Chapter ǴǸ: Ļe Moral Element in Mises’sHuman Action ȃȃȆand it teaches how to act in accordance with these valuations (pp.ȀȃȈ–ȀȄǿ,
ȀȄȂ–ȀȄȃ).
If an economist states that a certain policy measure is bad, he is not
pronouncing a value judgment; he is simply saying that it is inappropriate
for the desired goal (p.ȇȇȂ).
Reformers want to replace what they call selfishness, acquisitiveness,
and profit-seeking, Mises observes, with altruism, charity, and fear of
God. But in urging people to substitute “considerations of public wel-
fare for those of private profit, one does not create a working and satisfac-
tory social order.... [H]ow should the ‘altruistic’ entrepreneur proceed?”
(pp.ȆȁȄ–Ȇȁȅ).
Flexibility of prices and wages is the vehicle of adjustment, improve-
ment, and progress. Ļose who condemn price and wage changes as unjust
are working against endeavors to make economic conditions more satisfac-
tory (p.Ȇȁȇ).
Is profit to be morally condemned? “Ļe marvelous economic improve-
ments of the last two hundred years were an achievement of the capitalists
who provided the capital goods required and of the elite of technologists
and entrepreneurs. Ļe masses of the manual workers were benefited by
changes which they not only did not generate but which, more often than
not, they tried to cut short” (p.ȂǿȀ).
Mises identifies connections between interventionism and the corrup-
tion of government officials. In administering many interventionist mea-
sures, for example, import licenses, favoritism simply cannot be avoided.
Whether or not money changes hands does not matter; licenses can be
awarded to people who supply campaign help. “Corruption is a regular
effect of interventionism.” Mises also identifies the mindset of redistribu-
tionists. “Ļey reject all traditional notions of law and legality in the name
of a ‘higher and nobler’ idea of justice. Whatever they themselves do is
always right because it hurts those who selfishly want to retain for them-
selves what, from the point of view of this higher concept of justice, ought
to belong to others” (pp.ȆȂȃ–ȆȂȅ).
őŠŔŕŏş ঠřŕşőş’ş śŠŔőŞ ţŞŕŠŕŚœş
BeyondHuman Action, Mises wrote on ethics elsewhere. InĻeory and
History(ȀȈȆȈ/ȀȈȇȄ, pp.Ȅȃ–ȅȀ) we read:
Ļe ultimate yardstick of justice is conduciveness to the preservation of
social cooperation.... [S]ocial cooperation is for man a means for the