The present discussion is based on two recent books: Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problem of Economics (Van Nostrand, 239 pp., $5.50) and Wilhelm Roepke, A Humane Economy (Regnery, 312 pp., $5.00); and also on von Mises’ most important volume, Human Action, published by Yale University Press in 1949. 

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For over three decades now Professor Ludwig von Mises has, with admirable consistency, pursued his passion for changing the world by making it stand still. A distinguished economist and learned in many fields, he has been one of the chief promoters of neo-conservatism both in Europe and in this country: what passes for conservative thought today—as distinguished from conservative business or politics—is heavily indebted to von Mises’ pioneering effort, whether or not it realizes and consciously acknowledges that debt. And in addition, some of our brighter industrialists and politicians are likewise in his debt, a debt which they have as a rule freely admitted. But I am not concerned here with von Mises’ role as economic adviser or with his technical achievements as an economic theorist and analyst of specific market phenomena. What interests me is von Mises the philosopher: the general theory of man (praxeology) he has developed as an underpinning for his theory of catallactics, i.e. the economic process.

The essays in his new book (rather, his old book, for these pieces were published in German as far back as 1933) make good reading. Their tenor is polemical throughout, the diatribe chiefly directed against Sombart and other “historicists.” In those early days von Mises regarded praxeology as a science methodologically close to the natural sciences, a position from which he has long since departed. (Today, he presents praxeology as a science sui generis, akin to nothing else except, perhaps, deductive logic.) But his basic objections to his liberal colleagues, sociologists as well as economists, have not changed a whit over the years. They are today exactly what they were then: liberal economics is the gravedigger of human dignity and freedom; the so-called liberals have usurped a name which properly belongs to the conservatives; the liberal (or socialist) mind lacks rigor, plays fast and loose with logic, and has not the faintest notion of those epistemological premises which determine all human action.

The reader who is eager to learn from von Mises what these tremendous epistemological premises are, is likely to be disappointed. The volume Epistemological Problems modernizes and refines upon the famous Methodenstreit precipitated about 1890 by two economists—Gustav von Schmoller and Carl Menger—and now settled, unless I am much mistaken, in favor of Max Weber and the historical approach to socio-economic questions. In any case, that battle was not waged over an epistemological issue in the strict sense but over the method to be employed in the study of human behavior and over the still undefined status of social science in the hierarchy of the sciences. Epistemology deals traditionally with the origin and limits of human knowledge—why we perceive what we perceive—and not with its modus operandi. Yet von Mises shows an exclusive interest in the latter, while he disclaims any concern with the former.

Moreover, what he investigates in this book and the more ambitious volume, Human Action, is human conduct—specifically, economic conduct—both in its theoretical and practical aspects. Is praxeology a study of psychology, then, presented with a strong, if unstated, moral bias? Not at all, von Mises would say; psychology is none of his business, much less ethics. He wishes to present a theory of the market, founded on a sound theory of knowledge. We look again for that theory of knowledge, but it simply isn’t there. There is some discussion, to be sure, of such subjects as monism and dualism, causality and teleology, a priori and a posteriori knowledge, but that whole methodological apparatus serves the sole purpose of stating the terms in which economic conduct must be described so as to make sense.

Does praxeology become a question of meaning, then, and thus an epistemological question after all? Not so. For von Mises vehemently denies that he is dealing with meanings, i.e. significances or interpretations; he is dealing with constant facts of experience, with those elements in human nature that are given, once and for all. “Praxeology claims for its theorems, within the sphere precisely defined in the underlying assumptions, universal validity for all human action.” Closely considered, what von Mises’ theory of cognition comes down to is a pre-Kantian a-priorism, a pre-Humean belief in strict causality, a pre-Hegelian contempt for historical process.

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Be that as it may, Professor von Mises prides himself at least as much on the philosophical underpinnings of his economic theory as on that theory itself. To the extent that I can judge the latter, it derives straight from Adam Smith and Ricardo—the classical matrix—without taking account of the evolutionary (not to say revolutionary) possibilities that were built into the systems of these distinguished forerunners. Being either ignorant of dialectical operations, or merely blind to them, von Mises assumes that a body of thought can be reconstituted at will, tel quel, without regard for the changes wrought by time in human desires, the body politic, the particular culture. His doctrine of action is one massive attempt to provide a basis for his economic idée fixe that to people who are free agents the market situation will always present itself, fundamentally, in one and the same manner; consumers’ fashions may vary but man’s attitude toward consumers’ goods—which to von Mises are the hub of the total universe of “desirables”1—remains unchanged; unless, of course, there happens to be some interference on the part of the state, or of a tyrant (the distinction between these two villains becomes negligible). Overborne by such restraints or interferences, men will temporarily abandon their rational desires and pay grudging homage to unreason; once the restraints are removed they will blithely return to their pristine ways. The only lesson they will have learned in the interval is that man is man, and the market the market. A tautology? By no means, for it is entirely conceivable—think, says von Mises, of the lesson of Hitler, Stalin, or Roosevelt—that man may be turned into a robot, the market into a treadmill.

Von Mises’ economic rationale is doubtless more complex than that—he is a man of great learning—but hardly more profound. What gives it its character of shallowness is the absence of time as a felt dimension. Von Mises is both obsessed with time (his bugbears are history and historicism) and totally oblivious to its function. After divorcing economics from every ongoing historic process, he must have felt that a general theory of human action was needed to support this oddly insular structure, so as to make it respectable. It comes as no surprise that his science of man has turned out to be quite as insular as the economic theory it was designed to buttress, and considerably more ossified.

Before discussing von Mises’ philosophy of action further I wish to make two things quite clear. First, I do not mean to accuse him of bad faith, as some liberals have done. I am convinced that he is a genuine conservative, totally uninfluenced by fashions (though he may have created one) or by the interests of Big Capital (though his works have become the American capitalist’s bible). In fact, next to his impressive learning, his incorruptibility seems to me to be his greatest asset. When I spoke of his need for a general theory of human action to make his economics respectable I meant something quite different. I meant that a writer of his intelligence must have realized quite early in his career how bizarre an economics is bound to look which has severed every tie with human motive as it is commonly understood, with the forces of social change and conflict (I’d just as soon avoid that dread word, dialectic), with every form of unconscious or “unreasonable” wish and desire. Given his predicament, two paths were open to him: either to introduce into his economic scheme the factor of time (in the form of history) and the factor of irrationality (in the form of a study of motivation) or to leave that scheme untouched, while underpinning it with a broad theory of knowledge and conduct which would make it not only credible but thoroughly solid. The first alternative had to be dismissed, since it would have resulted in a radical modification of his economic views and thus, eventually, in self-destruction. The second alternative proved both practicable and challenging, and the quixotic economist turned forthwith into the quixotic philosopher.

Read as a poem or other type of imaginative construction, von Mises’ philosophy of action possesses considerable interest. It is well knit, eloquent, self-consistent, and eminently reasonable. It is also totally unoriginal, since it depends in all its essential features on either Hobbes or Aristotle. This dependence on earlier models spells the limit of von Mises’ construction as a “poem”: he has turned out an admirable pastiche, no more. But how about it as a piece of science, seeing that science (at least in its patient, day-to-day efforts and summings-up) can very well dispense with originality—is, indeed, likely to profit by that loss?

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Clearly, what invalidates von Mises’ claim to be a scientific observer of human action has nothing to do with questions of originality. It has to do with two points, one of them methodological, the other personal. First, it is highly dubious whether the study of human action will ever achieve genuine scientific status. The matter has been well put by one of the greatest scientists of our age, Max Planck. Planck argues that the human will (conscious decision-making, as distinguished from mere conation or nisus) is not wholly contained within that causal nexus which it is the business of the scientist to explore, since it represents an element of essential arbitrariness; an element of unpredictability or “uncertainty,” depending on whether we view volition from within or in its consequences. (Ethology—the study of animal behavior—has a better chance of succeeding as a science. While it too faces serious epistmnological problems, none of the difficulties in its way seem to be quite as radical and perplexing.) While Planck’s view may grate on American ears—or on von Mises’ Austrian-American ears, especially—I find myself in Complete agreement with it.

The second difficulty is peculiar to von Mises and tied up with his passion for reductive thinking. Even if we grant him his desideratum that the science of human conduct should concern itself with the means of reasonable action rather than with the ultimate ends of action, we are not so much impressed by his modesty as appalled by his naivety. An operational study of human action which leaves out of account man’s unconscious drives is at best fragmentary and at worst farcical. It is true that von Mises pays his respects to Freud, but he does so only in passing—in passing on, that is, to weightier matters; he makes it very clear that praxeology is not interested in this sort of thing, which may be all right for the clinician but has no serious bearing on our study of rational behavior. Action, then, is reduced to reasonable action; the notion that human beings are essentially rational is put forward with ultra-Cartesian certainty; and, finally, human rationality itself is drastically “reduced” by being presented as a mere gimmick: the ability to achieve a given and wholly arbitrary end with maximum economy of effort and to the optimal satisfaction of the doer. Marxism and state socialism, for example, are dismissed not because their ends are bad (though they certainly are, on von Mises’ view) but because of the inefficiency of the means they employ. It is entirely conceivable that someone (a specialist in human engineering, say) might want to dignify this kind of inquiry with the honorific name of “science”; how a writer of von Mises’ intellectual calibre can perpetrate this (bona fide) imposture without batting an eye I find less easy to comprehend.

Von Mises is a very articulate writer, with a hard core of common sense. Even though there is no nourishing pulp around that core, one must admit that his style is forceful and full of verve. The reader is carried forward by the current of his prose ; unless he watches closely he may not readily realize that the river carries, along with himself, a great mass of debris in the form of platitudes, half-truths, or downright distortions. Von Mises the controversialist is of the bludgeoning type. Since he lacks any imaginative insight into minds or processes different from his own, his polemic is highly ineffective; to be a good polemical writer it is not enough to have read your opponent, you must also be able to enter into his pre-occupations—at least to some extent. This von Mises has steadfastly refused to do. To refer to Fourier’s work as the “effusions of the poor lunatic Charles Fourier” betrays more than mere party prejudice: it betrays a complete lack of imagination. In the parlance of our (none too delicate) adolescents, it is crude. Since all his polemical utterances have been of this primitive sort, von Mises has over the years weakened his cause, rather than advanced it. Nobody but a fool or a bigot can accept his views of Marx or Hegel as serious, and von Mises will be stuck, I fear, with an audience composed entirely of organization men and professional redbaiters. I find this deplorable, for he once had it in him to crystallize a conservative elite in the United States, people one could have argued with, talked to. Instead he has succeeded in discrediting, by his arrogance and contumely, and by the absolute rigidity of his intellectual position, not the enemies he so indiscriminately abuses but his own cherished beliefs.

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Professor Roepke’s Humane Economy is another kettle of fish: more attractive, but also much blander and for that reason a great deal less challenging. His book is marked by some insight, at least, into human nature and human affairs, and his general view of our predicament ill resigned rather than desperate: unlike von Mises, who wants to smash the clock, he only wants to turn it back, gently. While von Mises despises history and commits himself wholeheartedly to logic-chopping and system-building, Roepke is an old-fashioned historicist of the “organic” school: enthusiastic about decentralization, ready to accept change so long as it is not abrupt or radical, resolutely anti-utopian but sympathetic to certain unrealized possibilities of mankind. The only trouble with his view is that it merely echoes what several older conservatives—Edmund Burke, Gentz, Adam Mueller—have said, and said much better. There are times when he sounds like Metternich himself (or like Senator Goldwater addressing himself to our current campaign issues). In brief, the tenor of his argument is this: the life of modern man has become meaningless through loss of religious faith (needless to say, religious faith is tacitly identified with Christian faith); urbanization, though inevitable, has been an unmitigated evil; history, which made sense until 1789 (or possibly 1848) now no longer makes sense (because, I assume, it no longer is true, i.e. organic history); we must recover what we have lost before disaster strikes. On the subject of the free market and government interference Roepke holds substantially the same views as von Mises, though he expresses himself with infinitely greater restraint. Again, as in von Mises, socialism is seen as an acute danger to man’s freedom, insidious in its milder forms, utterly soul-destroying in its blatant manifestations. No conceptual distinction is made between the statism of the right and that of the left: Lenin and Hitler, Franco and Mao Tsetung.

There is much concern here, as there is in von Mises, with political and economic means—“techniques,” in Roepke’s language—and no serious discussion of ends. But clearly Professor Roepke’s position on the means/ends question is quite different from that of von Mises: more genial perhaps but even less tenable. While von Mises dismisses the realm of ends altogether as impertinent, Roepke uncomfortably vacillates between God and man as the ultimate end of action (or, quite as unsatisfactorily, between God-in-man and man-in-God). In short, although both thinkers are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, Roepke represents the neo-medieval position, complete with small-town and small-business sentiments, spiritual dependency and transcendence; von Mises the early Enlightenment notions of complete self-reliance and prudential conduct, with values drastically secularized and horizons infinitely open.

Both these economists not only hold important positions in their field but have been instrumental in our (the free world’s) recent economic planning. Of their thorough competence in these matters I have no doubt. But it is one thing to propose sensible economic policies under prevailing conditions, quite another to inquire sensibly into these conditions themselves. Both Roepke and von Mises have been showered with praise by their conservative colleagues, not so much in their character as practical economists as in their character as social thinkers. This gives me—and should give anyone—pause. I fully agree with the suggestion made by F. A. Hayek and others that Roepke is no “middle-of-the-roader” (neither, God knows, is von Mises) but only because what these thinkers represent is the end of the road taken by intuitionism—well-meaning and often shrewd, but fundamentally naive—in exploring the human psyche and social action. They both pretend to have given serious thought to Hegel and Marx, but their polemics against these men are either invidious or trivial, in any case grossly simplifying. Their conceptions of the future are bland re-enactments of the past, disguised as energetic processes; all Utopian thought is dismissed as crack-brained, and the French utopian socialists—if they are not passed over in silence—are either treated to abuse or patronizingly adduced to support some decentrist crotchet and so knock down Marx into the bargain. It is a superb irony that men who constantly pride themselves on their out-and-out realism should have so slight a grasp on the realities of our contemporary world and no grasp whatever on the presumptive realities of the world to come. Both have good things to say on certain economic aspects of our civilization (such as the mechanics of inflation and deflation, on imports and exports, even on government spending and taxation), but these insights are invariably surrounded by heady generalizations about the dignity of the individual or man’s fundamental limitations or, at least in the case of Roepke, about non-negotiable spiritual values—stale, for the most part, and in some cases demonstrably wrong. Ex oriente lux is not one of my maxims and I am as aware as the next man of the viciousness of Communist dictatorship. But I am convinced—more convinced perhaps than some of my neighbors—that this is not the way to reinvigorate the dying morale of the West; that a mere paean to the past (Roepke) is not enough to meet the present social and economic challenge, any more than a Baconian-Hobbesian-Benthamite potpourri parading as a philosophy of human action (von Mises). If I had to choose between Roepke’s antiquarian ideology and von Mises’ quixotic, anti-ideological stance, I might very likely in the end declare for the latter. Fortunately, I am not presented with that choice, nor do I believe that the conflicts of tomorrow will be acted out in the arena in which Messrs. Roepke and von Mises have elected to disport themselves.

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1 “Only the economic goods are the substratum of action.” And again: “The first and ultimate valuation of external things refers only to consumers' goods. All other things are valued according to the part they play in the production of consumers' goods.” Intangible goods are outside von Mises' concern. In this respect his position coincides, ironically, with that of his arch enemy, Marx.

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