Synopses & Reviews
Interventionism provides Mises's analysis of the problems of government interference in business from the Austrian School perspective. Written in 1940, before the United States was officially involved in World War II, this book offers a rare insight into the war economies of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. Mises criticizes the pre-World War II democratic governments for favoring socialism and interventionism over capitalist methods of production. Mises contends that government's economic role should be limited because of the negative political and social consequences of the economic policy of interventionism.
Ludwig von Mises (18811973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian School of economics throughout most of the twentieth century. He earned his doctorate in law and economics from the University of Vienna in 1906. In 1926, Mises founded the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research. From 1909 to 1934, he was an economist for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. Before the Anschluss, in 1934 Mises left for Geneva, where he was a professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies until 1940, when he emigrated to New York City. From 1948 to 1969, he was a visiting professor at New York University.
Bettina Bien Greaves is a former resident scholar, trustee, and longtime staff member of the Foundation for Economic Education. She has written and lectured extensively on topics of free market economics. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Human Events, Reason, and The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty. A student of Mises, Greaves has become an expert on his work in particular and that of the Austrian School of economics in general. She has translated several Mises monographs, compiled an annotated bibliography of his work, and edited collections of papers by Mises and other members of the Austrian School.
Table of Contents
Foreword ix
Author's Preface xiii
Introduction
1 The Problem 1
2 Capitalism or Market Economy 2
3 The Socialist Economy 6
4 The Capitalist State and the Socialist State 9
5 The Interventionist State 10
6 The Plea for Moral Reform 13
I Interference by Restriction
1 The Nature of Restrictive Measures 19
2 Costs and Benefits of Restrictive Measures 20
3 The Restrictive Measure as a Privilege 21
4 Restrictive Measures as Expenditures 22
II Interference by Price Control
1 The Alternative: Statutory Law versus Economic Law 24
2 The Reaction of the Market 27
3 Minimum Wages and Unemployment 31
4 The Political Consequences of Unemployment 34
III Inflation and Credit Expansion
1 Inflation 37
2 Credit Expansion 41
3 Foreign Exchange Control 47
4 The Flight of Capital and the Problem of "Hot Money" 49
IV Confiscation and Subsidies
1 Confiscation 53
2 The Procurement of Funds for Public Expenditure 55
3 Unprofitable Public Works and Subsidies 58
4 "Altruistic" Entrepreneurship 60
V Corporativism and Syndicalism
1 Corporativism 62
2 Syndicalism 66
VI War Economy
1 War and the Market Economy 69
2 Total War and War Socialism 70
3 Market Economy and National Defense 73
VII The Economic, Social, and Political Consequences of Interventionism
1 The Economic Consequences 78
2 Parliamentary Government and Interventionism 81
3 Freedom and the Economic System 83
4 The Great Delusion 86
5 The Source of Hitler's Success 88
VIII Conclusions 93
Reading References 97
Index 99