"An 'anti-something' movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however, bad it may be be. They must, without any reservations, endorse the program of the market economy." -- Ludwig von Mises.
In fact, as Mises shows not only in this book but in his tremendous body of pioneering work in economic theory, both liberty and justice require a market-based social order. The reader who enjoys this little book may also wish at some point to tackle Mises' magnum opus HUMAN ACTION.
As some of the other reviews stated, Von Mises believes that the reason some people in a capitalist society hate free markets and advocate socialism is due to their own shortcomings. As everyone with an ounce of sense knows, reality does not make everyone equal. Everyone has flaws and shortcomings. These shortcomings, according to Von Mises, manifest themselves in inner turmoil that finds release through attacking the system in which others succeed where these people fail. These people look at the successful entrepreneurs and resent them deeply. Since they can't attack them directly without exposing their own deep flaws, they attack the capitalist system which they think "created" these successful businessmen. Von Mises goes on to show several ways how this hostility expresses itself. One way is through literature. Von Mises makes a very perceptive observation while examining literature. He shows how the genre of detective stories is actually an expression of hatred for the capitalist system. The detective in most of these stories is usually a down and out type (one of the downtrodden workers of Marxian fame) who shows up the police (who represent the ineffective ruling system) by proving the guilt of a successful, rich person who nobody would ever suspect (the triumph of the worker over the rich). Very insightful stuff.
Von Mises destroys the socialist worldview in this book. It reads quick, and it's my first Von Mises book, so I'm not sure I picked up on every point he was trying to make. It's well worth the time and I highly recommend it. The only downfall is that some of the sentences are a bit awkward, which makes since if Von Mises wrote this in English. You see, he didn't even come to the U.S. until he was 60. He fled Hitler when the Nazis took Austria in 1940. Von Mises's primary language was German.
