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Liberalism
Liberalism by Ludwig von Mises hardly leaves any reader untouched. While some are taken by Mises' crystal-clear prose, others are pushed off by his condescending remarks on adverse views. These bivalent reactions are certainly an almost unavoidable phenomenon raised by a book that is to defend liberal ideas by a passionate protagonist. However, Liberalism is much more than that. It is a very unusual defence of liberalism, not very demurely when it comes to blame opposing views. Such Mises wrote about the anti-liberal opposition: "This opposition does not stem from the reason, but from a pathological mental attitude: from resentment and from a neurasthenic condition that one might call a Fourier complex, after the French socialist of that name." (Introduction, section 6) Of course, this does not sound like an invitation for discussion with those who think differently. Mises reduced anti-liberal feelings to resentments and envious malevolence, and explains that the Fourier complex is "a serious disease of the nervous system, a neurosis, which is more properly the concern of the psychologist than of the legislator." (Ibid.) Even if one thinks to have good reasons to do so, it might appear doubtful to expose ones enemy when defining and defending ones own position. It might put readers off. Hence, while Mises expresses here what many liberals think, the unprepared reader might feel distracted to continue his reading and thus misses Mises' main arguments for liberalism, which are highly original and very stimulating, to say the least. Thus, the first chapter, "The foundations of liberal policy", is not - as one could think - to explain the innate moral value and the primacy of liberal principles, such as property, liberty and peace. On the contrary, the reader finds himself confronted with a defence of liberal principles that appear mainly utilitarian - at first sight. But it is much more than that. Mises' defence of utilitarianism results from the insight that liberalism cannot aim for more than material well-being. "It is not from a disdain of spiritual goods that liberalism concerns itself exclusively with man's material well-being, but from a conviction that what is highest and deepest in man cannot be touched by any outward regulation." (Introduction, section 2) What we might conclude from this is that liberalism is not about moral principles that call for an appropriate political framework. The relation between morals and politics is the reverse. Liberalism is about the political principles to allow for material well-being of all, and in order to pursue this aim properly it calls for certain values, like property, liberty, peace, and tolerance. The decision for such values is not one of moral preference, rather one of prudence. Bearing in mind that Mises is one of the greatest representatives of Austrian Economics, the school of methodological individualism and subjectivism, one is tempted to ask oneself: How could it be done otherwise by a thinker to whom methodological subjectivism is essential? Individuals have subjective aims that can best be pursued under material well-being. "Liberalism has always had in view the good of the whole, not that of any special group. It was this that the English utilitarians meant to express -although, it is true, not very aptly-in their famous formula, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". … Liberalism is distinguished from socialism, which likewise professes to strive for the good of all, not by the goal at which it aims, but by the means that it chooses to attain that goal." (Introduction, section 4) In 1927, when Liberalism was published, Mises had good reasons to believe that liberalism could become a mass-movement rather than an ideology for the few. That socialism was more successful for the next 60 years than liberalism is partly due to the fact that liberals failed to make this capacity of liberalism transparent to the broader public. However, there is nothing that obstructs us to bethink ourselves of Mises' message. – Hardy Bouillon
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