The
Rational Argumentator
The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality by Ludwig von Mises: A Review
The practice of laissez-faire
capitalism has brought unprecedented prosperity to the West, whose abundance of
cars and clothes, tools and telophones, science and sliced bread, have made it
both the envy, and the model, of the world.
Why, then, do many people loathe it?
In The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, Ludwig von Mises considers
the character and causes of the commonest objections to the capitalist system,
and finds that they usually arise out of either error or envy.
He begins by discussing what capitalism is, that
is, a system of economic organization whereby private citizens control the
means of production, the consumer is sovereign, and men earn status by serving
others, not by ancestry or conquest. He
then explores how, under such a system, envy naturally arises among men competing
for the sale of goods and services, the failed becoming ever jealous of the
successful, until at last, seeking a scapegoat for all their ills, they end by
hating the system which brought to others the wealth they wish for themselves. Next, he describes the errors of the common
man’s thinking concerning capitalism, who takes for granted his own prosperity
and so decries the very system which brought it about. Some falsely believe that capitalism
threatens their own cherished institutions, such as the aristocracy or the
church, while others think it fuels the creation of bad literature, or spurs
the degeneration of values, or causes poverty.
With these absurdities, as Mises reveals, usually the opposite is the
case. He ends by answering Anti-Capitalist
objections of an ideological sort, such as that things don’t make men happy,
that capitalism feeds men’s stomachs but not their souls, that it does not
reward men’s true merits, and that for all its material prosperity it never
freed one individual soul. Capitalism
does not claim to fulfill man’s spiritual or psychological needs; it can only
fulfill the preconditions thereof, and leave each man free to achieve spiritual
fulfillment howsoever he may.
The ideas discussed in this book are pertinent not only
to those interested in economic thought, but to anyone who is concerned with
the question of how, in less than a century, America rose from an infant nation
to a world power. Such a feat was unique
to our nation, and cannot have happened without capitalism. Indeed, if we may learn but one lesson from
the history of that rise, it has been that entrepreneurs have succeeded best
under conditions of freedom, and that America has flourished to the degree that
it has retained those free conditions, which are the bedrock of the capitalist
system. This book is a grand and
penetrating defense of that system. And
if all would but read and absorb its content, we would not repeat the mistakes
of the Progressive Era, which put taxes so high as to numb the spirit of
enterprise and discourage investment. We
would not repeat the atrocities of Franklin Roosevelt’s socialist New Deal
policies, which intensified and prolonged the Depression of the 1930s, making
it Great. Nor would we now find people
making the same age-old ignorant but destructive attacks on capitalism, here so
plainly refuted, but rather would see clearly the socialist remnants of our
past for what they are -- social security, minimum wage, progressive taxes, and
a bullying bureaucratic behemoth -- and sweep them happily into the dustbin of
history.
The overarching thesis of Mises’s book is simple, then:
the multiform objections to capitalism are bunk. Some are outright false, as the idea that
poverty is the fault of capitalism, when the exact opposite is true. Others elevate one truth to the exclusion of
others, as when men observe that capitalism fuels the creation of bad
literature, while ignoring that it fuels the creation of good literature,
too. Still others blame capitalism for
not doing perfectly that which it in fact does, though imperfectly,
better than any other system. Men
complain, for example, that capitalism does not reward true merit, when really,
by compensating those who put their talents to the service of others, it
rewards men more justly than any socialist government run by hubristic
busybodies who think they know what justice is.
And, if we are to speak purely of historical precedent in the 20th
century, the choice between capitalism and socialism is also a choice between a
few tolerable injustices and the slaughter of millions. This is the second part of his thesis. One cannot separate the general theory of
socialism from the particular practice of it under a particular communist
regime in Russia during the last century.
The evils that occurred in that past socialist experiment would happen
again in a new one, because the very idea upon which it is based is
flawed. Once the decision is made to run
human affairs through government, the worst kinds of people end up on top,
deciding; and what ensues is inefficiency, if not bloodbath.
Mises defends capitalism, then, not so much by putting
forth arguments for it, as by exposing the unsoundness of arguments against
it, and what emerges is, indeed, a powerful argument for it. One sees the thing more clearly after the
misconceptions have been swept aside.
Throughout, Mises’ prose is rich with historical references and examples
which demonstrate the comprehensive learning of its author, and thereby the
trustworthiness of his arguments, coming from someone who knows well the
laboratory of history. His view of human
affairs does, however, seem to give at times a disproportionate weight to the
economic side of man. One chapter, for
example, is devoted to the speculation that the popularity of detective stories
is evidence of frustrated ambition, of a sort of sinister anti-capitalistic desire
to find and punish lurking criminals, and of a wide-spread suspicion of all
success. Such a curious explanation is
possible but improbable, and is especially dangerous without clarification of
degree. Are there not, for every person
who reads detective stories that way, perhaps a hundred others who do so out of
simple aesthetic love for the suspenseful story? However minor may seem Mises’ infraction
here, the instance is indicative of a particular habit of mind bent on seeing
all human affairs with the economic lens merely (which is but one among
many), and may therefore be just as off-putting to readers who do not already
agree with Mises, as dangerous to those who do, that they will forget to step
back from a partial view to see the existing whole. But this flaw is, in the end, one of
rhetoric, or of philosophy. It does not
conceal what one must in the last reckoning acknowledge, that the author is a
master, within his own discipline, of penetrating insight, sound argumentation,
and firm rational defense of the economic system which alone can produce the
wealth for the masses which we in the West so cherish.
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