The “Progressives” Who Today Masquerade as “Liberals” May Rant Against “Fascism”; Yet It Is Their Policy that Paves the Way for Hitlerism

An ideological struggle cannot be fought successfully with constant concessions to the principles of the enemy. Those who refute capitalism because it supposedly is inimical to the interest of the masses, those who proclaim “as a matter of course” that after the victory over Hitler the market economy will have to be replaced by a better system and, therefore, everything should be done now to make the government control of business as complete as possible, are actually fighting for totalitarianism. The “progressives” who today masquerade as “liberals” may rant against “fascism”; yet it is their policy that paves the way for Hitlerism.

Nothing could have been more helpful to the success of the National-Socialist (Nazi) movement than the methods used by the “progressives,” denouncing Nazism as a party serving the interests of “capital.” The German workers knew this tactic too well to be deceived by it again. Was it not true that, since the seventies of the [nineteenth] century, the ostensibly pro-labor Social-Democrats had fought all the pro-labor measures of the German government vigorously, calling them “bourgeois” and injurious to the interests of the working class? The Social-Democrats had consistently voted against the nationalization of the railroads, the municipalization of the public utilities, labor legislation, and compulsory accident, sickness, and old-age insurance, the German social security system which was adopted later throughout the world. Then after the war [World War I] the Communists branded the German Social-Democratic party and the Social-Democratic unions as “traitors to their class.” So the German workers realized that every party wooing them called the competing parties “willing servants of capitalism,” and their allegiance to Nazism would not be shattered by such phrases.

—Ludwig von Mises, Interventionism: An Economic Analysis, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves, trans. Thomas Francis McManus and Heinrich Bund (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011), 89-90.

If an Individual Looks out for His Own Interest within the Framework of Private Property and Market Exchange He Is Doing Everything the Society Expects of Him. In Following the Profit Motive His Action Becomes Social

The reformers whose suggestions we are here discussing want to establish additional ethical norms besides the legal order and the moral code designed to maintain and to protect private property. They desire results in production and consumption different from those produced by the unhampered market in which there is no limitation upon the individuals save the one not to violate private property. They want to eliminate the forces which guide the actions of the individual in the market economy. They call them selfishness, egoism, the profit motive, or the like, and they want to replace them with other forces. They speak of conscience, of altruism, of awe of God, of brotherly love. And they want to replace “production for profit” with “production for use.” They believe that this would suffice to secure the harmonious cooperation of men in an economy based on the division of labor so that there would not be any need for interventions—commands and interdictions—by an authority. . . .

If the individual looks out for his own interest within the framework provided by private property and market exchange he is doing everything the society expects of him. In following the profit motive his action necessarily becomes social.

--Ludwig von Mises, introduction to Interventionism: An Economic Analysis, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves, trans. Thomas Francis McManus and Heinrich Bund (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011), 14-15.

Simply by Advising the Individual to Follow the Voice of His Conscience and to replace Egoism by Altruism We Cannot Create a Reasonable Social Order

By trying to replace the profit motive, the guiding principle of private ownership of the means of production, by so-called moral motives, we are destroying the purposiveness and the efficiency of the market economy. Simply by advising the individual to follow the voice of his conscience and to replace egoism by altruism we cannot create a reasonable social order which could supplant the market economy. It is not enough to suggest that the individual should not buy at the lowest price and should not sell at the highest price. It would be necessary to go further and to establish rules of conduct which would guide the individual in his activity.

--Ludwig von Mises, introduction to Interventionism: An Economic Analysis, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves, trans. Thomas Francis McManus and Heinrich Bund (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011), 15.

The Usual Terminology of Political Language Is Stupid! Why Should Hitler Be “Right” and Stalin, His Temporary Friend, Be “Left”?

The workers in the Anglo-Saxon countries, too, knew that the socialist parties competing for their favor usually accused each other of favoring capitalism. Communists of all shades advance this accusation against socialists. And within the Communist groups the Trotskyites used this same argument against Stalin and his men. And vice versa. The fact that the “progressives” bring the same accusation against Nazism and Fascism will not prevent labor someday from following another gang wearing shirts of a different color.

What is wrong with Western civilization is the accepted habit of judging political parties merely by asking whether they seem new and radical enough, not by analyzing whether they are wise or unwise, or whether they are apt to achieve their aims. Not everything that exists today is reasonable; but this does not mean that everything that does not exist is sensible.

The usual terminology of political language is stupid. What is “left” and what is “right”? Why should Hitler be “right” and Stalin, his temporary friend, be “left”? [Remember that when Mises wrote this in 1940, Hitler and Stalin were allies under the terms of their August 1939 mutual nonaggression treaty.] Who is “reactionary” and who is “progressive”? Reaction against an unwise policy is not to be condemned. And progress towards chaos is not to be commended. Nothing should find acceptance just because it is new, radical, and fashionable. “Orthodoxy” is not an evil if the doctrine on which the “orthodox” stand is sound. Who is anti-labor, those who want to lower labor to the Russian level, or those who want for labor the capitalistic standard of the United States? Who is “nationalist,” those who want to bring their nation under the heel of the Nazis, or those who want to preserve its independence?

What would have happened to Western civilization if its peoples had always shown such liking for the “new”? Suppose they had welcomed as “the wave of the future” Attila and his Huns, the creed of Mohammed, or the Tartars? They, too, were totalitarian and had military successes to their credit which made the weak hesitate and ready to capitulate. What mankind needs today is liberation from the rule of nonsensical slogans and a return to sound reasoning.

--Ludwig von Mises, Interventionism: An Economic Analysis, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves, trans. Thomas Francis McManus and Heinrich Bund (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011), 91-92.