It is impossible to understand the history of economic thought if one does not pay attention to the fact that economics as such is a challenge to the conceit of those in power.
Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person.
Perhaps the grumbler will object on the ground that he considers p a vital commodity, much more important than q, and that therefore the production of p should be expanded and that of q restricted. If this is really the meaning of his criticism, he is at variance with the valuations of the consumers. He throws off his mask and shows his dictatorial aspirations. Production should not be directed by the wishes of the public but by his own despotic discretion.
If Capitalism improves the economic position all round, it is of secondary importance that it does not raise all to the same level. A social order is not bad simply because it helps one more than the other.
I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline.
The characteristic feature of militarism is not the fact that a nation has a powerful army or navy. It is the paramount role assigned to the army within the political structure. Even in peacetime the army is supreme; it is the predominant factor in political life. The subjects must obey the government as soldiers must obey their superiors. Within a militarist community there is no freedom; there are only obedience and discipline.
Liberalism has no admiration to spare for the heroic grandiosity of Marxism’s professional revolutionaries, who stake the lives of thousands and destroy values which the labour of decades and centuries has created. Here the economic principle holds good: Liberalism wants success at the smallest price.
Wall Street, against which the self-styled idealists are battling, is merely a symbol. But the walls of the Soviet prisons within which all dissenters disappear forever are a hard fact.
Only experience, they maintain, is to be relied upon. But is there any experience that would speak in favor of socialism?
Repression by brute force is always a confession of the inability to make use of the better weapons of the intellect – better because they alone give promise of final success. This is the fundamental error from which Fascism suffers and which will ultimately cause its downfall.
The Marxist dialectic is essentially word-fetishism. Every article of the faith is embodied in a word fetish whose double or even multiple meaning makes it possible to unite incompatible ideas and demands. The interpretation of these words, as intentionally ambiguous as the words of the Delphic Pythia, eventually brings the different parties to blows, and everyone quotes in his favour passages from the writings of Marx and Engels to which authoritative importance is attached.
The incomparable success of Marxism is due to the prospect it offers of fulfilling those dream-aspirations and dreams of vengeance which have been so deeply embedded in the human soul from time immemorial. It promises a Paradise on earth, a Land of Hearts’ Desire full of happiness and enjoyment, and – sweeter still to the losers in life’s game – humiliation of all who are stronger and better than the multitude.
The Bolshevists persistently tell us that religion is opium for the people. Marxism is indeed opium for those who might take to thinking and must therefore be weaned from it.
The equality Liberalism creates is equality before the Law; it has never sought any other. From the liberal point of view, therefore, criticism which condemns this equality as inadequate – maintaining that true equality is full equality of income through equal distribution of commodities – is unjustified.
But his much lauded doctrines are nothing but the fantasies of a man who was incapable of seeing clearly the world as it really is.
Value is not intrinsic; it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment.
Within a world of free trade and democracy there are no incentives for war and conquest. In such a world it is of no concern whether a nation’s sovereignty stretches over a larger or a smaller territory. Its citizens cannot derive any advantage from the annexation of a province. Its territorial problems can be treated without bias and passion; it is not painful to be fair to other people’s claims for self-determination.
With all production, employment, and distribution of output completely under the monopoly control of the State, the fate and fortune of every individual would be at the mercy of the political authority. In addition, these earlier opponents of socialism had cogently argued that with the end of private property and freedom of enterprise, individuals would lose much of the self-interested motivation for industry, innovation, and work effort that exists in a market economy.
It is easy indeed to display foresight after the event. In retrospect all fools become wise.
Unfortunately, purges are not something which happen just because men are imperfect. Purges are the necessary consequences of the philosophical foundation of Marxian socialism. If you cannot discuss philosophical differences of opinion in the same way you discuss other problems, you must find another solution – through violence and power. This refers not only to dissent concerning policies, economic problems, sociology, law, and so on. It refers also to problems of the natural sciences.
For instance, if there is a difference of opinion with regard to science or genetics, it must be decided by the “leader.” This is the necessary unavoidable consequence of the fact that, according to Marxist doctrine, you do not consider the possibility of dissent among honest people; either you think as I do, or you are a traitor and must be liquidated.