Bernie’s “Socialism” is just Good Old Fashioned Keynesian Social Democracy

It is usually very hard to get excited about the left-wing politicians anywhere in the West these days, but the rise of the US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is quite refreshing.

It is predictable that all the usual right-wing halfwits are screaming the accusation of “socialism” against Sanders – as if this means Marxism or Communism or a total command economy. It’s nonsense, of course.

Bernie is just a good old fashioned European social democrat in American form, as we can see in this video.



He rejects Marxism and Communism, and believes in a mixed economy with strong macroeconomic interventions and remedial programs to address the worst aspects of capitalism. That is in line with the finest tradition of John Maynard Keynes.

For Keynes, the most serious flaws in capitalism were as follows:

“The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.” (Keynes 1936: 372).

Of course, we could add all sorts of other problems to this that are peculiar to the unusually harsh American version of capitalism: lack of universal health care, highly expensive college education, not enough social security, and so on.

Unfortunately, I think – on pragmatic grounds – that Bernie Sanders would really do better to call himself a Keynesian social democrat, not a socialist. It would communicate so much more effectively what he, in fact, is in political terms.

It would also make it easier to defend himself against charges of the sort we see in the video below.



Bill O’Reilly – shining example of right-wing American idiocy – obviously thinks immediately of Marxism and communism whenever he thinks of “socialism.” Quite possibly he thinks all of Western Europe is “communist” from the way he talks.

If your opponents are so stupid as to think in these terms, it would be better – simply on tactical grounds – for Bernie Sanders to defend his policy position as Keynesian social democracy, in the finest tradition of Roosevelt and Truman.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Keynes, J. M. 1936. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Macmillan, London.

Keynes versus Engels on “Socialism”

Matias Vernengo draws attention to an interesting comment on socialism by John Maynard Keynes here.

The context is as follows: in an interview with the leftist British journalist Kingsley Martin (1897–1969) in the New Statesman of January 1939, Keynes – commenting on the need for a new interventionist economic system and at the same time the need to avoid the authoritarianism of the Fascist and communist states – said this:

“The question is whether we are prepared to move out of the nineteenth-century laissez faire state into an era of liberal socialism, by which I mean a system where we can act as an organized community for common purposes and to promote social and economic justice, whilst respecting and protecting the individual—his freedom of choice, his faith, his mind and its expression, his enterprise and his property.” (Moggridge 1982: 500 = Keynes and Martin 1939: 123).

What Keynes calls “socialism” here is not Marxism of course, but what we would now call a social democratic state: a capitalist economy but with strong government interventions for macroeconomic stability and full employment, effective regulation and government interventions to address social and other problems. Above all, it is a system where all the best values of Classical liberalism – such as democracy, constitutional government, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of (and from!) religion, civil liberties, and reasonable property rights – are preserved.

Contrast Keynes’ ideas with Engels’ vision of the transitional socialist/communist state:

“A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Friedrich Engels, “On Authority,” 1874
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

Engels was fairly frank, and the historical attempts to implement Marxism fully confirm that this is how Communism works out – not only in theory but also in practice.

A rational and humane person should prefer Keynes’ liberal vision of the just society – and not the cult of Marxism and Communism, which has been a blot on the Left in much the same way that Fascism has been a blot on the Right.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Engels, Friedrich. “On Authority,” 1874
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

Keynes, John Maynard and Kingsley Martin. 1939. “Democracy and Efficiency,” New Statesman and Nation 17.414 (January 28): 121–123.

Moggridge, D. E. (ed.). 1982. The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes. Volume 21. Macmillan, London.

Mises on Mixed Economies and Socialism: He is Incoherent

In a rather stunning passage, we get this statement in Human Action:

“The market economy must be strictly differentiated from the second thinkable—although not realizable—system of social cooperation under the division of labor: the system of social or governmental ownership of the means of production. This second system is commonly called socialism, communism, planned economy, or state capitalism. The market economy or capitalism, as it is usually called, and the socialist economy preclude one another. There is no mixture of the two systems possible or thinkable; there is no such thing as a mixed economy, a system that would be in part capitalistic and in part socialist. Production is directed by the market or by the decrees of a production tsar or a committee of production tsars.

If within a society based on private ownership by the means of production some of these means are publicly owned and operated—that is, owned and operated by the government or one of its agencies—this does not make for a mixed system which would combine socialism and capitalism. The fact that the state or municipalities own and operate some plants does not alter the characteristic features of the market economy. These publicly owned and operated enterprises are subject to the sovereignty of the market. They must fit themselves, as buyers of raw materials, equipment, and labor, and as sellers of goods and services, into the scheme of the market economy. They are subject to the laws of the market and thereby depend on the consumers who may or may not patronize them. They must strive for profits or, at least, to avoid losses. The government may cover losses of its plants or shops by drawing on public funds. But this neither eliminates nor mitigates the supremacy of the market; it merely shifts it to another sector. For the means for covering the losses must be raised by the imposition of taxes. But this taxation has its effects on the market and influences the economic structure according to the laws of the market. It is the operation of the market, and not the government collecting the taxes, that decides upon whom the incidence of the taxes falls and how they affect production and consumption. Thus the market, not a government bureau, determines the working of these publicly operated enterprises.

Nothing that is in any way connected with the operation of a market is in the praxeological or economic sense to be called socialism. The notion of socialism as conceived and defined by all socialists implies the absence of a market for factors of production and of prices of such factors.” (Mises 1998: 259-260).

Did you get that? There is no such thing as a mixed economy. I do not find this convincing, but its logical implications are interesting.

According to Mises, a market economy even with some degree of government owned and operated industry still does not make an economy “socialist.” What makes an economy “socialist” is the “absence of a market for factors of production and of prices of such factors.”

So what on earth were the mixed economies of the golden age of capitalism (1945 to 1973) with their Keynesian fiscal policies, financial regulation, and central banks? Mises published the first edition of Human Action in 1949 when he observed all around him the reality of Western mixed economies with nationalised industries and Keynesian fiscal policies. He must have looked in horror as this system produced unprecedented economic growth, low unemployment and economic stability. Was this his justification of why the system he saw around him was working and prospering?

Curiously, no. He appears to have declared most of the capitalist West “socialist” after 1945!

But the trouble is that Mises is simply astonishingly inconsistent and incoherent on this subject. Having defined “socialism” as an economy without markets “for factors of production and of prices of such factors,” Mises then tells us that Britain and other nations after 1945 were in fact socialist but for different reasons:

“Marching ever further on the way of interventionism, first Germany, then Great Britain and many other European countries have adopted central planning, the Hindenburg pattern of socialism. It is noteworthy that in Germany the deciding measures were not resorted to by the Nazis, but some time before Hitler seized power by Bruning, the Catholic Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, and in Great Britain not by the Labor Party but by the Tory Prime Minister Mr. Churchill. The fact has been purposely obscured by the great sensation made in Great Britain about the nationalization of the Bank of England, the coal mines, and other enterprises. However, these seizures were of subordinate importance only. Great Britain is to be called a socialist country not because certain enterprises have been formally expropriated and nationalized, but because all the economic activities of all citizens are subject to full control by the government and its agencies. The authorities direct the allocation of capital and of manpower to the various branches of business; they determine what should be produced and in what quality and quantity, and they assign to each consumer a definite ration. Supremacy in all economic matters is exclusively vested in the government. The people are reduced to the status of wards. To the businessmen, the former entrepreneurs, merely quasi-managerial functions are left. All that they are free to do is to carry into effect the entrepreneurial decisions of the authorities within a neatly delimited narrow field.” (Mises 1998: 855).

Something stinks in Human Action: it is basic standards of argument, consistency and factual accuracy.

First, factual accuracy. According to Mises, the UK after 1945 was a “socialist country,” because the government (allegedly) planned all investment and consumption! Now, while it is true that the UK even after 1945 did (for example) have rationing for some years, the idea that Britain was a total planned economy is so bizarrely factually incorrect that it boggles the mind.

In the UK, the reality is that rationing for clothing and furniture was abolished in 1948 (before Human Action was published), and all other limited rationing by 1954. There was indeed some nationalisation of certain industries in the UK after 1945 (the “commanding heights”), but we have already seen above that Mises specifically denies that some limited nationalised industries can make a country socialist. Nor did the use of Keynesian fiscal policy involve planning of production or consumption. And most capital goods in the UK were privately owned, most production was private and conducted for profit, and to satisfy consumer preferences. Mises was utterly ignorant or delusional when he declared that in Britain “all the economic activities of all citizens are subject to full control by the government and its agencies.”

Second, let us turn to consistency of argument. The UK without any doubt had money prices and markets for factor inputs after 1945, so according to Mises’s fundamental criterion expressed above in the first passage from Human Action the UK cannot have been a socialist country.

Yet mysteriously Mises declares that it was a “socialist country,” blatantly contradicting himself. The whole inconsistency is made much worse by the strident statement in Human Action (on the page after my last quotation) that most of the post-1945 Western European countries were now also socialist too! (Mises 1998: 856). Yet there is no doubt that these nations (like the UK) also had money prices for factors of production. So how can they have been socialist? We have an astonishing contradiction here.

Moreover, if Western European nations really were socialist and lacked economic calculation, then a central element of Mises’s whole economic theory comes crashing down. Why didn’t the UK or “socialist” Western Europe collapse into chaos after 1945 if they were incapable of rational economic calculation?

Well, Mises does have an answer. We suddenly read in Human Action (Mises 1998: 856) that in fact Western Europe was still able to calculate, and these economies were still based on economic calculation — despite the fact that Mises declares them “socialist” and his definition of “socialism” is an economy that lacks economic calculation. The main reason (according to Mises) was that the market economy of the United States allowed Western Europe to engage in economic calculation, even though in reality (though it never filtered through to Mises’s brain) the economy of the United States was subject to almost the same degree of government intervention (apart from nationalised industry, which, as we have already seen, is irrelevant anyhow) as any Western European nation!

Finally, let us be charitable and assume that Mises was thinking of the UK during WWII when he wrote the passage above. In WWII, there was indeed a moderate command economy in Britain (as in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) where a considerable amount of (mainly military) production was planned by the government. But even during the war money prices and markets for factor inputs still existed, so the UK cannot have been a socialist country even in these years. So, by Mises’s own logic, even Western wartime command economies cannot really have been “socialist” systems at all — even though those command economies really were the only real historical instance when the Western economies was run rather like planned, communist systems.

Just reading Human Action on these issues, it is astonishing to me that anyone can ever declare that Mises was the greatest economist who ever lived (as some Austrians actually do). On this subject, Mises was an ignorant and muddle-headed idiot, and it is not surprising that after 1945 he was ignored by serious economists.

I can just imagine economists reading these passages of Human Action and then throwing the book in the dustbin as they moved on to more important matters.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mises, L. 1998. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. The Scholar's Edition. Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala.

If Static Equilibrium Existed in the Real World...

If static equilibrium states existed in real world economies, then, according to Mises, socialism in the sense of the socialist calculation debate is possible:

“The static state can dispense with economic calculation. For here the same events in economic life are ever recurring; and if we assume that the first disposition of the static socialist economy follows on the basis of the final state of the competitive economy, we might at all events conceive of a socialist production system which is rationally controlled from an economic point of view.” (Mises 1990: 16).

I am amazed how large numbers of Austrians seem aware of this view by Mises. But, as Mises himself admits, such static equilibrium states are imaginary: they do not exist in the real world.

But transitioning from one equilibrium state to another is at the heart of Hayekian Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT), which is heavily influenced by neoclassical theory.

Hayek’s trade cycle theory was a static equilibrium theory, and also assumes that all markets do in fact clear (Caldwell 2004: 324), partly by glossing over the role of uncertainty and assuming perfect foresight. But severe problems with Hayek’s static equilibrium theory had already emerged in the 1930s:

“by the middle of the 1930s, problems with [Hayek’s] static equilibrium theory had become ever more evident, as questions of the role of expectations came to the fore and, and, with them, the recognition that earlier models had assumed perfect foresight” (Caldwell 2004: 224).

“Hayek’s changing assessment of the importance of equilibrium theory has some consequences for our story. The most telling of these concerns Hayek’s trade cycle theory, a paradigmatic example of equilibrium theory, one that Witt (1997, 48) describes as ‘an impressive example of allied price theoretical reasoning that may even delight a Chicago equilibrium economist.’ But, as Witt goes on to observe, if one rejects the usefulness of equilibrium analysis, then Hayek’s step-by-set story of how the cycle unfolds, one in which ‘each single stage necessarily had to be followed by the next one’ (46), can no longer be maintained. Witt concludes that Hayek’s cycle theory may well be incompatible with his later theory of spontaneous orders, a concern that others have voiced” (Caldwell 2004: 228).

This is another problem with ABCT.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Caldwell, B. 2004. Hayek’s Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.

Mises, L. von. 1990. Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (trans. S. Adler), Ludwig Von Mises Institute, Auburn University, Auburn, Ala.

Chomsky on the Meaning of Socialism

Noam Chomsky is America’s leading advocate of libertarian socialism, though his political and economic thought draws on diverse traditions and the thinking of intellectuals such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, Mikhail Bakunin, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Rudolf Rocker. Chomsky’s conception of “socialism” is anarcho-syndicalism, a system where production and production institutions would be worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises. Other notable syndicalists were Rudolf Rocker and the young Bertrand Russell. Syndicalism has been a major non-Marxist socialist tradition. Chomsky gives his views on the meaning of socialism in the video below.




I would argue, however, that either (1) radical progressive liberalism or (2) social democracy of the Scandinavian type has just as legitimate a claim to the name “democratic socialism.” Of course, one of the severe failings of progressive liberalism and social democracy is the inability to free themselves from neoclassical economics and the power of the private capitalist institutions. When Chomsky quotes John Dewey and complains that “politics is the shadow cast on society by big business,” he is no doubt right. The excesses of modern multinational corporations and big business are an outrage on many levels.

But, while worker-run enterprises might very well provide a superior form of business organisation, it seems to me that in some respects they would still face much the same problems as private capitalists: if the decision-making done in a worker-managed enterprise/cooperative is done by its workers, and there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of such cooperatives making de-centralized decision-making on production (even if this involves a democratic process involving many people in each individual enterprise), then you would have decisions on investment and production made in a decentralised manner that is essentially private. If the economy uses money and has some types of financial assets as a store of value, you have exactly the same problems that exist now. The people involved would still be making decisions under subjective expectations and fundamental uncertainty, and investment would, most probably, be subject to fluctuation. Say’s law would not hold in a syndicalist economy. In such an economy, there would still be failures of aggregate demand, and some democratically-accountable institution would be required to intervene at the macro-level to overcome such macro-problems. That institution would, I contend, end up being a de facto government, and would probably also accrue other responsibilities such as implementing democratic decisions on foreign policy, defence, monetary policy, science policy, education standards, and so on. I suspect that a syndicalist society would evolve into a state-based system not that much different from the most radical forms of progressive liberalism or social democracy.

Was Mises a Socialist?: Why Mises Refutes Himself on Government Intervention

First, let me say that the title of this post is tongue-in-cheek (yes, Mises can hardly be considered a real socialist).

Many years ago, George J. Schuller reviewed the first edition of Mises’ Human Action (1949). Murray Rothbard (1951) wrote a reply to this review and in turn Schuller (1951) answered Rothbard’s criticisms. A re-reading of that exchange repays the effort involved.

As is well known, Ludwig von Mises argued that government intervention will always be inefficient and contrary to economic law. According to Mises, such intervention is unstable and will lead to chaos from which either socialism or capitalism will emerge (Rothbard 1951: 184; Ikeda 1998: 346; Mises 1997: 37–38).

Here is Mises’ definition of government intervention:

“The intervention is a decree issued directly or indirectly, by the authority in charge of society’s administrative apparatus of coercion and compulsion which forces the entrepreneurs and capitalists to employ some of the factors of production in a way different from what they would have resorted to if they were only obeying the dictates of the market. Such a decree can be either an order to do something or an order not to do something. It is not required that the decree be issued directly by the established and generally recognized authority itself. It may happen that some other agencies arrogate to themselves the power to issue such orders or prohibitions and to enforce them by an apparatus of violent coercion and oppression of their own. If the recognized government tolerates such procedures or even supports them by the employment of its governmental police apparatus, matters stand as if the government itself had acted. If the government is opposed to other agencies’ violent action, but does not succeed in suppressing it by means of its own armed forces, although it would like to suppress it, anarchy results” (Mises 1998 [1949]: 714–715).

Next we have Mises quite clearly giving his views on interventionism:

“the supporters of the most recent variety of interventionism, the German “soziale Marktwirtschaft [i.e., post-WWII social market economy in Germany],” stress that they consider the market economy to be the best possible and most desirable system of society’s economic organization, and that they are opposed to the government omnipotence of socialism. But, of course, all these advocates of a middle-of-the-road policy emphasize with the same vigor that they reject Manchesterism and laissez-faire liberalism. …. All these champions of interventionism fail to realize that their program thus implies the establishment of full government supremacy in all economic matters and ultimately brings about a state of affairs that does not differ from what is called the German or the Hindenburg pattern of socialism. If it is in the jurisdiction of the government to decide whether or not definite conditions of the economy justify its intervention, no sphere of operation is left to the market. Then it is no longer the consumers who ultimately determine what should be produced, in what quantity, of what quality, by whom, where, and how—but it is the government. For as soon as the outcome brought about by the operation of the unhampered market differs from what the authorities consider “socially” desirable, the government interferes. That means the market is free as long as it does precisely what the government wants it to do. It is “free” to do what the authorities consider to be the “right” things, but not to do what they consider the “wrong” things; the decision concerning what is right and what is wrong rests with the government. Thus the doctrine and the practice of interventionism ultimately tend to abandon what originally distinguished them from outright socialism and to adopt entirely the principles of totalitarian all-round planning” (Mises 1996: 723–724).

In this passage, Mises condemned the post-WWII mixed Keynesian economies that existed when Human Action was published. According to him, they would tend to “totalitarian all-round planning.” Thus interventionism of any type is ruled out. Presumably this was supposed to be a theory of Mises’ praxeology, which according to him would have “apodictic certainty.” If not, then this passage is clearly Mises’ own opinion that would need justification independently of his praxeology.

Rothbard characterised Mises’ position in his reply to Schuller as follows:

“When Mises presents us with the choice between the free market and socialism, he is saying that in-between systems of a hampered market are not coherent, consistent systems. He demonstrates that any measure of government intervention in the market creates problems and consequences which present the people with a further choice: repeal this measure, or effect another measure of governmental intervention …. interventionist measures logically lead to one or the other [sc. free market or socialism]. Since a socialist system cannot exist, the only intelligent choice is the purely free market. Since Mises demonstrates that every form of government intervention in the market creates consequences that lead to an economy worse than that of the free market, Schuller cannot distinguish between rational and irrational forms of government intervention … For Mises, all government intervention in the market is irrational and therefore contrary to economic law” (Rothbard 1951: 184).

In his reply to Rothbard on Mises’ view of interventionism, G. J. Schuller pointed out a fatal flaw and contradiction in Mises’ reasoning:

“What does ‘interventionist measures logically lead to’ mean? Either Mises believes that interventionism is cumulative and necessarily leads toward socialism and into ‘chaos’ (another undefined term), or he does not. If he does, can he explain how western nations reversed mercantilist intervention and established partially free markets in the 18th and 19th centuries, or how they accomplished partial decontrol after World Wars I and II? Can he explain how the purely free market is ever to be attained? On the other hand, if interventionism need not be cumulative (and Rothbard says it logically leads to the free market as well as to socialism) then is it necessarily incoherent, unstable, and transitory? If interventionism logically points in two opposite directions (toward zero and infinity), does it have to continue in either until it reaches respectively Elysium or chaos?” (Schuller 1951: 190).

Schuller makes a brilliant point here: there was massive mercantilist intervention in the early modern period in Europe. But this period did not end in “chaos” or “socialism”. There was mostly orderly reform of economic systems, as free trade or at least much less restrictive trade was adopted in the 19th century. Mises’ idea, if it is supposed to apply to conditions in the real world, is confronted with clear countervailing empirical evidence (of course, the pure Misesians will say that economic history is separate from praxeological theory and that empirical evidence can never verify or falsify praxeology, etc).

But, in addition, Mises has blatantly contradicted himself, because in Human Action (1949: 741) he argues that government intervention in the form of fire regulations can actually be justified:

“Economics neither approves nor disapproves of government measures restricting production and output. It merely considers it its duty to clarify the consequences of such measures. The choice of policies to be adopted devolves upon the people. But in choosing they must not disregard the teachings of economics if they want to attain the ends sought. There are certainly cases in which people may consider definite restrictive measures as justified. Regulations concerning fire prevention are restrictive and raise the cost of production. But the curtailment of total output they bring about is the price to be paid for avoidance of greater disaster. The decision about each restrictive measure is to be made on the ground of a meticulous weighing of the costs to be incurred and the prize to be obtained. No reasonable man could possibly question this rule” (Mises 1998 [1949]: 741; see Murphy and Gabriel 2008: 286 for a discussion of this passage).

Mises in the last remarks here is actually conceding that there is room for a system of intervention “on the ground of a meticulous weighing of the costs to be incurred and the prize to be obtained.” Some might argue that Mises only thought that individual interventions should be considered on the basis of “meticulous weighing.” But that will not do. Once Mises has conceded that interventions are possible and that there is a rule for allowing them, he has given us a system.

Mises’ remark that “no reasonable man could possibly question this rule” suggests that he himself agreed with it, and presumably with the idea of government fire regulations. And, even if he did not, he clearly allowed that the “choice of policies to be adopted devolves upon the people” in such cases. G. J. Schuller points out the devastating, fundamental contradiction here in Mises’ thought:

“If ‘all intervention is irrational,’ then how can Mises sanction it for ‘defense of the citizen against violent invasion of his person and property?’ Mises says: ‘The decision about each restrictive measure is to be made on the ground of a meticulous weighing of the costs to be incurred and the prize to be obtained.’ In fire regulations the prize outweighs the costs … Thus he admits that government interference in the private markets for armaments, mercenary soldiers, non-fireproofed buildings, or burglar’s equipment can attain the ends sought and need not lead to socialism. Once [Mises] … grants the distinction between intelligent and unintelligent intervention, and even the need for the former to preserve a partly free market economy, Mises leaves his sectarian Utopia and joins the rest of us in choosing among imperfect but possible alternatives in the real world” (Schuller 1951: 190).

Schuller is entirely correct. Government fire regulations are an obvious intervention even by Mises’ standards: such fire regulations require coercive government violation of private property rights and free markets, and the threat of force to maintain them.

Mises’ position is self-contradictory. In Human Action, Mises contends that intervention is unacceptable and will lead to socialism or chaos, but then makes it perfectly clear that there is room for what he thinks is intelligent and rational government intervention, which can be justified by “meticulous weighing of the costs to be incurred and the prize to be obtained.” This decision-making process is certainly also in the domain of democratic politics in a community. On this basis, one could easily construct a rational case for all manner of government interventions, from drug regulation and consumer protection all the way to Keynesian deficit spending.

Despite Mises’ argument that a system of intervention is inefficient and contrary to economic law and that such systems will lead to socialism or chaos, he actually allows for (and appears to advocate) his own particular system of government interventions!

Mises has left the back door of his praxeological system open to all types of intervention, a logical contradiction that is a massive hole in the anti-government ideology argued elsewhere in Human Action.

One might even say (tongue in cheek) that Mises’ logical inconsistency leaves him looking like a socialist in disguise.

Perhaps Austrian economists should start writing articles attacking their beloved hero with titles such as “Mises was a Red”! (after all, Rothbard did something like that for Ayn Rand - and rather well too).


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ikeda, S. 1998. “Interventionism,” in P. J. Boettke (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics, Elgar, Cheltenham, UK. 345–351.

Mises, L. 1977. A Critique of Interventionism (trans. H. F. Sennholz), Arlington House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

Mises, L. 1996. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (4th rev. edn), Fox and Wilkes, San Francisco.

Mises, L. 1998 [1949]. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala.

Murphy, R. P. and A. Gabriel, 2008. Study Guide to Human Action: A Guide Tutorial of Ludwig von Mises’s Classic Work, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala.

Rothbard. M. N. 1951. “Mises’ ‘Human Action’: Comment,” American Economic Review 41.1: 181–185.

Schuller, G. J. 1950. Review of Human Action: A Treatise on Economics by Ludwig von Mises, American Economic Review 40.3: 418–422.

Schuller, G. J. 1951. “Mises’ ‘Human Action’: Rejoinder,” American Economic Review 41.1: 185–190.