Critique of Interventionism

 

 Ludwig von Mises

Second Revised Edition

 

The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc.

Irvington-on-Hudson , New York  

Critique of Interventionism   Originally published in German; © 1929 as Kritik des Interventionismus; republished ©1976 under the same title by Gustav Fischer Verlag. The essay “Nationalization of Credit?” first appeared in the Zeitschrift fur Nationalokonomie vol. I, 1930 (copyright Springer-Verlag, Wien) and was incorporated in the 1976 edition.   English translation published by Arlington House, 1977, copyright 0 1977 by Margit von Mises   Revised edition published by the Foundation for Economic Education and copyright ©1996 by Bettina Bien Greaves

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Table of Contents   Introduction, Hans F. Sennholz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v   Translator’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .viii   Foreword, F.A. Hayek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix   Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi

 

 

 

INTERVENTIONISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

 

1. Interventionism as an Economic System

2. The Nature of Intervention

3. Restrictions of Production

4. Interference with Prices

5. Destruction Resulting from Intervention

6. The Doctrine of  Interventionism

7. The Historical and Practical Arguments for

8. Recent Writings on the Problems of Interventionism

 

THE HAMPERED MARKET ECONOMY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

 

1. The Prevailing Doctrine of the Hampered Market Economy

2. The Thesis of Schmalenbach

 

SOCIAL LIBERALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

 

1. Introduction

2. Socialism of the Chair

3. Liberalism and Social Liberalism

4. Control or Economic Law?

5. The Methodenstreit

6. The Economic Doctrines of Social Liberalism

7. The Concept and Crisis of Social Policy

8. Max Weber and the Socialists of the Chair

9. The Failure of the Prevailing Ideology

 

ANTI-MARXISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

 

1. Marxism in German Science

2. National (Anti-Marxian) Socialism

3. Sombart as Marxist and Anti-Marxist

4. Anti-Marxism and Science

 

THE THEORY OF PRICE CONTROLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

 

1. Introduction

2. Price Controls

3. The Significance of the Theory of Price Control for

the Theory of Social Organization

 THE NATIONALIZATION OF CREDIT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107

 

1. Private Interest and Public Interest

2. Bureaucratic Management or Profit Management of

Banking?

3. The Danger of Overexpansion and Immobilization

4. Summation

 

READINGS FOR FURTHER REFERENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

 

NAME INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

 

SUBJECT INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121  

Introduction  

We may grow in knowledge of truth, but its great principles are forever the same. The economic principles that Ludwig von Mises expounded in these six essays during the 1920s have endured the test of time, being as valid today as they were in the past. Surely, the names and places have changed, but the inescapable interdependence of market phenomena is the same today, during the 1990s, as it was during the 1920s, and as valid for present-day Americans as it was for the Germans of the Weimar Republic .

And yet, most social scientists today are as ignorant of this interdependence of economic phenomena as they were during the 1920s. They are statists, or as Professor Mises preferred to call them, “etatists,” who are calling upon government to assume ever more responsibilities for the economic well-being of its citizens. No matter what modern economists have written about the general validity of economic laws, the statists prefer their ethical judgments over economic principles, and political power over voluntary cooperation. Without government control and regulation, central planning and authority, they are convinced, economic life would be brutal and chaotic.

In this collection of essays Ludwig von Mises emphasizes again and again that society must choose between two systems of social organization: either it can create a social order that is built on private property in the means of production, or it can establish a command system in which government owns or manages all production and distribution. There is no logical third system of a private property order subject to government regulation. The “middle of the road” leads to socialism because government intervention is not only superfluous and useless, but also harmful. It is superfluous because the interdependence of market phenomena narrowly circumscribes individual action and economic relations. It is useless because government regulation cannot achieve the objectives it is supposed to achieve. And it is harmful because it hampers man’s productive efforts where, from the consumers’ viewpoint, they are most useful and valuable. It lowers labor productivity and redirects production along lines of political command rather than consumer satisfaction.

And yet, most American economists tenaciously cling to their faith in the middle of the road with all its government regulations and controls. Like the German academic socialists, commonly called the “Socialists of the Chair,” whose doctrines face Professor von Mises’ incisive critique in these pages, American “mainstream” economists are seeking the safety of an impartial middle position between classical liberalism and communism. But while they may feel safe in the middle of the road, hopefully equally distant from the two competing systems, they are actually paving the way for socialism.

Their voices have become subdued since the disintegration of the Soviet Union . No longer do they hold up the Soviet system as a model of social justice and economic growth, or feature Karl Marx as “a philosopher, historian, sociologist, and revolutionist. And make no mistake. He was a learned man.” (Paul A. Samuelson, Economics, 11th edition, p. 797). But they continue to cast their vote for government regulation rather than individual freedom, a comprehensive welfare state rather than personal responsibility, and monetary and fiscal manipulation rather than honest money and unhampered markets. Calling themselves “liberals” or “moderates,” these middle-of-the-roaders proclaim the virtues and benefits of the “social market economy,” which actually is creeping socialism. They continue to denounce “ Manchester capitalism” for its purportedly cruel and inhuman labor conditions while they applaud the sociopolitical legislators and militant labor leaders for their valiant efforts to overcome the cruelties of capitalism.

The socialist ideology lives on in the hearts and minds of the “moderates,” despite the disintegration of hard-core socialism. They no longer defer to Karl Marx as the genial philosopher but continue to reiterate his charges of labor exploitation by greedy capitalists. Unlike the faithful Marxians, however, they take kindly to labor unions and their practices. The “moderates” echo the Marxian charges of business concentration and monopolization, which makes them eager “antitrust” foes and fighters. They even share with the Marxians their basic social philosophy which teaches irreconcilable social conflict and class warfare. In their eyes, business and labor have adverse economic interests, which makes for unending economic confrontation. Preaching moderation, they favor the middle of the road on which they slowly proceed toward socialism.

Radical socialism has collapsed by its inner contradictions and gross inhumanities. Creeping socialism is bound to suffer the same fate because of similar contradictions and disregard of property rights, which are human rights. In competition with the newly emerging market economies in Asia , the old welfare states of Europe and North America are choking on restrictive labor laws, welfare entitlements, confiscatory taxation, and bureaucratic despotism. In Europe the multitudes of pensioners together with the armies of unemployed workers may soon overwhelm the productive population that is forced to support them. Creeping socialism is leading the countries from crisis to crisis which compels them to reform and repudiate their reckless pretensions. By the excesses of innate evils, socialism is bound to die.

When Ludwig von Mises penned the six essays in this volume, he was questioning the theories and policies that guided Germany ’s ill-fated Weimar Republic of the 1920s. His observations are as relevant today as they were half a century ago.

This anthology made its appearance in 1929 as Kritik des Interventionismus and was republished in 1976, incorporating the essay “Nationalization of Credit?” The 1977 English edition was based on the 1976 German edition. The growing interest in Austrian thought, in particular, Misesian thought, necessitates this new printing. This new edition includes a translation of the Foreword written by F.A. Hayek for the 1976 German edition.  

HANS F. SENNHOLZ

July 1996  

 

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 Translator’s Note  

To Professor von Mises, “liberalism” was classical liberalism, the very antithesis of socialism. In his critique of the doctrines of socialism and syndicalism he objected to the use of “social liberalism,” which tends to erase the difference between liberalism and socialism. He insisted that, “in the interest of scientific clarity and local thought,” it was imperative to distinguish sharply between classical liberalism and social liberalism or socialism.

The various names used to refer to the German Historical School, such as the Historical-Realistic-Social School , the Empirical-Realistic School , etc., are literal translations of the original German terms.

The doctrine which he criticized here as “Anti-Marxism” later became known as National Socialism or Nazism. See p. 71n.

When Professor Mises wrote this book, he called the science of human action “sociology”; that term is retained here. However, Mises later preferred to refer to it as “praxeology” Seep. 72n also Mises’ economic treatise, Human Action (first published 1949; 2nd ed., 1963; 3rd ed., 1966; 4th ed., 1996).

 

Foreword to the 1976 German Edition of

Critique of Interventionism*

 by F. A. Hayek  

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)established his position as a leading thinker in the field of economic theory with his two great works, The Theory of Money and Credit in 1912 and Socialism in 1922. Thereafter, he turned his attention to the problems of interventionism, that is the middle of the road between a pure market order and socialism, where he encountered the German Historical School. As financial consultant and scientific advisor to the Viennese Chamber of Commerce and as unpaid part-time lecturer at the University of Vienna , he was led to an increasingly critical position toward German economists. He was on friendly terms only with Max Weber, who had lectured at the university during the summer semester in 1918. Mises also appreciated a few professors such as Heinrich Dietzel, Richard Passow, Ludwig Pohle, Andreas Voigt, Adolf Weber, and Leopold von Wiese. Although they did not offer new insights, they were courageously opposing the prevailing trend of thought. (Mises valued highly the representatives of earlier generations such as J. H. von Thunen, F. B. W. von Hermann, and H. K. E. von Mangoldt.)

Like most economists of the last generation, Ludwig von Mises, too, had been led to his inquiries by the aspirations of social policy and Fabian socialism, which his earlier writings bear out. But he underwent a radical conversion to classical liberalism primarily in the seminar of Professor Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, which he attended together with J. A. Schumpeter and other leading members of the third generation of the Austrian School . From that time on, his political economic works were dedicated to classical liberalism. This was apparent in his Theory of Money, was further developed in his sagacious and, at that time, almost completely overlooked Nation, State, and Economy of 1419, and was perfected in his Socialism of 1922. His short essay on Liberalism, which apparently was written in a hurry, was less successful.

His Critique of Interventionism led to confrontation with his German colleagues. The severity of his critique of the leading men such as Werner Sombart, Gustav Schmoller, Lujo Brentano, and Heinrich Herkner caused much controversy, which, in retrospect, deserves much credit today I know that Mises intended to include his essay on “The Nationalization of Credit?” which had appeared in Volume I of the new Zeitschrift fur Sozialpolitik. Unfortunately, this was missed because the publisher had misplaced the manuscript and rediscovered it only much later, which at that time was quite possible as there may only have been a single genuine manuscript written in Mises’ clear, legible handwriting. This essay now has been added to this new edition.

Mises, who was known not only as an extremely keen critic but also as a pessimist, unfortunately has been proven right too often. Several other contemporaries may remember a tea party in a garden in Bad Kissingen where a large group of committee members of the Verein fur Sozialpolitik [Association for Social Policy] was meeting. Mises wondered whether we were aware that we were meeting for the last time. His remark at first surprised everyone and then brought laughter when he explained that Hitler would be in power twelve months hence. The other members deemed this possibility most unlikely; but above all, they wondered why the Society could not meet again after Hitler had come to power. In fact, it did not meet again until after the end of World War N.

Mises remained in Vienna until Hitler came to power. In 1934, at the age of 53, he joined the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva where he devoted his time and strength to the study of the philosophical and epistemological foundations of the social sciences. In 1933 he was still able to publish in Germany an anthology on Epistemological Problems of Economics dealing with questions of procedure, tasks, and content of economics and social science. In 1940 it was followed by his last German tome, Nationalokonomie: Theorie des Handens und Wirtschaftens. Published in Geneva , it remained practically unknown in Germany , which was unavoidable at that time.

Making their escape through Southern France , Spain , and Portugal in the summer of 1940, Professor and Mrs. Mises finally reached the United States . In New York he embarked upon a very fruitful teaching and writing career that lasted some 30 years. He completely rewrote his Nationalokonomie and published it in English under the title Human Action. I must also mention his 1957 book, Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution.  

* * *  

Preface  

The fighting between nations and states, and domestically between political parties, pressure groups, and cliques, so greatly occupies our attention that we tend to overlook the fact that all the fighting parties, in spite of their furious battling, pursue identical economic objectives. We must include here even the advocates of the socialization of the means of production who, as partisans of the [Communist] Second International and then of the Third International which approved the transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP), have renounced-at least for the present and near future-the realization of their program.

Nearly all writers on economic policy and nearly all statesmen and party leaders are seeking an ideal system which, in their belief, is neither capitalistic nor socialistic, is based neither on private property in the means of production nor on public property. They are searching for a system of private property that is hampered, regulated, and directed through government intervention and other social forces, such as labor unions. We call such an economic policy interventionism, the system itself the hampered market order.

Communism and fascism are in agreement on this program. The Christian churches and various sects concur with the Moslems of the Middle East and India , the Hindus, Buddhists, and the followers of other Asiatic cultures. And anyone reflecting upon the programs and actions of the political parties of Germany , Great Britain , and the United States must conclude that differences exist only in the methods of interventionism, not in its rationale.

In their entirety the following five essays and articles* constitute a critique of interventionist policies and their underlying ideologies. Four of them have been published in recent years-three in journals and one in the Handbook of Social Sciences. The second essay deals with Professor Schmalenbach’s recent theories, among other things, and is published here for the first time.  

Ludwig von Mises

Vienna , June 1929

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INTERVENTIONISM [1]  

1.

Interventionism as an Economic System  

Ever since the Bolshevists abandoned their attempt to realize the socialist ideal of a social order all at once in Russia and, instead, adopted the New Economic Policy, or NEP, the whole world has had only one real system of economic policy: interventionism. Some of its followers and advocates are thinking of it as a temporary system that is to be replaced sooner or later with another order of the socialist variety. All Marxian socialists, including the Bolshevists, together with the democratic socialists of various persuasions, belong to this group. 0thers are holding to the belief that we are dealing with interventionism as a permanent economic order. But at the present this difference in opinion on the duration of interventionist policy has only academic significance. All its followers and advocates fully agree that it is the correct policy for the coming decades, yea, even the coming generations. And all agree that interventionism constitutes an economic policy that will prevail in the foreseeable future.

Interventionism seeks to retain private property in the means of production, but authoritative commands, especially prohibitions, are to restrict the actions of private owners. If this restriction reaches the point that all important decisions are made along lines of authoritative command, if it is no longer the profit motive of landowners, capitalists, and entrepreneurs, but reasons of state, that decide what is to be produced and how it is produced, then we have socialism even if we retain the private property label. Othmar Spann is completely correct when he calls such a system “a private property order in a formal sense, but socialism in substance.”[2] Public ownership in the means of production is nothing but socialism or communism.

However, interventionism does not want to go that far. It does not seek to abolish private property in production; it merely wants to limit it. On the one hand, it considers unlimited private property harmful to society, and on the other hand, it deems the public property order unrealizable completely, at least for the present. Therefore, it seeks to create a third order: a social system that occupies the center between the private property order and the public property order. Thus, it seeks to avoid the “excesses” and evils of capitalism, but to retain the advantages of individual initiative and industry which socialism cannot bring forth.

The champions of this private property order, which is guided, regulated, and controlled by the state and other social organizations, are making demands that have always been made by political leaders and masses of people. When economics was yet unknown, and man was unaware that goods prices cannot be “set” arbitrarily but are narrowly determined by the market situation, government commands sought to regulate economic life. Only classical economics revealed that all such interventions in the functioning of the market can never achieve the objectives which the authorities aim to achieve. The old liberalism which built its economic policies on the teachings of classical economics therefore categorically rejected all such interventions. Laissez faire et laissez passer! Even Marxian socialists have not judged interventionism any differently from the classical liberals.

They sought to demonstrate the absurdity of all interventionist proposals and labeled them contemptuously as “bourgeois.” The ideology that is swaying the world today is recommending the very system of economic policy that is rejected equally by classical liberalism and older Marxism.

2.

The Nature of Intervention

The problem of interventionism must not be confused with that of socialism. We are not dealing here with the question of whether or not socialism in any form is conceivable or realizable. We are not here seeking an answer to the question of whether human society can be built on public property in the means of production. The problem at hand is, What are the consequences of government and other interventions in the private property order? Can they achieve the result they are supposed to achieve?

A precise definition of the concept “intervention” is now in order.

1. Measures that are taken for the purpose of preserving and securing the private property order are not interventions in this sense. This is so self-evident that it should need no special emphasis. And yet it is not completely redundant, as our problem is often confused with the problem of anarchism. It is argued that if the state must protect the private property order, it follows that further government interventions should also be permissible. The anarchist who rejects any kind of state activity is said to be consistent. But he who correctly perceives the impracticability of anarchism and seeks a state organization with its apparatus of coercion in order to secure social cooperation is said to be inconsistent when he limits government to a narrow function.

Obviously, this reasoning completely misses the point. We are not here discussing the question of whether or not social cooperation can do without the organization of coercion, which is the state, or government. The sole point under discussion is whether there are only two conceivable possibilities of social organization with division of labor, that is, the public property order and the private property order-disregarding syndicalism-or whether there is yet a third system as assumed by interventionists, namely, a private property order that is regulated through government intervention. Incidentally, we must carefully distinguish between the question of whether or not government is necessary and the question of where and how government authority is in order. The fact that social life cannot do without the government apparatus of coercion cannot be used to conclude also that restraint of conscience, book censorship, and similar measures are desirable, or that certain economic measures are necessary, useful, or merely feasible.

Regulations for the preservation of competition do not at all belong to those measures preserving the private property order. It is a popular mistake to view competition between several producers of the same product as the substance of the ideal liberal economic order. In reality, the central notion of classical liberalism is private property, and not a certain misunderstood concept of free competition. It does not matter that there are many recording studios, but it does matter that the means of record production are owned privately rather than by government. This misunderstanding, together with an interpretation of freedom that is influenced by the natural rights philosophy, has led to attempts at preventing the development of large enterprises through laws against cartels and trusts. We need not here discuss the desirability of such a policy. But we should observe that nothing is less important for an understanding of the economic effects of a certain measure than its justification or rejection by some juristic theory.

Jurisprudence, political science, and the scientific branch of politics cannot offer any information that could be used for a decision on the pros and cons of a certain policy. It is rather unimportant that this pro or that con corresponds to some law or constitutional document, even if it should be as venerable and famous as the Constitution of the United States of America . If human legislation proves to be ill-suited to the end in view, it must be changed. A discussion of the suitability of policy can never accept the argument that it runs counter to statute, law, or constitution. This is so obvious that it would need no mention were it not for the fact that it is forgotten time and again. German writers sought to deduce social policy from the character of the Prussian state and “social royalty.” In the United States, economic discussion now uses arguments that are derived from the Constitution or an interpretation of the concepts of freedom and democracy A noteworthy theory of interventionism set forth by Professor J. R. Commons is largely built on this rationale and has great practical significance because it represents the philosophy of the La Follette party and the policy of the state of Wisconsin. The authority of the American Constitution is limited to the Union . But locally the ideals of democracy, liberty, and equality reign supreme and give rise, as we can observe everywhere, to the demand for abolition of private property or its “limitation.” All this is insignificant for our discussion and, therefore, does not concern us here.

2. Partial socialization of the means of production is no intervention in our sense. The concept of intervention assumes that private property is not abolished, but that it still exists in substance rather than merely in name. Nationalization of a railroad constitutes no intervention; but a decree that orders an enterprise to charge lower freight rates than it otherwise would is intervention.

3. Government measures that use market means, that is, seek to influence demand and supply through changes of market factors, are not included in this concept of intervention. If government buys milk in the market in order to sell it inexpensively to destitute mothers or even to distribute it without charge, or if government subsidizes educational institutions, there is no intervention. (We shall return to the question of whether the method by which government acquires the means for such actions constitutes “intervention.”) However, the imposition of price ceilings for milk signifies intervention.

Intervention is a limited order by a social authority forcing the owners of the means of production and entrepreneurs to employ their means in a different manner than they otherwise would. A “limited order” is an order that is no part of a socialist scheme of orders, i.e., a scheme of orders regulating all of production and distribution, thus replacing private property in the means of production with public property. Particular orders may be quite numerous, but as long as they do not aim at directing the whole economy and replacing the profit motive of individuals with obedience as the driving force of human action they must be regarded as limited orders. By “means of production,” we mean all goods of higher order, including the merchants’ inventories of ready goods which have not yet reached the consumers.

We must distinguish between two groups of such orders. One group directly reduces or impedes economic production (in the broadest sense of the word including the location of economic goods). The other group seeks to fix prices that differ from those of the market. The former may be called “restrictions of production”; the latter, generally known as price controls, we are calling “interference with the structure of prices.”[3]  

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3.

Restrictions of Production

Economics need not say much about the immediate effect of production restrictions. Government or any organization of coercion can at first achieve what it sets out to achieve through intervention. But whether it can achieve the remoter objectives sought indirectly by the intervention is a different question. And it must further be determined whether the result is worth the cost, that is, whether the intervening authority would embark upon the intervention if it were fully aware of the costs. An import duty, for instance, is surely practical, and its immediate effect may correspond to the government’s objective. But it does not follow at all that the import duty can realize the government’s ultimate objective. At this point the economist’s work commences. The purpose of the theorists of free trade was not to demonstrate that tariffs are impractical or harmful, but that they have unforeseen consequences and do not, nor can they, achieve what their advocates expect of them. What is even more significant, as they observed, protective tariffs as well as all other production restrictions reduce the productivity of human labor. The result is always the same: a given expenditure of capital and labor yields less with the restriction than without it, or from the beginning less capital and labor is invested in production. This is true with protective tariffs that cause grain to be grown in less fertile soil while more fertile land is lying fallow, with class restrictions of trade and occupation (such as the certificates of qualification for certain occupations in Austria, or the favored tax treatment of small enterprises) which promote less productive businesses at the expense of more productive activity, and, finally, with the limitation of labor time and of the employment of certain labor (women and children), which diminishes the quantity of available labor.

It may very well be that government would have intervened even with full knowledge of the consequences. It may intervene in the belief that it will achieve other, not purely economic, objectives, which are thought to be more important than the expected reduction in output. But we doubt very much that this would ever be the case. The fact is that all production restrictions are supported wholly or partially by arguments that are to prove that they raise productivity, not lower it. Even the legislation that reduces the labor of women and children was enacted because it was believed that only entrepreneurs and capitalists would be handicapped while the protected labor groups would have to work less.

The writings of the academic socialists, the “Socialists of the Chair,” have been rightly criticized in that, in the final analysis, there can be no objective concept of productivity and that all judgments on economic goals are subjective. But when we assert that production restrictions reduce labor productivity, we do not yet enter the field where differences in subjective judgments prohibit observations on the goals and means of action. When the formation of nearly autarkic economic blocs hampers the international division of labor, preventing the advantages of specialized large-scale production and the employment of labor at the most advantageous locations, we face undesirable consequences on which the opinions of most inhabitants of the earth should not differ. To be sure, some may believe that the advantages of autarky outweigh its disadvantages. In the discussion of the pros and cons its advocates brazenly assert that autarky does not diminish the quantity and quality of economic goods, or else they do not speak about it openly and clearly Obviously, they are fully aware that their propaganda would be less effective if they were to admit the whole truth of the consequences.

All production restrictions directly hamper some production inasmuch as they prevent certain employment opportunities that are open to the goods of higher order (land, capital, labor). By its very nature, a government decree that “it be” cannot create anything that has not been created before. Only the naive inflationists could believe that government could enrich mankind through fiat money Government cannot create anything; its orders cannot even evict anything from the world of reality, but they can evict from the world of the permissible. Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

With most production restrictions this is so clear that their sponsors rarely dare openly claim credit for the restrictions. Many generations of writers, therefore, sought in vain to demonstrate that production restrictions do not reduce the quantity and quality of output. There is no need to deal again with the protective tariff arguments that are raised from a purely economic point of view. The only case that can be made on behalf of protective tariffs is this: the sacrifices they impose could be offset by other, noneconomic advantages-for instance, from a national and military point of view it could be desirable to more or less isolate a country from the world.[4]

Indeed, it is difficult to ignore the fact that production restrictions always reduce the productivity of human labor and thus the social dividend. Therefore, no one dares defend the restrictions as a separate system of economic policy. Their advocates-at least the majority of them-are now promoting them as mere supplements to government interference with the structure of prices. The emphasis of the system of interventionism is on price intervention.  

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4.

Interference with Prices  

Price intervention aims at setting goods prices that differ from those the unhampered market would set.

When the unhampered market determines prices, or would determine prices if government had not interfered, the proceeds cover the cost of production. If government sets a lower price, proceeds fall below cost. Merchants and producers will now desist from selling excepting perishable goods that quickly lose value-in order to save the goods for more favorable times when, hopefully, the control will be lifted. If government now endeavors to prevent a good’s disappearance from the market, a consequence of its own intervention, it cannot limit itself to setting its price, but must simultaneously order that all available supplies be sold at the regulated price.

Even this is inadequate. At the ideal market price supply and demand would coincide. Since government has decreed a lower price the demand has risen while the supply has remained unchanged. The available supply now does not suffice to satisfy the demand at the fixed price. Part of the demand will remain unsatisfied. The market mechanism, which normally brings demand and supply together through changes in price, ceases to function. Customers who were willing to pay the official price turn away in disappointment because the early purchasers or those who personally knew the sellers had bought the whole supply. If government wishes to avoid the consequences of its own intervention, which after all are contrary to its own intention, it must resort to rationing as a supplement to price controls and selling orders. In this way government determines the quantity that may be sold to each buyer at the regulated price.

      A much more difficult problem arises when the supplies that were available at the moment of price intervention are used up. Since production is no longer profitable at the regulated price, it is curtailed or even halted. If government would like production to continue, it must force the producers to continue, and it must also control the prices of raw materials, semi-finished products, and wages. But such controls must not be limited to a few industries which government meant to control because their products are believed to be especially important. The controls must encompass all branches of production, the prices of all goods and all wages, and the economic actions of all entrepreneurs, capitalists, landowners, and workers. If any industry should remain free, capital and labor will move to it and thus frustrate the purpose of government’s earlier intervention. Surely, government would like an ample supply of those products it deemed so important and therefore sought to regulate. It never intended that they should now be neglected on account of the intervention.[5]

      Our analysis thus reveals that in a private property order isolated intervention fails to achieve what its sponsors hoped to achieve. From their point of view, intervention is not only useless, but wholly unsuitable because it aggravates the “evil” it meant to alleviate. Before the price was regulated, the economic good was too expensive in the opinion of the authority; now it disappears from the market. But this was not the intention of the authority seeking to lower the price for consumers. On the contrary, from its own point of view, the scarcity and inability to find a supply must appear as the far greater evil. In this sense it may be said that limited intervention is illogical and unsuitable, that the economic system that works through such interventions is unworkable and unsuitable, and that it contradicts economic logic.

If government is not inclined to alleviate the situation through removing its limited intervention and lifting its price control, its first step must be followed by others. Its decree that set price ceilings must be followed, not only by decrees on the sale of all available supplies and the introduction of rationing, but also price controls on the goods of higher order and wage controls and, finally, mandatory labor for businessmen and workers. And such decrees must not be limited to a single or a few industries, but must cover all branches of production. There is no other choice: government either abstains from limited interference with the market forces, or it assumes total control over production and distribution. Either capitalism or socialism; there is no middle of the road.

Let us take yet another example: the minimum wage, wage control. It is unimportant whether government imposes the control directly, or labor unions through physical coercion or threats prevent employers from hiring workers who are willing to work for lower wages.[6] As wages rise, so must the costs of production and also prices. If the wage earners were the only consumers as buyers of the final products, an increase in real wages by this method would be inconceivable. The workers would lose as consumers what they gained as wage earners. But there are also consumers whose income is derived from property and entrepreneurial activity. The wage boost does not raise their incomes; they cannot pay the higher prices and, therefore, must curtail their consumption. The decline in demand leads to dismissal of workers. If the labor union coercion were ineffective, the unemployed would exert a labor market pressure that would reduce the artificially raised wages to the natural market rate. But this escape has been closed. Unemployment, a friction phenomenon that soon disappears in an unhampered market order, becomes a permanent institution in interventionism.

As government did not mean to create such a condition, it must intervene again. It forces employers either to reinstate the unemployed workers and pay the fixed rate, or to pay taxes that compensate the unemployed. Such a burden consumes the owners’ income, or at least reduces it greatly. It is even conceivable that the entrepreneurs’ and owners’ income no longer can carry this burden, but that it must be paid out of capital. But if non-labor income is consumed by such burdens we realize that it must lead to capital consumption. Capitalists and entrepreneurs, too, want to consume and live even when they are earning no incomes. They will consume capital. Therefore, it is unsuitable and illogical to deprive entrepreneurs, capitalists, and land owners of their incomes and leave control over the means of production in their hands. Obviously, the consumption of capital in the end reduces wage rates. If the market wage structure is unacceptable the whole private property order must be abolished. Wage controls can raise rates only temporarily, and only at the price of future wage reductions.

The problem of wage controls is of such great importance today that we must analyze it in yet another way, taking into consideration the international exchange of goods. Let us suppose that economic goods are exchanged between two countries, Atlantis and Thule . Atlantis supplies industrial products, Thule agricultural products. Under the influence of Friedrich List,* Thule now deems it necessary to build its own industry by way of protective tariffs. The final outcome of Thule ’s industrialization program can be no other than that fewer industrial products are imported from Atlantis, and fewer agricultural products exported to Atlantis. Both countries now satisfy their wants to a greater degree from domestic production, which leaves the social product smaller than it used to be because production conditions are now less favorable.

This may be explained as follows: in reaction to the import duties in Thule the Atlantean industry lowers its wages. But it is impossible to offset the whole tariff burden through lower wages. When wages begin to fall it becomes profitable to expand the production of raw materials. On the other hand, the reduction in Thulean sales of agricultural products to Atlantis tends to lower wages in the Thulean raw material production, which will afford the Thulean industry the opportunity to compete with the Atlantean industry through lower labor costs. It is obvious that in addition to the declining capital return of industry in Atlantis, and the declining land rent in Thule , wage rates in both countries must fall. The decline in income corresponds to the declining social product.

But Atlantis is a “social” country Labor unions prevent a reduction in wage rates. Production costs of Atlantean industry remain at the old pre-import duty levels. As sales in Thule decline Atlantean industry must discharge some workers. Unemployment compensation prevents the flow of unemployed labor to agriculture. Unemployment thus becomes a permanent institution. [7]

The exportation of coal from Great Britain has declined. Inasmuch as the unneeded miners cannot emigrate-because other countries do not want them-they must move to those British industries that are expanding in order to compensate for the smaller imports that follow the decline in exports. A reduction in wage rates in coal mining may bring about this movement. But labor unions may hamper this unavoidable adjustment for years, albeit temporarily. In the end, the decline in the international division of labor must bring about a reduction in standards of living. And this reduction must be all the greater, the more capital has been consumed through “social” intervention.

Austrian industry suffers from the fact that other countries are raising their import duties continually on Austrian products and are imposing ever new import restrictions, such as foreign exchange control. Its answer to higher duties, if its own tax burden is not reduced, can only be the reduction in wages. All other production factors are inflexible. Raw materials and semi-finished products must be bought in the world market. Entrepreneurial profits and interest rates must correspond to world market conditions as more foreign capital is invested in Austria than Austrian capital is invested abroad. Only wage rates are determined nationally because emigration by Austrian workers is largely prevented by “social” policies abroad. Only wage rates can fall. Policies that support wages at artificially high rates and grant unemployment compensation only create unemployment.

It is absurd to demand that European wages must be raised because wages are higher in the U.S. than in Europe . If the immigration barriers to the US., Australia , et cetera, would be removed, European workers could emigrate, which would gradually lead to an international equalization of wage rates.

The permanent unemployment of hundreds of thousands and millions of people on the one hand, and the consumption of capital on the other hand, are consequences of interventionism’s artificial raising of wage rates by labor unions and unemployment compensation.  

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 5.

Destruction Resulting from Intervention

 The history of the last decades can be understood only with a comprehension of the consequences of such intervention in the economic operations of the private property order. Since the demise of classical liberalism, interventionism has been the gist of politics in all countries in Europe and America .

The economic layman only observes that “interested parties” succeed again and again in escaping the strictures of law. The fact that the system functions poorly is blamed exclusively on the law that does not go far enough, and on corruption that prevents its application. The very failure of interventionism reinforces the layman’s conviction that private property must be controlled severely. The corruption of the regulatory bodies does not shake his blind confidence in the infallibility and perfection of the state; it merely fills him with moral aversion to entrepreneurs and capitalists.

But the violation of law is not an evil that merely needs to be eradicated in order to create paradise on earth, an evil that flows from human weakness so difficult to uproot, as etatists so naively proclaim. If all interventionist laws were really to be observed they would soon lead to absurdity. All wheels would come to a halt because the strong arm of government comes too close.

Our contemporaries view the matter like this: farmers and milk dealers conspire to raise the price of milk. Then comes the state, the welfare state, to bring relief, pitting common interest against special interest, public economic view against private point of view. The state dissolves the “milk cartel,” sets ceiling prices, and embarks upon criminal prosecution of the violators of its regulations. The fact that milk does not become as cheap as the consumers had wished is now blamed on the laws that are not strict enough, and on their enforcement that is not severe enough. It is not so easy to oppose the profit motive of pressure groups that are injurious to the public. The laws must therefore be strengthened and enforced without consideration or mercy.

In reality, the situation is quite different. If the price ceilings were really enforced, the delivery of milk and dairy products to the cities would soon come to a halt. Not more, but less milk, or none at all, would come to the market. The consumer still gets his milk only because the regulations are circumvented. If we accept the rather impermissible and fallacious etatist antithesis of public and private interests, we would have to draw this conclusion: the milk dealer who violates the law is serving the public interest; the government official who seeks to enforce the ceiling price is jeopardizing it.

Of course, the businessman who violates the laws and regulations in order to produce regardless of government obstacles is not guided by considerations of public interest, which the champions of the public interest belabor continually, but by the desire to earn a profit, or at least to avoid the loss which he would suffer complying with the regulation. Public opinion, which is indignant at the baseness of such motivation and the wickedness of such action, cannot comprehend that the impracticability of the decrees and prohibitions would soon lead to a catastrophe were it not for this systematic disregard of government orders and prohibitions. Public opinion expects salvation from strict compliance with government regulations passed “for the protection of the weak.” It censures government only because it is not strong enough to pass all necessary regulations and does not entrust their enforcement to more capable and incorruptible individuals. The basic problems of interventionism are not discussed at all. He who timidly dares to doubt the justification of the restrictions on capitalists and entrepreneurs is scorned as a hireling of injurious special interests or, at best, is treated with silent contempt. Even in a discussion of the methods of interventionism, he who does not want to jeopardize his reputation and, above all, his career must be very careful. One can easily fall under the suspicion of serving “capital.” Anyone using economic arguments cannot escape this suspicion.

To be sure, public opinion is not mistaken if it scents corruption everywhere in the interventionist state. The corruptibility of the politicians, representatives, and officials is the very foundation that carries the system. Without it the system would disintegrate or be replaced with socialism or capitalism. Classical liberalism regarded those laws best that afforded least discretionary power to executive authorities, thus avoiding arbitrariness and abuse. The modern state seeks to expand its discretionary power everything is to be left to the discretion of officials.

We cannot here set forth the impact of corruption on public morals. Naturally, neither the bribers nor the bribed realize that their behavior tends to preserve the system which public opinion and they themselves believe to be the right one. In violating the law they are conscious of impairing the public weal. But by constantly violating criminal laws and moral decrees they finally lose the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad. If finally few economic goods can be produced or sold without violating some regulation, it becomes an unfortunate accompaniment of “life” to sin against law and morality And those individuals who wish it were different are derided as “theorists.” The merchant who began by violating foreign exchange controls, import and export restrictions, price ceilings, et cetera, easily proceeds to defraud his partner. The decay of business morals, which is called “inflation effect,” is the inevitable concomitant of the regulations that were imposed on trade and production during the inflation.

It may be said that the system of interventionism has become bearable through the laxity of enforcement. Even the interferences with prices are said to lose their disruptive power if the entrepreneurs can “correct” the situation with money and persuasion. Surely, it cannot be denied that it would be better without the intervention. But, after all, public opinion must be accommodated. Interventionism is seen as a tribute that must be paid to democracy in order to preserve the capitalistic system.

This line of reasoning can be understood from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and capitalists who have adopted Marxian-socialistic or state-socialistic thought. To them, private property in the means of production is an institution that favors the interests of landowners, capitalists, and entrepreneurs at the expense of the public. Its preservation solely serves the interests of the propertied classes. So, if by making a few painless concessions these classes can salvage the institution that is so beneficial to them, and yet so harmful to all other classes, why jeopardize its preservation by adamantly refusing the concessions?

Of course, those who do not share this view regarding “bourgeois” interests cannot accept this line of thought. We do not see why the productivity of economic labor should be reduced through erroneous measures. If private property in the means of production actually is an institution that favors one part of society to the detriment of another, then it should be abolished. But if it is found that private property is useful to all, and that human society with its division of labor could not be organized in any other way, then it must be safeguarded so that it can serve its function in the best possible way. We need not here discuss the c o n fusion that must arise about all moral concepts if law and moral precepts disallow, or at least revile, something that must be preserved as the foundation of social life. And why should anything be prohibited in the expectation that the prohibition will be largely circumvented?

Anyone defending interventionism with such arguments is undoubtedly seriously deluded regarding the extent of the productivity loss caused by government interventions. Surely, the adaptability of the capitalist economy has negated many obstacles placed in the way of entrepreneurial activity. We constantly observe that entrepreneurs are succeeding in supplying the markets with more and better products and services despite all difficulties put in their way by law and administration. But we cannot calculate how much better those products and services would be today, without expenditure of additional labor, if the hustle and bustle of government were not aiming (inadvertently, to be sure) at making things worse. We are thinking of the consequences of all trade restrictions on which there can be no differences of opinion. We are thinking of the obstructions to production improvements through the fight against cartels and trusts. We are thinking of the consequences of price controls. We are thinking of the artificial raising of wage rates through collective coercion, the denial of protection to all those willing to work, unemployment compensation, and, finally, the denial of the freedom to move from country to country, all of which have made the unemployment of millions of workers a permanent phenomenon.

Etatists and socialists are calling the great crisis from which the world economy has been suffering since the end of the World War the crisis of capitalism. In reality, it is the crisis of interventionism.

In a static economy there may be idle land, but no unemployed capital or labor. At the unhampered, market rate of wages all workers find employment. If, other conditions being equal, somewhere workers are released, for instance, on account of an introduction of new labor-saving processes, wage rates must fall. At the new, lower rates then all workers find employment again. In the capitalist social order unemployment is merely a transition and friction phenomenon. Various conditions that impede the free flow of labor from place to place, from country to country, may render the equalization of wage rates more difficult. They may also lead to differences in compensation of the various types of labor. But with freedom for entrepreneurs and capitalists they could never lead to large-scale and permanent unemployment. Workers seeking employment could always find work by adjusting their wage demands to market conditions.

If the market determination of wage rates had not been disrupted, the effects of the World War and the destructive economic policies of the last decades would have led to a decline in wage rates, but not to unemployment. The scope and duration of unemployment, interpreted today as proof of the failure of capitalism, results from the fact that labor unions and unemployment compensation are keeping wage rates higher than the unhampered market would set them. Without unemployment compensation and the power of labor unions to prevent the competition of nonmembers willing to work, the pressure of supply would soon bring about a wage adjustment that would assure employment to all hands. We may regret the consequences of the anti-market and anti-capitalistic policy in recent decades, but we cannot change them. Only reduction in consumption and hard labor can replace the capital that was lost, and only the formation of new capital can raise the marginal productivity of labor and thus wage rates.

Unemployment compensation cannot eradicate the evil. It merely delays the ultimately unavoidable adjustment of wages to the fallen marginal productivity. And since the compensation is usually not paid from income, but out of capital, ever more capital is consumed and future marginal productivity of labor further reduced.

However, we must not assume that an immediate abolition of all the obstacles to the smooth functioning of the capitalist economic order w