It’s too bad we won’t see Hollywood make a movie about a Ludwig von Mises and other heroes of the cause of liberty and their escapes from tyranny. Instead, we are treated to films of the young Che Guevara, etc.
What a fascinating and harrowing story as told by Margit von Mises.

Italy joined Germany in 1940 by declaring war on France and Britian.

Switzerland was under threat of invasion, and for all the talk “financial power” (the advantage to the Germans of Swiss Banks) this was actually a rather unimportant consideration for the Germans in 1940.

On Swiss military preperations the book “Target Switzerland” (by the same author as “Let Every Man Be Armed” – Halbrook but spelt rather differently) is quite good – but I am not convinced that Switzerland could have withstood a German attack (although it would have given the Germans a bloody nose – and they would have gained no raw materials by taking over Switzerland).

Perhaps Mises would have done better to stay in Switzerland – perhaps he would have prevented the policy of tax money from low tax cantons being given to high tax cantons.

So that (via tax competition) all of Switzerland would be like Canton Zug (or better).

Perhaps Mises (with his European contacts and experience, and his knowledge of the French language) would have led a great true free market come back after the war in all of Western Europe (rather than the Welfare State “social market” that is now running into trouble, due to the ever rising costs of the Welfare States).

WE WILL NEVER KNOW.

At the time getting out seemed sensible.

And Mises did have some success in teaching a few interesting people (to put it mildly) in the United States.

Italy declared war against France and Britain, but since Mises was neither French nor British this wouldn’t have affected him. Perhaps they feared that as an ally of Germany Italy would have turned them over, but if so they were wrong.
I too wonder what would have happened if he had stayed in Europe. Maybe his academic influence in economics would have been greater. However, I don’t think he would have had much direct influence on European economic policy, he seemed too unwilling to compromise for that. There is a famous story, told by Milton Friedman, that Mises stormed out of the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947 calling the partecipants (which included Hayek and Friedman himself) a “bunch of socialists”. He was right, in my opinion, but perhaps it wasn’t the best attitude to take…

To Marco.

Remember what the ISSUE was that the Mont Pelerin people were discussing.

They were discussing a form of government intervenion and they all came up with different ideas on how exactly what form the intervention should take (not quite what colour the paperwork should be, but not a million miles away from this).

Mises’ point was that the government should not have been getting involved in the matter – and all the other people wanted to talk about was HOW it should get involved.

So Mises’ move WAS the best move to make – it got their attention (shock tactic).

Milton Friedman can have a oddly distorted view of stories at times.

I remember a story that he and Rose Friedman tell in their autobiography “Two Lucky People”.

One of their children was in the habit of walking over the property of M. Thompson (the great free market Governor of New Hampshire – although Friedman’s do not mention his record of holding down government spending) without asking permission.

The child was not walking over the property because there was no other way to get to the Friedman’s property – she was just taking a short cut to get to government land.

Mr Thompson said she should not do so – and the Friedmans promptly quoted a government regulation that said their child could walk over the property.

The Friedmans tell this story as a story against Mr Thompson, actually (as I think you will understand) it is a story against THEM.

Mr Thompson would have been entitled to turn round and say “so you are threatening me with violence (from the Feds), now I know why you are so friendly with J.K. Galbraith”.

Just as Milton Friedman’s story about Mises walking out of the meeting is a story, not against Mises but against Milton Friedman (for not understanding that the roll of an economist, and of a human being generally, is to tell the government to keep its nose out – not to tell it to paint its nose an interesting colour and then stick it in).

Once government gets involved in an area of life the idea of controlling what it does is foolish.

Did not Milton Friedman’s years as an economic policy adviser to Richard Nixon teach him that? There is no “but I can control the intervention” -no it is no intervention or a mess (no other alternatives).