Laissez-Faire Radical: A Quest for the Historical Mises

That Ludwig von Mises was the outstanding champion of laizes-faire and the free-market economy in this century is well know and needs no documentation. But in the course of refining and codifying his political views, Mises’ followers have unwitting distorted them and made them seed at one with the modern conservative movement in the United States. Mises is made to appear a sort of National Review intellectual concentrating on the free-market aspects of conservatism. While the image of Mises as an essential conservative is scarcely made up of the whole cloth, it totally overlooks rich strains of Misesian though that can be described only as “laissez-faire radical.” Unfortunately, these strands of Misesian thought have been all but lost, Perhaps this essay will help to right the balance.

Volume 5, Number 3 (1981)