Jeff Deist on Why Socialism Persists

This is the last Mises Weekends episode!

But don’t despair, Jeff will soon be back with a brand new format: The Human Action Podcast. The new show is not radically different, but focuses more exclusively on Austrian economics, its great books, and its great thinkers — with longer, more in-depth interviews. But don’t take our word for it, tune in next week to the first show with David Gordon!

Your RSS-fed platforms like Stitcher and SoundCloud will continue to support the new show, while Mises.org will still host both streaming and downloadable audio files. And your iTunes subscription will redirect you from Mises Weekends to The Human Action Podcast.

This week Jeff takes a hard look at socialism and why it seems to gain greater support in the US and across the West. Do people really understand socialism as Mises did, and do they really want collective ownership of industry? Or do they just want what he termed “pseudo-socialist” economic systems that redistribute wealth? What motivates socialists? And how do they reconcile their moralizing self-regard with the doctrine that socialism is inevitable and inexorable?

Mises’s Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis.

Jeff Deist on why support for socialism persists.