Even if we were to assume that society is divided into classes
with conflicting interests and if we were to agree that everyone is
morally obliged to follow his class interests and nothing but his
class interests, the question would still remain: What best serves
class interests? This is the point where “scientific” socialism and the
“sociology of knowledge” show their mysticism. They assume
without hesitation that whatever is demanded by one’s class interests is always immediately evident and unequivocal. The comrade
who is of a different opinion can only be a traitor to his class.
What reply can Marxian socialism make to those who, precisely on behalf of the proletarians, demand private ownership of
the means of production, and not their socialization? If they are proletarians, this demand alone is sufficient to brand them as traitors to their class, or, if they are not proletarians, as class enemies.
Or if, finally, the Marxists do choose to engage in a discussion of
the problems, they thereby abandon their doctrine; for how can
one argue with traitors to one’s class or with class enemies, whose
moral inferiority or class situation makes it impossible for them to comprehend the ideology of the proletariat?
--Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics, 3rd ed., trans. George Reisman (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2003), 201.
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