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?