The Middle of the Road Leads to Socialism

by Ludwig von Mises

Originally delivered before the University Club in New York, April 18, 1950. First printed by Commerical and Financial Chronicle, May 4, 1950.

Included as a chapter in Planning for Freedom and Sixteen Other Essays and Addresses, and published by Libertarian Press, 1952.

Reprinted in 2018 by the Mises Institute and published under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction

18 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2018

About the author

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (German pronunciation: [ˈluːtvɪç fɔn ˈmiːzəs]; September 29, 1881 – October 10, 1973) was an Austrian economist, historian, philosopher, author, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the Austrian government's economic policies in the first third of the 20th century, the Austrian School of Economics, and the modern free-market libertarian movement.

Reviews

[عدنان العبار · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book talking about interventionism (or what we might call Middle-of-the-road-economics) and its faults, and why it will most certainly lead to total interventionism, or economic control and planning.

[Marco Pinheiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in a historical perspective, but could be more deeply explored.

[Yash Arya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear and concise essay on a fundamentally important point. Owing to the well documented failure of all command economies, almost no innocent person today advocates complete Socialism (if they know what they're talking about). They do, however, under an umbrella of several different terms, embrace some form of a mixed economy: Interventionism, Democratic Socialism, etc.

It is therefore crucial to understand that a mixed economy isn't a steady state. It's a point on a downward slope leading towards a totalitarian state: whether explicitly Socialist or implicitly Socialist (Fascist).

The further a society slips down this slope, the more poverty, deaths, and lack of freedom it has.

Since it's easier to destroy than to create, it is not enough to merely be anti-socialist, anti-communist, or anti-fascist. The common person must be able to logically the defend free-market enterprise at least in essence, if not in all details.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear, concise, and simple to read. Everything is correct. Every once in a while, due to Mises’ native language not being English, it does seem that he may use a word that most native English speakers wouldn’t use, I mean, it’s correct, it’s just that probably most native English speakers would choose a different word, and a few areas where he seems to slightly revert the natural manner of saying something, but this is just getting extremely picky. Just saying some may notice this, which if you do not realize English wasn’t his first language, it may leave one slightly wondering about his unique speech. Still excellent and still clear and concise. Good little read. Would have been nice to hear in person in 1950. With that being said, I feel it’s imperative to repeat, it is still very correct. Always will be.

[Wendy Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Von Mises was an economic prophet. Not only does he explain the projected outcome of Interventionism, but he specifically lays out the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind it all. Governments of the world should’ve heeded this brilliant man’s advice, but unfortunately it would’ve removed power from their dirty, filthy, greedy hands and placed it where it belonged, in a true, untampered-with free market.

[Bryce Eickholt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick essay taking on interventionism. Clear, concise, and easy to read.

[Benjamen Ober · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mises is right…but I’m not convinced that his own miniarchism doesn’t lead to socialism eventually.

[Moribund Murdoch · Rating 5 out of 5]

The phrasing was a bit old-timey, but the ideas were great.