On Economic Policy

Four important points:

First, the application of price controls is not what caused the fall of the Roman Empire.

Second, socialism is not just “economic powers given to the state.” If this were the case, nearly the entire Western world would be considered “socialist,” and this is not the case, by any means.

Third, Mises runs with the idea that growth is necessary and this is not put under scrutiny. One of the deepest problems with the capitalist economy is that it assumes growth must be perpetual and there are no attempts for sustainability. He talks about the necessity of raising standards of living, even in the United States. While this was important, there was no question about “when will resources run out?” or “how can capital keep spreading? is there an infinitely large amount of capital?”

Fourth, Mises completely misses the global nature of capitalism. Ever since capitalism emerged in England during the dawn of the industrial revolution, it needed to be supported by the colonies: raw materials constantly moved from colony to metropole, where they were turned into full products. While the standard of living between, say England and India, were similar at the beginning, colonial capitalism (frankly, the only kind of capitalism) created wide disparities in wealth levels between these two places. The creation of a sort of “underclass” in the Global South that supports the much wealthier North is an inevitable result of capitalism, but Mises gives no attention to the relationship between colony and metropole in these lectures. As such, the reader is given an incomplete view of capitalism.

All this being said, Mises is lucid and easy to understand in this text. For anyone seeking an introduction to the Austrian School of Economics, I would absolutely recommend this book.