Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
By Ludwig Mises
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) first published
Socialism in German, in 1922. The edition presented here is that published by Liberty Fund in 1981. It follows the text, with correction and enlargement of footnotes, of the Jonathan Cape, Ltd., edition published in London in 1969. The edition was based on the 1951 edition by Yale University Press which slightly enlarged the first English edition published by Jonathan Cape in 1936, translated from the German by J. Kahane. Only a few corrections of obvious typos were made for this website edition. One character substitution has been made: the ordinary character “C” has been substituted for the “checked C” in the name Cuhel.
Translator/Editor
J. Kahane, trans.
First Pub. Date
1922
Publisher
Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc.
Pub. Date
1981
Comments
First published in German. Foreword by Friedrich A. Hayek not available online
Copyright
The text of this edition is under copyright. Picture of Ludwig von Mises: file photo, Liberty Fund, Inc.
- Publisher
- Foreword
- Preface
- Translator
- Preface2
- Introduction
- Part I,Ch.1
- Part I,Ch.2
- Part I,Ch.3
- Part I,Ch.4
- Part II,Ch.5
- Part II,Ch.6
- Part II,Ch.7
- Part II,Ch.8
- Part II,Ch.9
- Part II,Ch.10
- Part II,Ch.11
- Part II,Ch.12
- Part II,Ch.13
- Part II,Ch.14
- Part II,Ch.15
- Part II,Ch.16
- Part III,Ch.17
- Part III,Ch.18
- Part III,Ch.19
- Part III,Ch.20
- Part III,Ch.21
- Part III,Ch.22
- Part III,Ch.23
- Part III,Ch.24
- Part III,Ch.25
- Part III,Ch.26
- Part IV,Ch.27
- Part IV,Ch.28
- Part IV,Ch.29
- Part IV,Ch.30
- Part IV,Ch.31
- Part IV,Ch.32
- Part V,Ch.33
- Part V,Ch.34
- Part V,Ch.35
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- Epilogue
- Bio
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was the acknowledged leader of the Austrian School of economic thought, a prodigious originator in economic theory, and a prolific author. A library of his books would total twenty-one volumes if confined to first editions, forty-eight volumes if all revised editions and translations were included, and still more if the
Festschriften and other volumes containing contributions by him were added.
Von Mises’ writings and lectures encompassed economic theory, history, epistemology, government, and political philosophy. His contributions to economic theory include important clarifications on the quantity theory of money, the theory of the trade cycle, the integration of monetary theory with economic theory in general, and a demonstration that socialism must fail because it cannot solve the problem of economic calculation. Mises was the first scholar to recognize that economics is part of a larger science in human action, a science which Mises called “praxeology”.
Ludwig von Mises receved doctorates in law and economics from the University of Vienna in 1906. In 1909 he became Economic Advisor to the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (comparable to the U.S. Department of Commerce). After serving in World War I, he became Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna and, in 1934, Professor of International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. In 1945 he became Visiting Professor at New York University where he remained until his retirement in 1969. In a lecturing and teaching career that spanned many continents and more than half a century, Mises numbered among his students one Nobel Laureate, F.A. Hyaek, two presidents of the American Economic Association, Gottfried Haberler and Fritz Machlup, and many other economists of international reputation.
His major works are
The Theory of Money and Credit (1912),
Socialism (1922),
Human Action (1949),
Theory and History (1957),
Epistemological Problems of Economics (1960), and
The Ultimate Foundations of Economic Science (1962).
Mehrwert und Gemeinwirtschaft, kritische und positive Beiträge zur Theorie des Sozialismus (Berlin, 1922).
Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, op. cit., pp. 45-9.
op. cit., pp. 184 ff.
op. cit., p. 185.
Epilogue
Fabian Essays in Socialism, first published in 1889 (American edition, New York, 1891, p. 4).
A Shortened History of England (London, 1942), p. 510.
Monarchical Socialism in Germany (New York, 1913).
Wirtschaft means economy. The English language equivalent for
Zwangswirtschaft is something like compulsory economy.
Planned Society, ed. Findlay Mackenzie (New York, 1937), p. 112
Democracy in Crisis (Chapel Hill, 1933), pp. 87-8.
Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? (New York, 1936), Vol. II, pp. 1038-39.
Social Relations of Science (London, 1941), p. 333.
Intergovernmental Commodity Control Agreements (Montreal, 1943).
Das Kapital, 7th ed. (Hamburg, 1914), Vol. I, p. 728. Publisher’s Note: In English edition, p. 836.
Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, ed. Kautsky (Stuttgart, 1897), p. xi. Publisher’s Note: In English edition by Kerr, pp. 11-12; by Eastman, p. 10.
Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich, ed. Pfemfert (Berlin, 1919),
passim. Publisher’s Note: In English, “The Civil War in France.” Reprinted in Eastman anthology, pp. 367-429.
Value, Price and Profit, ed. Eleanor Marx Aveling (New York, 1901), pp. 72-74.
The Real Soviet Russia (Yale University Press, 1944), pp. 88-95.
New York Times, December 25, 1941.
Bureaucracy (Yale University Press, 1944).
La trahison des clercs (Paris, x927). Publisher’s Note: In English,
The Treason of the Intellectuals (New York: William Morrow, 1928) and
The Betrayal of the Intellectuals (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955)
Contemporary Italy, translated by Drake and Denise de Kay (New York, 1944), pp. 295-6.
The Philosophy of Fascism (Chicago, 1936), p. 248.
Das Lebenswerk yon Karl Marx (Jena, 1909), p. 3.
A New Social Philosophy, trans. and ed. K. F. Geiser (Princeton University Press, 1937), p. 194.
The Biological Basis of Human Nature (New York, 1930), pp. 223-52.
Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich, ed. Pfemfert (Berlin, 1919), p. 54. Publisher’s Note: In English, “The Civil War in France,” p. 408.
Individualism and the Economic Order (Chicago University Press, 1948), pp. 89-91.
The Road to Serfdom (1944), Chapter IX, p. 119.