In celebration of our national heritage, we continue our Pride in America series by honoring Ludwig Von Mises.
“Every socialist is a disguised dictator,” warned economist Ludwig von Mises. He understood the risks well, as he was forced to flee the Nazi occupation of Europe and immigrate to the United States in 1940.
A gifted child, Mises spoke German, Polish, and French, and understood Ukrainian by the age of 12. He received a rigorous classical education and studied law at the University of Vienna. Although not the founder of Austrian Economics (that title belongs to Carl Menger), Mises popularized the ideas in America and became the Austrian School’s leading spokesman of the 20th Century.
In “Human Action: A Treatise on Economics,” Mises traced the three requirements for human action: 1) unease or dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, 2) a vision of a better state, and 3) a belief that one can reach the better state. “What a man does is always aimed at an improvement of his own state of satisfaction,” he wrote.
Mises was a staunch defender of capitalism and private property, which he considered “inextricably linked with civilization.” “Under capitalism,” he wrote, “the common man enjoys amenities which in ages gone by were unknown and therefore inaccessible even to the richest people.”
Mises saw socialism as the great evil that would bring about the “disintegration of society,” comparing it to drinking “a solution of potassium cyanide.” He had no tolerance for those who advocated socialism, saying, “The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent.”
Though much of his work focused on the dangers of socialism, Mises also warned against statism more broadly, writing, “There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.” An astute scholar of history, he observed that “the state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”
Today, the legacy of Mises lives on through the Mises Institute, founded after his death by Lew Rockwell and Burton Blumert, with the support of Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, and Ron Paul.
As an economist, lecturer, professor, and author, Mises was a serious man with a keen understanding of human motivation and the evils of socialism. In describing Mises, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote, “Adverse to all shilly-shallying, he did not strive for popularity, but for truth.”
In both his life and his writings, Mises displayed a brilliance and prescience that continues to guide those who believe in free markets and free people. “Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.”
