Human Action: sista dagen

Då har jag läst ut Human Action: A Treatise on Economics sjunde del, och därmed hela boken.

Den sjunde delen handlar om nationalekonomins plats i samhället. Vem bör studera den? Varför behövs den? Mises svar är: alla behöver nationalekonomin. Utan en god förståelse av dess slutsatser kommer samhället gå under. Utan kunskap om grundläggande nationalekonomi inser man inte att interventionism och socialism endast kan leda till katastrof. Som George Reismans uttrycker det: ”In the absence of a widespread, serious understanding of the principles of economics, the citizens of an advanced, division-of-labor society, such as our own, are in a position analogous to that of a crowd wandering among banks of computers or other highly complex machinery, with no understanding of the functioning or maintenance or safety requirements of the equipment, and randomly pushing buttons and pulling levers.”

Alla som vill delta i det sociala samarbetet bör känna till åtminstone grunderna, för att känna till vilken politik som behövs för att bevara ett avancerat samhälle. Och man uttalar sig implicit om ekonomiska frågor och teorier varje gång man röstar eller när man engagerar sig politiskt. Ingen kan undgå att beröras av ekonomin. Därför är det inget annat än rent oansvarigt att göra detta utan att först ha studerat ämnet, precis som det är oansvarigt att köra bil full och utan att ha tagit körlektioner.

Everybody thinks of economics whether he is aware of it or not. In joining a political party and in casting his ballot, the citizen implicitly takes a stand upon essential economic theories.

Men Mises är optimistisk:

Never before has the world known such a cleverly contrived system of propaganda and oppression as that instituted by contemporary governments, parties, and pressure groups. However, all these edifices will crumble like houses of cards as soon as a great ideology attacks them

Det finns fortfarande hopp. Det går fortfarande att rädda den civilisation som har byggts upp av kapitalismen. Men det kräver ett radikalt skifte i doktriner och ekonomiska teorier. Återupprättandet av ett friare samhälle kommer inte av sig självt. Det kräver att nationalekonomiska sanningar sprids och att idén  populariseras. Friheten kommer inte innan friheten är allmänt känd och principfast försvarad med goda nationalekonomiska och etiska argument. Det kommer inte ske innan Medelsvensson inser att det gäller honom och hans lycka, inte något abstrakt aggregat. Att matematisera nationalekonomin var onekligen ett smart drag av frihetens fiender! Ekonomi behöver inte vara krångligt och abstrakt. Det kan vara enkelt, konkret och roligt. Böcker som Det man ser och det man inte ser, Economics in One Lesson och Jonathan Gullible måste göras till bestsellers. Tyngre avhandlingar, som Human Action och Capitalism, måste användas som intellektuell ammunition. Vi får inte dra oss för att förklara ekonomins grunder för Medelsvensson. Om vi inte upplyser massorna är halva slaget redan förlorat. Ekonomi är inte bara en vetenskap för professorer med fina utmärkelser. Det är i allra högsta grad en vetenskap som alla kan studera, och som alla bör studera. Nationalekonomisk okunskap kan leda till undergång.

The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built. It rests with men whether they will make the proper use of the rich treasure with which this knowledge provides them or whether they will leave it unused. But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race.

Mises sammanfattar det genom att skriva:

Economics deals with society’s fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen.

Jag kan bara instämma. Det är inte att överdriva att när ett friare samhälle kommer, kommer Ludwig von Mises, Human Action och hans andra böcker ha varit starkt bidragande faktorer.

Mises University 2006

… har börjat. Lyssna live på föreläsningarna, eller ladda ner dem när de kommer upp efter att de hållits.

Human Action: dagarna 26, 27

Nu återstår endast två kapitel av Human Action, vilket är synd, eftersom det är en så väldigt bra bok.
I kapitlet Confiscation and Redistribution visar Mises hur höga skatter och andra former av konfiskering av egendom alltid leder till att kapitalackumulationen bromsas ned, eller till och med stannas upp, eller i allra värsta fall, att kapital konsumeras.

When the Vikings turned their backs upon a community of autarkic peasants whom they had plundered, the surviving victims began to work, to till the soil, and to build again. When the pirates returned after some years, they again found things to seize. But capitalism cannot stand such reiterated predatory raids. Its capital accumulation and investments are founded upon the expectation that no such expropriation will occur. If this expectation is absent, people will prefer to consume their capital instead of safeguarding it for the expropriators. This is the inherent error of all plans that aim at combining private ownership and reiterated expropriation.

Och progressiv skatt hämmar nyföretagande och innovation:

Every ingenious man is free to start new business projects. He may be poor, his funds may be modest and most of them may be borrowed. But if he fills the wants of consumers in the best and cheapest way, he will succeed by means of ”excessive” profits. He ploughs back the greater part of his profits into his business, thus making it grow rapidly. It is the activity of such enterprising parvenus that provides the market economy with its ”dynamism.” These nouveaux riches are the harbingers of economic improvement. Their threatening competition forces the old firms and big corporations either to adjust their conduct to the best possible service of the public or to go out of business.

But today taxes often absorb the greater part of the newcomer’s ”excessive” profits. He cannot accumulate capital; he cannot expand his own business; he will never become big business and a match for the vested interests. The old firms do not need to fear his competition; they are sheltered by the tax collector. They may with impunity indulge in routine, they may defy the wishes of the public and become conservative. It is true, the income tax prevents them, too, from accumulating new capital. But what is more important for them is that it prevents the dangerous newcomer from accumulating any capital. They are virtually privileged by the tax system. In this sense progressive taxation checks economic progress and makes for rigidity. While under unhampered capitalism the ownership of capital is a liability forcing the owner to serve the consumers, modern methods of taxation transform it into a privilege.

Nästa kapitel behandlar syndikalismen. Här finns ett stycke som medlemmar i osynliga partiet (har de ens medlemmar?) verkligen borde läsa.

What the syndicalist considers the most serious defect of the capitalist system and disparages as the brutality and callousness of autocratic profit-seekers is precisely the outcome of the supremacy of the consumers. Under the competitive conditions of the unhampered market economy the entrepreneurs are forced to improve technological methods of production without regard to the vested interests of the workers. The employer is forced never to pay workers more than  corresponds to the consumers” appraisal of their achievements. If an employee asks for a raise because his wife has borne him a new baby and the employer refuses on the ground that the enfant does not contribute to the factory’s effort, the employer acts as the mandatary of the consumers. These consumers are not prepared to pay more for any commodity merely because the worker has a large family. The naivete of the syndicalists manifests itself in the fact that they would never concede to those producing the articles which they themselves are using the same privileges which they claim for themselves.

Kapitel 34 handlar om krig. Mises menar att det är interventionism som skapar incitamenten för erövringskrig. För på den ohämmade marknaden finns det inget att vinna genom att utöka sitt eget lands territorium, det kan bara finnas sådana incitament om det finns handelsbarriärer. Jag gillade Mises analys av hur ”war socialism” är meningslöst och skadligt.

Of course, in the long run war and the preservation of the market economy are incompatible. Capitalism is essentially a scheme for peaceful nations. But this does not mean that a nation which is forced to repel foreign aggressors must substitute government control for private enterprise. If it were to do this, it would deprive itself of the most efficient means of defense. There is no record of a socialist nation which defeated a capitalist nation. In spite of their much glorified war socialism, the Germans were defeated in both World Wars.

What the incompatibility of war and capitalism really means is that war and high civilization are incompatible. If the efficiency of capitalism is directed by governments toward the output of instruments of destruction, the ingenuity of private business turn out weapons which are powerful enough to destroy everything. What makes war and capitalism incompatible with one another is precisely the unparalleled efficiency of the capitalist mode of production.

Därefter kommer ett av de bästa kapitlen: The Welfare Principle versus the Market Principle. Läs hela kapitlet! Det sista kapitlet handlar om hur interventionismen kommer upphöra, förr eller senare. Pengarna måste komma ifrån någonstans och de växer inte på träd. Det går inte att krama mer pengar ur skattebetalarna. Interventionismen måste kollapsa, och mänskligheten välja mellan socialism eller kapitalism.

An essential point in the social philosophy of interventionism is the existence of an inexhaustible fund which can be squeezed forever. The whole system of interventionism collapses when this fountain is drained off: The Santa Claus principle liquidates itself.

Mises avslutar den sjätte delen av boken genom att sammanfatta sina slutsatser så här:

Optimists hope that at least those nations which have in the past developed the capitalist market economy and its civilization will cling to this system in the future too. There are certainly as many signs to confirm as to disprove such an expectation. It is vain to speculate about the outcome of the great ideological conflict between the principles of private ownership and public ownership, of individualism and totalitarianism, of freedom and authoritarian regimentation. All that we can know beforehand about the result of this struggle can be condensed in the following three statements:

1. We have no knowledge whatever about the existence and operation of agencies which would bestow final victory in this clash on those ideologies whose application will secure the preservation and further intensification of societal bonds and the improvement of mankind’s material well-being. Nothing suggests the belief that progress toward more satisfactory conditions is inevitable or a relapse into very unsatisfactory conditions impossible.

2. Men must choose between the market economy and socialism. They cannot evade deciding between these alternatives by adopting a ”middle-of-the-road” position, whatever name they may give to it.

3. In abolishing economic calculation the general adoption of socialism would result in complete chaos and the disintegration of social cooperation under the division of labor.

Jag vill tillägga: Quod Erat Demonstradum.

Mises hade rätt om knark

Jan Emanuel Johansson vill ha en skatt på dokusåpor. Han säger att om man kan beskatta alkohol, cigaretter och ”onyttig” mat så borde man kunna beskatta ”onyttiga” program. Jämför med Mises argument mot narkotikalagar:

It is a fact, they say, that some people harm themselves and their innocent families by consuming narcotic drugs. Only doctrinaires could be so dogmatic as to object to the government’s regulation of the drug traffic. Its beneficent effects cannot be contested.

However, the case is not so simple as that. Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs. (ss. 728-9 i Human Action, Scholar’s Edition)

Han hade rätt. Som vanligt.

Språkfascism — bokstavligen

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as ”pizzas” which will now be known as ”elastic loaves,” state media reported Saturday.

read more | digg story

Human Action: dag 25

Kapitel 30 av Human Action handlar om priskontroller. Här hittar man Mises” bevis för att priskontroller alltid måste leda till att socialism enligt det tyska mönstret införs: ett pristak för att fler ska kunna köpa en vara, orsakar ett underskott, och att större kvantiteter av andra varor produceras:

It would be vain for the government to try to remove these undesired consequences by decreeing maximum prices likewise for the factors of production needed for the production of the consumers” goods the prices of which it has fixed. Such a measure would be successful only if all factors of production required were absolutely specific. As this can never be the case, the government must add to its first measure, fixing the price of only one consumers” good below the potential market price, more and more price ceilings, not only for all other consumers” goods and for all material factors of production, but no less for labor. It must compel every entrepreneur, capitalist, and employee to continue producing at the prices, wage rates, and interest rates which the government has fixed, to produce those quantities which the government orders them to produce, and to sell the products to those people–producers or consumers–whom the government determines. If one branch of production were to be exempt from this regimentation, capital and labor would flow into it; production would be restricted precisely in those other–regimented –branches which the government considered so important that it interfered with the conduct of their affairs.

Economics does not say that isolated government interference with the prices of only one commodity or a few commodities is unfair, bad, or unfeasible. It says that such interference produces results contrary to its purpose, that it makes conditions worse, not better, from the point of view of the government and those backing its interference.

Ett kort, men mycket intressant, stycke behandlar Rom och dess fall. Läsvärt!
Det tredje avsnittet av kapitlet handlar om minimilöner och hur de skapar arbetslöshet, och hur det också leder till mer interventionism och till slut socialism:

Firmly committed to the principles of interventionism, governments try to check this undesired result of their interference by resorting to those measures which are nowadays called full-employment policy: unemployment doles, arbitration of labor disputes, public works by means of lavish public spending, inflation, and credit expansion. All these remedies are worse than the evil they are designed to remove.

Assistance granted to the unemployed does not dispose of unemployment. It makes it easier for the unemployed to remain idle. The nearer the allowance comes to the height at which the unhampered market would have fixed the wage rate, the less incentive it offers to the beneficiary to look for a new job. It is a means of making unemployment last rather than of making it disappear. The disastrous financial implications of unemployment benefits are manifest.

…

If government spending for public works is financed by taxing the citizens or borrowing from them, the citizens” power to spend and invest is curtailed to the same extent as that of the public treasury expands. No additional jobs are created.

Och om kollektiv”avtal”:

However, what is euphemistically called collective bargaining by union leaders and ”pro-labor” legislation is of a quite different character. It is bargaining at the point of a gun. It is bargaining between an armed party, ready to use its weapons, and an unarmed party under duress. It is not a market transaction. It is a dictate forced upon the employer. And its effects do not differ from those of a government decree for the enforcement of which the police power and the penal courts are used. It produces institutional unemployment.

Human Action: dagarna 23, 24

Jag har nu läst ut femte delen av Human Action och börjat läsa den sjätte delen.

Den femte delen är bokens kortaste och handlar om varför socialismen inte kan fungera, någonsin: den kan inte räkna, för det finns inga priser. Diskussionen om hur socialister ytterst upphöjer sig själva till diktatorer och gudar var ny för mig:

No socialist author ever gave a thought to the possibility that the abstract entity which he wants to vest with unlimited power–whether it is called humanity, society, nation, state, or government–could act in a way of which he himself disapproves. A socialist advocates socialism because he is fully convinced that the supreme dictator of the socialist commonwealth will be reasonable from his–the individual socialist’s–point of view, that he will aim at those ends of which he–the individual socialist–fully approves, and that he will try to attain these ends by choosing means which he–the individual socialist–would also choose. Every socialist calls only that system a genuinely socialist system in which these conditions are completely fulfilled; all other brands claiming the name of socialism are counterfeit systems entirely different from true socialism. Every socialist is a disguised dictator. Woe to all dissenters! They have forfeited their right to live and must be ”liquidated.”
People frequently call socialism a religion. It is indeed the religion of self-deification. The State and Government of which the planners speak, the People of the nationalists, the Society of the Marxians and the Humanity of Comte’s positivism are name for the God of the new religions. But all these idols are merely aliases for the individual reformer’s own will. In ascribing to his idol all those attributes which the theologians ascribe to God. the inflated Ego glorifies itself. It is infinitely good, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, eternal. It is the only perfect being in this imperfect world.

Jag gillade också Mises motargument mot ”trial and error”-argumentet: javisst, man kan försöka hitta lösningar till 4 gånger 5 genom att gissa, men hur ska man veta att 20 och inte 21 är korrekt om man inte kan verifiera det på något sätt?

Sjätte delen handlar om interventionism, eller den hämmade marknadsekonomin. .Ett citat som sammanfattar vad det handlar om ganska bra är:

All this passionate praise of the supereminence of government action is but a poor disguise for the individual interventionist’s self-deification. The great god State is a great god only because it is expected to do exclusively what the individual advocate of interventionism wants to see achieved. Only that plan is genuine which the individual planner fully approves. All other plans are simply counterfeit. In saying ”plan” what the author of a book on the benefits of planning has in mind is, of course, his own plan alone. He does not take into account the possibility that the plan which the government puts into practice may differ from his own plan. The various planners agree only with regard to their rejection of laissez faire, i.e., the individuals” discretion to choose and to act. They entirely disagree with regard to the choice of the unique plan to be adopted. To every exposure of the manifest and incontestable defects of interventionist policies the champions of interventionism react in the same way. These faults, they say, were the results of spurious interventionism; what we are advocating is good interventionism, not bad interventionism. And, of course, good interventionism is the professor’s own brand.

Laissez faire means: Let the common man choose and act; do not force him to yield to a dictator.

Och här finns även Mises” underbara argument mot narkotikalagar:

It is a fact, they say, that some people harm themselves and their innocent families by consuming narcotic drugs. Only doctrinaires could be so dogmatic as to object to the government’s regulation of the drug traffic. Its beneficent effects cannot be contested.

However, the case is not so simple as that. Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.

Det roligaste sättet att lära sig nationalekonomi

Det är utan tvekan att läsa The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey. (Svensk översättning) Tänk Bastiats Petition, fast längre. (Petition finns i och för sig med som ett kapitel i boken.) Boken handlar om Jonathan som lider skeppsbrott och spolas upp på en ö där det inte finns någon frihet. Det är en bok i samma stil som Bastiats essäer, som gör nationalekonomin så lätt att förstå även för någon som inte kan något om den. Bastiats stora insats var ju inte som teoretiker, utan genom att göra liberala idéer tillgängliga och förståeliga för allmänheten. Den visar på samma humoristiska och lättlästa sätt som Bastiats essäer hur löjliga vissa ekonomiska felslut är. Som till exempel att det är bra att trycka upp mer pengar:

”Excuse me,” apologized Jonathan, ”is this where they print the town newspaper?”

The lady smiled and the gentleman corrected Jonathan. ”I’m afraid you’re mistaken, young man. This is the Official Bureau of Money Creation, not the newspaper.”

”Oh,” said Jonathan in disappointment. ”I was hoping to find a printer of some importance.”

”Cheer up,” said the man. ”There is no printer of greater importance than this bureau. Isn’t that right dear?” The man patted the woman’s gloved hand.

”Yes, that’s true,” said the woman with a giggle. ”The Bureau brings lots of happiness with the money it prints.”

”That sounds wonderful.” said Jonathan excitedly. ”Money would sure make me happy right now. If I could print some money then …”

”Oh, no!” said the man in disapproval. He shook a finger in Jonathan’s face. ”That’s out of the question.”

”Of course,” said the woman in agreement. ”Money printers who are not appointed by the Council of Lords are branded ”counterfeiters” and thrown behind bars. We don’t tolerate scoundrels.”

The man nodded vigorously. ”When counterfeiters print their fake money and spend it, too much money circulates. Prices soar; wages, savings, and pensions become worthless. It’s pure thievery.”

Jonathan frowned. What had he missed? ”I thought you said that printing lots of money makes people happy.”

”Oh, yes, that’s true,” replied the woman. ”Provided …”

”… that it’s official money printing,” the man interjected before she could finish. The couple knew each other so well that they finished each other’s sentences. The man pulled a large leather wallet from his coat pocket and took out a piece of paper to show Jonathan. Pointing to an official seal of the Council of Lords, he noted, ”See here. This says ”legal tender,” and that makes it official money.”

Helt underbar bok! Om många läste den här boken, skulle vi ha en mindre revolution förr eller senare. Bastiat skulle varit stolt över att någon fortsätter att popularisera nationalekonomin så här.

Human Action: dagarna 21, 22

Nu har jag läst ut den fjärde delen av Human Action, som handlar om marknadsekonomin. De två sista kapitlen handlar om hur nationalekonomin relaterar till verkligheten och om intressekonflikter och -harmoni, respektive.

Det första av dessa två kapitel ägnas till att förkasta vissa fördomar, som att nationalekonomin bara arbetar med omöjliga konstruktioner som inte finns i verkligheten, eller att den bara är tillämpar under vissa villkor om hur verkligheten ser ut. Sanningen är naturligtvis att det enda som spelar roll är om de villkor som anges i en sats är uppfyllda. Vad folk vill ha ändrar inte på sanningen att marknaden, om det är möjligt att göra det utan att hindra att andra, viktigare mål uppfylls, kommer producera vad de vill. Data om människors förmågor, kunskap, åsikter et cetera påverkar tillämpningen av ekonomiska principer, inte deras sanningshalt.

Det sista kapitlet i den fjärde delen avfärdade flera myter, som att ”den enes bröd är den andres död”:

What produces a man’s profit in the course of affairs within an unhampered market society is not his fellow citizen’s plight and distress, but the fact that he alleviates or entirely removes what causes his fellow citizen’s feeling of uneasiness. What hurts the sick is the plague, not the physician who treats the disease. The doctor’s gain is not an outcome of the epidemics, but of the aid he hives to those affected. The ultimate source of profits is always the foresight of future conditions. Those who succeeded better than others in anticipating future events and in adjusting their activities to the future state of the market, reap profits because they are in a position to satisfy the most urgent needs of the public. The profits of those who have produced goods and services for which the buyers scramble are not the source of the losses of those who have brought to the market commodities in the purchase of which the public is not prepared to pay the full amount of production costs expended. These losses are caused by the lack of insight displayed in anticipating the future state of the market and the demand of the consumers. (Läs hela avsnittet!)

Sedan behandlas befolkninsökning och preventivmedel. När produktiviteten ökar, kan befolkningen öka endast mindre än proportioneligt mot ökningen, annars minskar välståndet. Därför måste ökningar i välstånd innebära att befolkningsökningen vara så liten att varje ny person som kommer in i ekonomin bidrar mer än proportioneligt till att produktionen ökas. Och det här stycket tyckte jag var hemskt insiktsfullt.

A socialist commonwealth would be under the necessity of regulating the fertility rate by authoritarian control. It would have to regiment the sexual life of its wards no less than all other spheres of their conduct. In the market economy every individual is spontaneously intent upon not begetting children whom he could not rear without considerably lowering his family’s standard of life. Thus the growth of population beyond the optimum size as determined by the supply of capital available and the state of technological knowledge is checked. The interests of each individual coincide with those of all other individuals. (*Host* Kina *host*)

I nästa avsnitt visar Mises att det inte finns någon intressekonflikt på marknaden; att många vill ha en vara gör inte att det blir svårare att få varan, utan lättare. På det sättet skiljer sig ekonomisk konkurrens från biologisk. En insikt värd att nämna: idén att det finns konflikter på marknaden mellan vad som produceras och vad som behövs, missar att all produktion innebär spekulation och att man inte kan mehd full säkerhet veta vad som behövs eller efterfrågas i framtiden. Och det är ju inte direkt mycket lättare för en socialistisk stat…

Här finns även följande hårda ord om socialismen:

The establishment of this truth does not amount to a depreciation of the conclusiveness and the convincing power of the antisocialist argument derived from the impairment of productivity to be expected from socialism. The weight of this objection raised to the socialist plans is so overwhelming that no judicious man could hesitate to choose capitalism. Yet this would still be a choice between alternative systems of society’s economic organization, preference given to one system as against another. However, such is not the alternative. Socialism cannot be realized because it is beyond human power to establish it as a social system. The choice is between capitalism and chaos. A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings. To stress this point is the task of economics as it is the task of biology and chemistry to teach that potassium cyanide is not a nutriment but deadly poison.

Nästa del behandlar alltså socialismen…

Human Action: dagarna 19, 20

Två kapitel till har lästs i Human Action.

Det första, Work and Wages, behandlar arbetsmarknaden. Några citat värda att begrundas:

It has been asserted that a job-seeker must sell his labor at any price, however low, as he depends exclusively on his capacity to work and has no other source of income. He cannot wait and is forced to content himself with any reward the employers are kind enough to offer him. This inherent weakness makes it easy for the concerted action of the masters to lower wage rates. They can, if need be, wait longer, as their demand for labor is not so urgent as the worker’s demand for subsistence. The argument is defective. It takes it for granted that the employers pocket the difference between the marginal-productivity wage rate and the lower monopoly rate as an extra monopoly gain and do not pass it on to the consumers in the form of a reduction in prices. For if they were to reduce prices according to the drop in costs of production, they, in their capacity as entrepreneurs and sellers of the products, would derive no advantage from cutting wages. The whole gain would go to the consumers and thereby also to the wage-earners in their capacity as buyers; the entrepreneurs themselves would be benefitted only as consumers. To retain the extra profit resulting from the ”exploitation” of the workers” alleged poor bargaining power would require concerted action on the part of employers in their capacity as sellers of the products. It would require a universal monopoly of all kinds of production activities which can be created only by an institutional restriction of access to entrepreneurship.

The essential point of the matter is that the alleged monopolistic combination of the employers about which Adam Smith and a great part of public opinion speak would be a monopoly of demand. But we have already seen that such alleged monopolies of demand are in fact monopolies of supply of a particular character. The employers would be in a position enabling them to lower wage rates by concerted action only if they were to monopolize a factor indispensable for every kind of production and to restrict the employment of this factor in a monopolistic way. As there is no single material factor indispensable for every kind of production, they would have to monopolize all material factors of production. This condition would be present only in a socialist community, in which there is neither a market nor prices and wage rates.

Principen om metodologisk individualism (principen att det är fel att tala om allt guld eller allt järn i världen när man behandlar guld eller järn i ekonomisk mening, eftersom vi aldrig måste välja mellan allt guld och allt järn) implicerar att det inte går att permanent sänka löner. Varje entreprenör som anställer någon tar därmed bort arbete från andra produktionskedjor, och för att göra det måste han övertyga den som säljer arbete — arbetaren — att det är bättre att sälja till honom än till någon annan.

Work and Wages är ett av de kapitel där det framgår tydligast att alla tjänar på en fri ekonomi.  Det är här det klassiska citatet finns:

The factory owners did not have the power to compel anybody to take a factory job. They could only hire people who were ready to work for the wages offered to them. Low as these wage rates were, they were nonetheless much more than these paupers could earn in any other field open to them. It is a distortion of facts to say that the factories carried off the housewives from the nurseries and the kitchens and the children from their play. These women had nothing to cook with and to feed their children. These children were destitute and starving. Their only refuge was the factory. It saved them, in the strict sense of the term, from death by starvation.

Om man läser Human Action, eller något annat inom österrikisk ekonomi, och integrerar det man läsermed grunderna, som Mises lägger fram i de första delarna av boken, slås man av hur allting sitter ihop, om man bara tänker till. Det är inte så att man lägger en fin och logisk grund, tar ett språng från den och börjar argumentera för kapitalism, utan man utgår verkligen från grunden i sina argument och återkommer till den.

Nästa kapitel The Nonhuman Original Factors of Production är kort och innehåller inte så mycket intressant material.

Bara två kapitel kvar om kapitalismen alltså…