The Anti-capitalistic Mentality

by Ludwig von Mises, Bettina Bien Greaves

Overview

In The Anti-capitalistic Mentality, the respected economist Ludwig von Mises plainly explains the causes of the irrational fear and hatred many intellectuals and others feel for capitalism. In five concise chapters, he traces the causation of the misunderstandings and resultant fears that cause resistance to economic development and social change. He enumerates and rebuts the economic arguments against and the psychological and social objections to economic freedom in the form of capitalism. Written during the heyday of twentieth-century socialism, this work provides the reader with lucid and compelling insights into human reactions to capitalism.

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:	9780865976719
Publisher:	Liberty Fund, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/07/2006
Series:	Liberty Fund Library of the Works of Ludwig von Mises
Pages:	84
Sales rank:	325,502
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Preface ix
Introduction xi

CHAPTER 1 The Social Characteristics of Capitalism and
the Psychological Causes of Its Vilification 1
1 The Sovereign Consumer 1
2 The Urge for Economic Betterment 2
3 Status Society and Capitalism 3
4 The Resentment of Frustrated Ambition 7
5 The Resentment of the Intellectuals 9
6 The Anti-capitalistic Bias of American Intellectuals 11
7 The Resentment of the White Collar Workers 13
8 The Resentment of the “Cousins” 15
9 The Communism of Broadway and Hollywood 18

CHAPTER 2 The Ordinary Man’s Social Philosophy 21
1 Capitalism as It Is and as It Is Seen by the
Common Man 21
2 The Anti-capitalistic Front 26

CHAPTER 3 Literature under Capitalism 29
1 The Market for Literary Products 29
2 Success on the Book Market 30
3 Remarks about the Detective Stories 31
4 Freedom of the Press 33
5 The Bigotry of the Literati 35
6 The “Social” Novels and Plays 40

CHAPTER 4 The Noneconomic Objections to Capitalism 44
1 The Argument of Happiness 44
2 Materialism 45
3 Injustice 48
4 The “Bourgeois Prejudice” for Liberty 54
5 Liberty and Western Civilization 59

CHAPTER 5 “Anticommunism” versus Capitalism 64

Index 69