Omnipotent Government

Liberty is not, as the German precursors of Nazism asserted, a negative ideal. Whether a concept is presented in an affirmative or in a negative form is merely a question of idiom. Freedom from want is tantamount to the expression striving after a state of affairs under which people are better supplied with necessities. Freedom of speech is tantamount to a state of affairs under which everybody can say what he wants to say. At the bottom of all totalitarian doctrines lies the belief that the rulers are wiser and loftier than their subjects and that they therefore know better what benefits those ruled than they themselves. Werner Sombart, for many years a fanatical champion of Marxism and later a no less fanatical advocate of Nazism, was bold enough to assert frankly that the Führer gets his orders from God, the supreme Führer of the universe, and that Führertum is a permanent revelation.* Whoever admits this, must, of course, stop questioning the expediency of government omnipotence. Those disagreeing with this theocratical justification of dictatorship claim for themselves the right to discuss freely the problems involved. They do not write state with a capital S. They do not shrink from analyzing the metaphysical notions of Hegelianism and Marxism. They reduce all this high-sounding oratory to the simple question: are the means suggested suitable to attain the ends sought? In answering this question, they hope to render a service to the great majority of their fellow men.

Review :
The specific purpose of this book is to refute the mythology of an omnipotent dictator, who guides better than can markets. Unlike his other books, Mises relies more on history than theory to make his case. Omnipotent Government examines modern European history in an effort to explain the problems of twentieth century Europe. Understanding the problems of Europe requires inquiry into the history of events and the history of ideas both. Liberalism is the policy of international peace, yet somehow people came to embrace particularly aggressive forms of nationalistic socialism (i.e. Nazism). Since the free trade policies of Europe are central to peaceful international relations, hostility between socialist nations (i.e. the Nazi and Soviet nations) is hardly surprising. The productivity of modern industry hinges upon the international division of labor. Without international trade, productivity would fall to the point where only a fraction of the world population could survive. The consequences of National Socialism, and even protectionism, are therefore dire. The analysis in this book is not entirely new. Mises got into some of this material in his 1922 book Socialism, and Economic and Sociological Analysis. Lionel Robbins also did similar work in his Economic Planning and International Order. Omnipotent is the most historical of Mises' books. This book is important as a historical work. It is also important because it explains the international aspects of the calculation critique of socialism better than his other works. Omnipotent Government also shows that Mises was not anti-empirical. Mises stressed the importance of theory because he rejected empirical analysis. Mises stressed the need for logically valid theory as the means of understanding history. As Mises notes towards the end of this book, the Classical Liberal program of free trade was rejected because people did not understand the importance of international division of labor.--D. W. MacKenzie "http: //www.amazon.com/review/R27MQIONPQKNAO/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004R9PLOK&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=133140011&store=digital-text "