Speaking of Liberty by Llewellyn H. Rockwell

Author:Llewellyn H. Rockwell [Rockwell, Llewellyn H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0-945466-38-2
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute

THE PROMISE OF HUMAN ACTION

[This speech was delivered at the Mises Institute, September 14, 1999, the 50th anniversary of the publication of Human Action.]

In a 1949 memo circulated within Yale University Press, the publicity department expressed astonishment at the rapid sales of Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action. How could such a dense tome, expensive by the standards of the day, written by an economist without a prestigious teaching position or any notable reputation at all in the US, published against the advice of many on Yale’s academic advisory board, sell so quickly that a second and third printing would be necessary in only a matter of months?

Imagine how shocked these same people would be to find that the first edition, reissued 50 years later as the Scholar’s Edition of Human Action, would sell so quickly again.

How can we account for the continuing interest in this book? It is unquestionably the single most important scientific treatise on human affairs to appear in the 20th century. But given the state of the social sciences, and the timelessness of Mises’s approach to economics, I believe it will have an even greater impact on the 21st century. Indeed, it is increasingly clear that this is a book for the ages.

Human Action appeared in the midst of ideological and political turmoil. The world war had only recently ended, and the US was attempting to reshape the politics of Europe with a new experiment in global foreign aid. The Cold War was just beginning.

Virtually overnight, Russia went from ally to enemy—a shocking transition, considering that nothing much had changed in Russia. It had been a prison camp since 1918, and its largest imperial advances in Europe had taken place with the full complicity of FDR. But in order to sustain wartime economic planning in the US, and all the spending that entailed, it became necessary for the US to find another foreign foe. By 1949, the US began to fight socialism abroad by imposing it at home.

Indeed, on this day 50 years ago, the old idea of the liberal society was gone, seemingly forever. It was a relic of a distant age, and certainly not a model for a modern industrial society. The future was clear: the world would move toward government planning in all aspects of life, and away from the anarchy of markets. As for the economic profession, the Keynesian School had not yet reached its height, but that was soon to come.

Socialist theory enthralled the profession to the extent that Mises and Hayek were thought to have lost the debate over whether socialism was economically possible. Labor unions had been delivered a setback with the Taft-Hartley Act, but it would be many years before the dramatic declines in membership would take place. In academia, a new generation was being raised to believe that FDR and World War II saved us from the Depression, and that there were no limits to what the State could do. Ruling the land was a regime characterized by regimentation in intellectual, social, and political life.

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