I am starting to realize that on war and foreign policy, I don’t one bit agree with von Mises.
I feel like I am reading Thomas Sowell in his more belligerent moments. Just imagine that neoconservative saying, “They did not intend to aid the Muslims and the jihadists. But if they had this intention, they could not have acted differently.”
In moments like these, I am much more in agreement with Rothbard, who said that in modern warfare, where millions of civilians are to face collective punishment along with soldiers in heavy bombardment of cities, it is futile to say that you are making peace by armament and wilful attack on any potential aggressor.
What I find a little discomforting is von Mises’ idea that Free Trade will be the ultimate solution to stopping all war altogether, because any of us common non-academic folks - who knows human nature - knows it to be not true. It’s not that it’s wrong, but while it may reduce the usual causation of economic nationalism fueling war, it will do nothing to remove innate and motivated evil in men to destroy those whom they don’t like, no matter what costs.
Mises was pretty affected by WWI and WWII. I think in ways that none of us can understand, having never had to live through, or fight in, such events.
That’s not an excuse, but it is important to remember the context and frame of my mind he had towards these issues. If he had lived during peacetime, his responses may have been different.
I disagree with you about how much us common folk know about human nature. Look at the events of yesterday as proof.
I’ve also read Omnipotent Government. In defense of Mises, I think he means that a policy of re-armament (to prepare for any Nazi aggression) and publicly opposing the Nazi regime (in terms of speeches, pronouncements, resolutions, etc.) would have been better. While I don’t know for sure, I seriously doubt he was talking about a preemptive war à la the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I think the German imperialists were a different matter entirely from the present-day Jihadists. Both had intentions of conquest. But, unlike the Jihadists, the Germans actually had means; it was one of the greatest industrial nations in existence at the time.
I’ve also read Omnipotent Government. In defense of Mises, I think he means that a policy of re-armament (to prepare for any Nazi aggression) and publicly opposing the Nazi regime (in terms of speeches, pronouncements, resolutions, etc.) would have been better. While I don’t know for sure, I seriously doubt he was talking about a preemptive war à la the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I haven’t read the book in question, but from the statement the OP presented, I have to imagine it was something like that above. Disarmament in the face of threats while simultaneously incentivising the Germans to use force by restricting free trade doesn’t seem like a great idea. This doesn’t mean the only solution is to pre-emptively strike.
On that point do Jihadists have any real intentions of conquest at all? Who’s been out to conquer and invade what? The term Jihadist I found extremely vague. It doesn’t differentiate between Hamas, Hezbollah, Afghan Tribes, Taliban or anything. Just lumps them in the same category because Muslim elements are found.
When I read this it made me remember another tendency I’ve seen in Mises that’s quite disheartening.He seems to think of war as spreading free trade -the idea of so called ‘free trade imperialism’.
I also believe in emphasising on the difference between Islamic groups, and not assuming that what happens in Sudan is the same as what happens in Chechnya.
All the same, Mises is pretty up front in saying that neutrality and non-intervention are tantamount to deliberate aiding of an enemy. He takes the oft-repeated conservative stance that anti-warriors are just academic ideologues who will be complicit in suicide of their fellow people rather than admit to be wrong.
Hoppe was surprised when asked about why Mises said in one of his books that he supports the draft. I do not think it is surprising at all. Mises was a hardcore self-described patriot. Omnipotent Government reveals him to be a strong lover of fellow German people (despite being Jewish), even though it was written in the middle of WWII. He can say so even while Hitler was occupying various tiny European nations, because he cheerfully admits that the German people have always been disturbers of peace, a perpetually imperfect family of his.
What he does seem to believe in is the idea of a strong mutual loyalty and a strong common consciousness of German people - instead of hiring foreign mercenaries to fight (disciplined under threat of beatings and punishment), a free German man must voluntarily fight in the name of his fellow men, motivated by sheer love for country and nothing else (even under a despotic ruler). It was so, because Mises seems to feel that a strong common love for people of the same culture was something that could mow over the despots in the long run anyway. Considering what happened in 1848, Mises believed in the power of ordinary people fighting for their country.
As such, he seems to feel that it was stupid for the French, Russian, and British to not be fighting for their countries from get-go, from the moment they heard Hitler’s speeches. They should have shown the same patriotism that the Germans had shown for a long time. He seems offended by Russian concessions to Hitler, feeling that even if they were Soviets, they should still have been patriotic and fighting for their own interests, even if that meant allegiance with capitalist nations.
In this respect, I simply wonder what he may have thought of Rothbard when Rothbard clapped for Kruschev arriving in a limousine in New York and then explaining to outraged onlookers that he did it because Kruschev killed less people than Eisenhower did. I guess it’s why a lot of us are closer to Rothbard, in that Rothbard was the radical, while von Mises more of the man who still loved cookie cutter idealism and a sense of common solidarity
When I read this it made me remember another tendency I’ve seen in Mises that’s quite disheartening.He seems to think of war as spreading free trade -the idea of so called ‘free trade imperialism’.
He believed colonization led to a greater volume of trade, which it did. There are better ways of opening trade, but I think in these cases Mises was trying to be pragmatic (perhaps not morally consistent, but Mises’s views on morality were different from those of later Austrians [viz. Rothbard]). In any case, Mises lived in a time in which Europe was forming and re-forming alliances, constantly keeping an eye on one another, and he, himself was the product of the First World War.
Mises was not a idealistic nationalist for nationalism’s sake. He believed in language-group (nationality) independence only for the sake of democracy (because he believed language minorities are second-class citizens in democracies), and he believed in democracy only for the sake of peace and liberalism (because he believed that all governments depend on the power of public opinion-- which can hopefully be swayed by liberal intellectuals–, and that democracy can adapt to shifts in public opinion without violent civil wars).
What I find a little discomforting is von Mises’ idea that Free Trade will be the ultimate solution to stopping all war altogether, because any of us common non-academic folks - who knows human nature - knows it to be not true. It’s not that it’s wrong, but while it may reduce the usual causation of economic nationalism fueling war, it will do nothing to remove innate and motivated evil in men to destroy those whom they don’t like, no matter what costs.
I actually think this is where human nature, namely its rationality, supports Mises’s thesis. There will be individuals who find greater pleasure in harming what they dislike than in any other possible action they could undertake, but in an environment of free trade the fact is that the number of people willing to follow him decrease. Free trade decreases the propensity for war because more people have more to lose.
Of course, Hitler’s case was a little more complicated, given that he was voted into power in a time of extreme despair for the German people. But, had we lived in a (marginally) freer, more prosperous world the environment that led to Hitler’s rise to power would not have existed.
Concerning war as a route to peace and the Second World War, you have to realize that the events which set the process into motion occurred prior to 1939. Had the French and English invaded the Germans in 1936, at the start of the German re-armament (as per the Treaty of Versailles), I don’t think the Second World War would have occurred. The same goes with the fact that Hitler would have been severely handicapped had there been greater pressure on disallowing him Czechoslovakia. Instead, the Western Powers waited for Germany to invade Poland, and even then was largely inactive. The war had really started much earlier, with Hitler’s intentions. Ending the war earlier would have been much better.
Not as awkward as I felt when I read of Rothbard’s position on nukes. Reminded me of those XVIII workers burning the new factory machines for being such game-changers. But still, OG is where I see Mises straying the furthest from his ‘normal’ position. It’s even more extreme than Nationalkonomie, which was written right after he came back from actually fighting the war.
But as for his idea that free trade can stop wars, or that closing one’s market to the world is a ticket for invasion, there I fully agree. In this sense war is but a means of sorting out those nations who’ve yet to accept free trade and free capital movement.
Ultimately Mises is not far off. What played a great role in bringing about what we know as WWII was the ambiguity of Western position. Hitler did not know what they would do and gambled on them doing nothing.
Probably either full appeasement or forging of a clear anti-Hitler camp would have prevented war from breaking out. But instead Britain and France went along some half-hearted middle of the road route. England issued a war guarantee to Poland, but then regreted it. Thus raising doubts with Hitler wether it was meaningful.
Remember that this was the 1930s when Europe was still scarred by WWI. Nobody wanted a full European war, including Hitler, remembering what a disaster the last one had been. Also nobody then suspected that Germany would be able to crash France. The expectation on both sides was of a long, exhausting and inconclusive war.
Certainly the French communists resisted the German occupation. What is interesting is that even though those people believed that nations must dissolve, national governments protect a chauvinistic elite,.etc, even a communist felt his heart tearing when he saw his nation occupied and felt a strong patriotic stirring.
However, Mises refers to a prewar period. The Soviets made a pact with the Nazis to keep them off. Their position was consistent. Why should communists rush to defend the capitalist world? Or rather do anything which protects or preserves them? Let the capitalists destroy each other, and let the inevitable quickly take its course. It was an ideological position, and as Mises says, not a practical or a patriotic one.
Omnipotent Government does later emphasise that true Marxism must allow for natural capitalism to fully take its course in order to eventually fall apart and give way to socialism. Wars, wartime powers, interventions, and the rest take away from natural capitalism. While these often result in inefficiencies and halted production (consistent Marxists are against regulation and state control of economy, on grounds of supporting efficiency and productivity), it is only worse that they temporarily deviate from the already ordained path of capitalism and slow down the whole cycle. Perhaps a consistent Marxist position should have been to side with and protect the capitalist nations to end the war early so that capitalism remains true and pure. However, Mises says that most Marxists are not consistent, have other doctrines or interests, and make many compromises. So while the Soviet position on the Nazis was ideological, it was not pure Marxism either.
(If any poster from RevLeft is reading this post, by all means correct me; I am amenable.)