Karl Marx Was Not an Economist

2023-03-15

I have previously explained how for Ludwig von Mises, democracy is necessary for the libertarian society because of its usefulness in achieving and maintaining social peace, insofar as social peace is a prerequisite for economic and civil liberty.
This time I want to explain an idea that is implicit in Mises’s subjectivist philosophy and that leads him to defend democracy, understood as the consent of the governed, but which may go unnoticed because it is dispersed throughout his work: a “philosophy of consent.” Mises’s philosophy of consent is not a “value judgment,” but a “factual judgment”—a description of the functions—of human action in the realm of norms, authorities, and government.
Demythologization of Social Conventions
Mises explains that free-market liberalism, or

2023-03-13

The second-largest collapse of a bank in recent history after Lehman Brothers could have been prevented. Now the impact is too large, and the contagion risk is difficult to measure.
The demise of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is a classic bank run driven by a liquidity event, but the important lesson for everyone is that the enormity of the unrealized losses and the financial hole in the bank’s accounts would not have existed if not for ultra-loose monetary policy. Let me explain why.
As of December 31, 2022, Silicon Valley Bank had approximately $209.0 billion in total assets and about $175.4 billion in total deposits, according to their public accounts. Their top shareholders are Vanguard Group (11.3 percent), BlackRock (8.1 percent), StateStreet (5.2 percent) and the Swedish pension

2022-12-31

Is it possible, or even desirable, for economic freedom and progress to be compatible with authoritarianism? Although some may believe so, this is a fallacy. Freedom is indivisible. Political and economic freedom cannot be separated.
This is the position of Ludwig von Mises himself. In Planning for Freedom, he says, “Tyranny is the political corollary of socialism, as representative government is the political corollary of the market economy.” Regarding a citizen’s reaction to such tyranny, he writes in Planned Chaos that “If one master plan is to be substituted for the plans of each citizen, endless fighting must emerge. Those who disagree with the dictator’s plan have no other means to carry on than to defeat the despot by force of arms.” Mises contrasts the tyranny of socialism with

2022-12-24

In his 1922 book on socialism, Die Gemeinwirtschaft, Ludwig von Mises attributes socialism’s attractiveness to the claim that Marx’s doctrine would be both ethical and scientific. In truth, however, Marxism represents a metaphysical dogma that promises an earthly paradise yet threatens civilization itself.
Thesis of the Inevitability of Socialism
Marxism explains that immoral capitalist economies will necessarily be replaced by socialist systems that meet higher moral standards. Socialism promises to do away with the irrational private economic order and install a rational, planned economy. Socialists proclaim that hierarchical capitalist production will give way to a cooperative order without subordination:
Socialism appears as a goal towards which we have to strive because it is moral