the Great War’ (Liberty Fund, 2012) and Volume
II: ‘Between the Two World Wars: Monetary Disorder, Interventionism,
Socialism, and the Great Depression’ (Liberty Fund, 2003).
On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 6:08 PM, J Kevin Quinn <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I find the list in general these days a bit soporific - especially
> compared to those halcyon days of yore, when debate, often intemperate but
> frequently productive and interesting, went on for days. But I always enjoy
> the contributions of Robert, Alan and Pete, so I am not disturbed by this
> little dust-up. I will say to Alan - I think it was Alan - that it's a
> little rich to invoke Godwin's law when the debate is precisely about the
> extent of Mises' cozying up to fascism!
>
> Kevin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Bylund, Per L.
> Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 8:35 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [SHOE] can we please get back to business
>
> Just to set the record straight, let's look at what Mises actually writes
> about fascism in Liberalism (1927, pp. 25-30). It actually sorts things out
> and makes any claims of fascism advocacy fall flat.
>
> With the title The Idea of Fascism, this relevant section is quite clearly
> written about the threat and demise of classical liberalism as we entered
> the 20th century. It is formulated as a comparison between the two great
> threats (communism/bolshevism and fascism) to (and from the point of view
> of) 19th century classical liberalism, and what role fascism played in the
> age of anti-liberalism. Mises writes (p.27):
>
> "The fundamental idea of these movements [militarists and nationalists,
> enemies of liberalism] - which, from the name of the most grandiose and
> tightly disciplined among them, the Italian, may, in general, be designated
> as Fascist - consists in the proposal to make the use of the same
> unscrupulous methods in the struggle against the Third International as the
> latter employs against its opponents. The Third International seeks to
> exterminate its adversaries and their ideas in the same way that the
> hygienist strives to exterminate a pestilential bacillus ... The Fascists,
> at least in principle, profess the same intentions."
>
> Then there is the key section about Fascism, in the face of the Bolshevik
> threat, as the "lesser evil" (pp. 27-28):
>
> "That they [the Fascists] have not yet succeeded as fully as the Russian
> Bolsheviks in freeing themselves from a certain regard for liberal notions
> and ideas and traditional ethical precepts is to be attributed solely to
> the fact that the Fascists carry on their work among nations in which the
> intellectual and moral heritage of some thousands of years of civilization
> cannot be destroyed at one blow, and not among the barbarian peoples on
> both sides of the Urals, whose relationship to civilization has never been
> any other than that of marauding denizens of forest and desert accustomed
> to engage, from time to time, in predatory raids on civilized lands in the
> hunt for booty. Because of this difference, Fascism will never succeed as
> completely as Russian Bolshevism in freeing itself from the power of
> liberal ideas. Only under the fresh impression of the murders and
> atrocities perpetuated by the supporters of the Soviets were the Germans
> and Italians able to block out the remembrance of the traditional
> restraints of justice and morality and find the impulse to bloody
> counteraction. The deeds of the Fascists and of other parties corresponding
> to them were emotional reflex actions evoked by indignation at the deeds of
> the Bolsheviks and Communists. As soon as the first flush of anger had
> passed, their [the fascists'] policy took a more moderate course and will
> probably become even more so with the passage of time."
>
> I grant that the wording is not what we would expect from a 21st century
> point of view (it is perhaps even offensive), and Mises's prediction (that
> fascism would become more moderate) quite obviously turned out inaccurate.
> But I don't see why failure to predict the future atrocities of nazism is a
> fault that makes one a fascist. It is not difficult to understand that
> Mises believed, in 1927, that communism was the bigger threat to classical
> liberalism.
>
> Mises continues (p. 27):
>
> "This moderation is the result of the fact that traditional liberal views
> still continue to have an unconscious influence on the Fascists."
>
> Considering the above quoted paragraph (and this last sentence is the
> first sentence following it), this refers to how the classical liberal view
> is ingrained in the non-Slavic European cultures and therefore has
> mitigated the terror of fascism. (Also an erroneous prediction, I admit.)
>
> Then Mises continues to discuss the "battle against liberalism" by
> communists and fascists that has had "unthinkable" successes. He further
> notes how many people "approve of the methods of Fascism" even though "the
> program is altogether antiliberal and its policy completely
> interventionist." (Obviously a surprise to Mises.)
>
> It is easy to see that this is not an advocacy of fascism. Mises's point
> is that an effect of fascism was to ultimately "stop" (limit, counteract)
> the spread of Bolshevism, and that, comparing the two, fascism is - at
> least it so appeared in 1927 (many years prior to Hitler's rule, and only a
> couple of years after his imprisonment for attempted coup) - better for the
> reasons mentioned above (the liberal heritage).
>
> Interestingly, the very next section (if one endeavors reading that far),
> The Limits of Governmental Activity, beings:
>
> "As the liberal sees it, the task of the state consists solely and
> exclusively in guaranteeing the protection of life, health, liberty, and
> private property against violent attacks. Everything that goes beyond this
> is an evil. A government that, instead of fulfilling its task, sought to go
> so far as actually to infringe on personal security of life and health,
> freedom, and property would, of course, be altogether bad."
>
> But perhaps Mr. Leeson is suggesting that Mises in fact was in fact an
> antiliberal and interventionist? Such a claim seems preposterous to me (but
> that's probably because I have read the book).
>
>
> PLB
>
> _____________________
> Per L. Bylund, Ph.D.
> Baylor University
>
> [log in to unmask]
> www.PerBylund.com
> (573) 268-3235
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Robert Leeson
> Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 6:06 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [SHOE] can we please get back to business
>
> 1. Mises was a paid lobbyist for the "back to business" sector.
>
> 2. In the interests of Myrdal transparency, shouldn't Pete explain his
> relationship to a card-carrying Austro-Fascist (member 282632) and Fascist
> social club member (406183)?
>
> 3. How does Pete feel about von Hayek's (1978) proposed fate for the
> Constitution of the United States: "I think the phrase ought to read,
> 'Congress should make no law authorizing government to take any
> discriminatory measures of coercion.' I think this would make all the other
> rights unnecessary and create the sort of conditions which I want to see."
>
> 4. Those who are summoned to service by aristocratic bells employ
> idiosyncratic academic standards: does Pete think that the person who
> relayed an alleged threat from The von Hayek Family to the HOPE editors if
> they published Melvin Reder's (2000) less-than-comprehensive account of
> Hayek's anti-Semitism is guilty of "malpractice"?
>
> 5. Does Pete think that the Austrian who recently threatened a publisher
> with consequences if they published material adverse to his fund-raising is
> guilty of "malpractice"?
>
> 6. The British government posthumously pardoned Turing (who was persecuted
> for his homosexuality): why hasn't Pete defended Bartley from Sudha
> Shenoy's public stoning?
>
> 7. What kind of "penalties" does Pete have in mind for the SHOE list
> moderator and other "violators": that which Mises imposed on Haberler and
> Machlup for proposing the use of the foreign exchange price mechanism? Or
> that which Miseans imposed on Friedman? Or von Hayek's (1992, 223)
> "justice" - "shooting in cold blood".
>
> Hayek, F.A. 1992. *The Fortunes of Liberalism Essays on Austrian Economics
> and the Ideal of Freedom The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek Volume 4*
> Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Peter Klein.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter J Boettke" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 May, 2014 9:14:53 PM
> Subject: [SHOE] can we please get back to business
>
>
> Where is the editor of SHOE list?
> ?
> We get almost daily rants parading as historical scholarship in this
> thread on Hayek, and people want to know why the subdiscipline of history
> of economic thought is in trouble.
>
> This list-serve is one of the main vehicles for the exchange of
> information about new ideas in our field and new opportunities for mutually
> beneficial intellectual exchange.
>
> Yet we are subjected to "intellectual pollution" instead.
>
> If we have learned anything from the work of the great Lin Ostrom on the
> managing of the "commons" it is this, we should expect such "intellectual
> pollution" unless the rules are set up such that (a) limit access, (b)
> assign responsibility, and (c) introduce graduated penalties for violators
> of the rules.
>
> I personally would consider the posts that have gone on concerning Hayek
> to border on intellectual malpractice for a historian of ideas. That is
> not because I disagree with their thrust (which I admittedly do) but
> because of the way they have been presented and asserted.
>
> One of the great benefits of the _scholarly_ community of HES has always
> been the presumption toward the principle of charitable interpretation.
> This enables folks from wildly different intellectual (and ideological)
> perspectives to have serious conversations -- rather than rant sessions.
> One check is to ask yourself if you could pass an ideological Turing Test,
> another is a more common sense approach which is don't say anything about
> someone's ideas unless you could be comfortable saying that in from of them.
>
> This a reason that scholars don't just blurt out whatever thoughts come
> into their head at any moment in time. Scholarship isn't (and definitely
> shouldn't be) about stream of consciousness emoting with a keyboard.
>
> Yet this is ALL we are getting in this thread of wild speculation, wild
> charges, and unbelievable leaps of logic which have the same result on the
> pursuit of truth as asking someone "so when do you stop beating your wife,
> sir?"
>
> Can we PLEASE return to the real business of SHOE rather than this?
>
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