What Pushes a Man toward Social Behavior and Law Abidance Is His Own Rightly Understood Selfishness; What Speaks in Favor of International Peace Is Precisely the Consideration of a Nation’s Own Rightly Understood Selfish Interests

From the point of view of “natural law” the only just state of affairs is equality of income. The unfathomable decrees of Heaven have brought about inequality. It would be tantamount to a rebellion against divine and human law for the underprivileged to resort to violence in order to abolish this injustice. By such methods they could profit on earth, but they would imperil their spiritual salvation. On the other hand, the rich have only one means to atone for their questionable riches. They must make the proper use of their wealth, that is, they must be charitable and must subordinate their greed to justice and fairness.

The selfish earthly interests of individuals and of groups of individuals are antagonistic. If left alone, they would result in violent conflicts. Social cooperation and peace are possible only where men are motivated—either by voluntary obedience to the moral law or by compulsion on the part of the powers that be—to curb their egoism.

Utilitarianism and classical economics have entirely overthrown this philosophy.

Their reasoning runs this way: The means of subsistence are scarce, and their limited quantity puts a check upon the number of animals that may occupy the surface of the earth. But, while the beasts know no method of improving their own conditions other than to snatch food away from their rivals, man is in a much more propitious position. Reason taught him the advantages of social cooperation and its corollary, the division of labor. Labor performed under the system of the division of tasks is much more productive than the isolated efforts of self-sufficient individuals. Every step forward to a higher degree of the division of labor directly and immediately improves the material well-being of the individuals and groups concerned. The advantages of social cooperation are so manifest that nobody can ignore them. Their acknowledgment is the motive that pushes man toward social behavior.

It is, therefore, a mistake to assume that an individual in adjusting his conduct to the requirements of life within society and a nation in renouncing war to avoid endangering the international division of labor, sacrifice, for the sake of a heteronomous morality, their own selfish interests for reasons not open to rational explanation. What pushes a man toward social behavior and law abidance is his own rightly understood selfishness. What speaks in favor of international peace is precisely the consideration of a nation’s own rightly understood selfish interests. If a man abstains from robbing a fellow man or if a nation abstains from aggression against other nations, each forgoes a smaller immediate gain in order to reap a bigger indirect profit. Society is for every individual the foremost means for the attainment of all ends sought.

--Ludwig von Mises, "Economics as a Bridge for Interhuman Understanding," in Economic Freedom and Interventionism: An Anthology of Articles and Essays, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1990), 254-255.