Interventionism

Interventionism provides Mises's analysis of the problems of government interference in business from the Austrian-school perspective. Written in 1940, before the United States was officially involved in World War II, this book offers a rare insight into the war economies of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. Mises criticises the pre-World War II democratic governments for favouring socialism and interventionism over capitalist methods of production. Mises contends that government's economic role should be limited because of the negative political and social consequences of the economic policy of interventionism.

Foreword; Author's Preface; Introduction; The Problem; Capitalism or Market Economy; The Socialist Economy; The Capitalist State and the Socialist State; The Interventionist State; The Plea for Moral Reform; I Interference by Restriction; The Nature of Restrictive Measures; Costs and Benefits of Restrictive Measures; The Restrictive Measure as a Privilege; Restrictive Measures as Expenditures; II Interference by Price Control; The Alternative: Statutory Law versus Economic Law; The Reaction of the Market; Minimum Wages and Unemployment; The Political Consequences of Unemployment; III Inflation and Credit Expansion; Inflation; Credit Expansion; Foreign Exchange Control; The Flight of Capital and the Problem of Hot Money; IV Confiscation and Subsidies; Confiscation; The Procurement of Funds for Public Expenditure; Unprofitable Public Works and Subsidies; Altruistic Entrepreneurship; V Corporativism and Syndicalism; Corporativism; Syndicalism; VI War Economy; War and the Market Economy; Total War and War Socialism; Market Economy and National Defense; VII The Economic, Social, and Political Consequences of Interventionism; The Economic Consequences; Parliamentary Government and Interventionism; Freedom and the Economic System; The Great Delusion; The Source of Hitler's Success; VIII Conclusions; Reading References; Index;