Interventionism: An Economic Analysis

by Ludwig von Mises, Bettina Bien Greaves

Overview

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 (1881–1973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian School of economics throughout most of the twentieth century.

Bettina Bien Greaves is a former resident scholar and trustee of the Foundation for Economic Education and was a senior staff member at FEE from 1951 to 1999.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780865977396
Publisher:	Liberty Fund, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/24/2011
Series:	Liberty Fund Library of the Works of Ludwig von Mises
Pages:	122
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

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

Editorial Reviews

The Midwest Book Review
April 2011

To understand economics, you have to understand people. Interventionism: An Economic Analysis looks at the work of Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian economist who has gained renown among his peers even with his teachings that went against mainstream economic theory. Stating that economy must be free or controlled and not something in between, his thoughts, while not popular, have proven quite thoughtful and prove to be required reading for blossoming economists. Interventionism is a thoughtful study and solid addition to any community library economics collection.

Reference and Research Book News
April 2011

This reprint of the original 1940 work of Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises provides renewed access to one of the major works of this important pillar of radical free-market economic libertarianism. Von Mises argues for a binary analysis of political influence on economies, that there is only the natural state of a totally free economic system or socialist dictatorship and that an interventionist "third way" that seeks to regulate business for the betterment of society in fact simply damages both.

From the Publisher