1. Cliches of Socialism.
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5.
Jaap Sleifer’s book, Planning Ahead and Falling Behind, points out that the eastern part of Germany was actually richer than the western part prior to World War II. “A History Lesson: Comparing Socialist East Germany with Capitalist West Germany,” Daniel Mitchell, 05/03/2019.
Ten Books on the State., Alberto Mingardi, August 28, 2002.
“Planning Is Socialism,” Ray Haynes, 2015.
“The Nature of Socialism,” Mateusz Machaj, January 26, 2010. [From Property, Freedom and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe.]
BOOKS
1. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Joseph Schumpeter, 1942.
It was written in 1942 and its importance has grown year by year to the point that no student of the liberal society can afford not to read and master this treatise. It is most famous for its prediction that capitalism is unsustainable not because it is a flawed system but rather because voters and bureaucrats in an otherwise free society will fail to protect capitalism from its enemies.
2. Socialism and International Economic Order, Elizabeth Tamedly, 1969.
3. For a challenging but fascinating work, try Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation, David Ramsay Steele, 1992. “Post-capitalist society” refers to socialism and communism. From a recommendation by Gene Epstein.
4. Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War, Ludwig von Mises, 1944. From the blurb on the recommendation, it states
Mises begins by showing how Prussian liberalism collapsed. Intellectuals spurned the free market in favor of schemes, lacking all support in sound economic theory, which stressed the role of the state in promoting national power and prosperity.
The Nazi system developed and extended the earlier statist trends of the Bismarckian and Wilhelmine epochs. Hitler claimed, in classic statist fashion, that Germany needed to expand in order to feed its growing population. Hitler’s idea made sense within his statist presuppositions: in order to see what is wrong with it, one needs to understand correct economic theory. This teaches that free trade, not the conquest of foreign territories, is the best means to advance prosperity.
Jeffrey Tucker points out that
For some years, Misesians have worried about the status of Mises’s wonderful book Omnipotent Government (1944). It was the first and still remains the most masterful study of the economics and politics of German National Socialism [Nazism], perhaps the most anti-Nazi book published in its time. It demonstrates that the Nazi ideology was a species of orthodox socialist theory, and thereby corrects one of the most pervasive political errors of our time (that Nazism and Communism represent opposite ends of an ideological continuum).
5. Hitler’s National Socialism, Rainer Zitelmann, 2022.
Posted Wednesday, February 2, 2023.
“Ideas Have Consequences: The Origins of Fascism,” Charles Burris, LRC, June 26, 2009.
This paragraph alone is worth the price of admission,
I would like to call your attention to a virtually unknown little book, The Lost Literature of Socialism, by George Watson, Fellow in English at St. John’s College, Cambridge and editor of the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. As the publishers explain on the back of this book: “In this hard-hitting and controversial new book, the author examines the foundation texts of socialism to find out what they really say… and the result is blasphemy against its canon of saints. This study, the first review of socialist literature since 1945, reveals how closely socialism was linked to conservative, racist, and genocidal ideas. As a literary critic the author’s concern is to pay a due respect to the works of the founding fathers of socialism, to attend to what they say rather than to what their modern disciples wish they had said. The book forces the reader to abandon long-standing assumptions in political thought, enabling a genuine debate to be revived.”
“Hitler and the Socialist Dream,” George Watson, The Independent, November 22, 2998.
“Joseph Goebells’ Own Words Show He Loved Socialism and Saw It As the Future,” Jon Miltimore, FEE, January 23, 2023.
Thanks to Charles Burris. This is too long, 5 hours, so watch what you can if you find 5 or 10, or 30 minutes of it interesting. You may have to take it in sections.
San Gabriel Tutor 