What is Society?
Of all accusations against the system of Free Trade and Private Property, wrote Ludwig von Mises, none is more foolish than the statement that it is anti-social and individualistic and that it atomizes the body social. Trade does not disintegrate … it unites. The division of labor is what first makes social ties: it is the social element pure and simple. Whoever advocates the economic self-sufficiency of nations and states, seeks to disintegrate the ecumenical society; whoever seeks to destroy the social division of labor within a nation by means of class war is anti-social. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (4)
Roger M
This article is vitally important because of the inroads the communitarian philosophy has made into "conservatism." Communitarianism claims to be a middle path between socialism and capitalism and makes the community, as opposed to the individual, the standard by which all actions are measured. For a good example, check out the "Crunch Cons" blog on NRO Online.
Mises is brilliant at showing that "The death of a nation is social retrogression, the decline from the division of labor to self-sufficiency. The social organism disintegrates into the cells from which it began. Man remains, but society dies." This is what communitarianism strive for, and with the good intentions of building the community are in reality destroying it.
This is an important message with regard to the issue of our dependency on foreign oil, too. Bush wants to free us from that dependency. But Mises counters that such isolation will destroy our society, not build it: "A decline of the ecumenical society, which has been slowly forming itself during the last two hundred years under the influence of the gradual germination of the liberal idea, would be a world catastrophe absolutely without parallel in history as we know it. No nation would be spared. Who then would rebuild the shattered world?"
Published: March 3, 2006 3:47 PM
Daniel Coleman
I am loving the Weekend Read--at first I thought it was a one-time thing but it looks as if it's here to stay. Thanks for putting it on the blog.
Published: March 3, 2006 5:55 PM
Brett_McS
I don't think "foreign" oil is the issue, as far as Bush is concerned, I think it is more "despotic, terrorist-supporting, American-hating" oil. Let's not be too free with the "shattered world" quotes.
Published: March 4, 2006 4:58 AM
Mark Sunwall
This reading is the very core of Misesian sociology as opposed to monetary theory etc. and should be the aspiring Austrian's vaude mecum. A very important undertone which will be missed by all but the well philosophically grounded is the tremendous chasm between the thinking of Mises and that of Spencer on sociology. Spencer has been apropriated as a kind of godfather of libertarianism, but close analysis of what Mises has to say in this chapter and elswhere will show this divergence, with the Spencerian line leading to todays Randians and "beltway liberventionists"...the war of all against all. Mises is much closer to Schopenhauer with the latter's condemnation of optimism (translate this as "triumphalism") as inherently unethical. In this respect Mises and Schopenhauer are both in the same post- (not quite neo- ) Kantian current.
Mark Sunwall
Published: March 5, 2006 9:36 PM