Why Socialism Always Fails

Tags: Other Schools of Thought, Philosophy and Methodology

01/24/1972 Ludwig von Mises

Ron Paul alludes to this speech in his book End the Fed (pp. 51-52):

Mises, at the time, was elderly but sharp. His subject was socialism, and his lecture explained why socialism always fails due to the absence of a free market pricing structure for capital goods... The lecture was held in a modest-sized classroom, but the place was overflowing. Popularizing Austrian economics at the time was in its very early stages, but it was obvious even then that there was a starvation for truth in economics.

Presented at the University of Houston in 1972.

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.