Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism

by Ludwig von Mises

This address was delivered before the University Club of New York, April 18, 1950. First printed by Commercial and Financial Chronicle, May 4, 1950; also in Planning for Freedom and Other Essays and Addresses (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian Press, 1952). Latest hard-copy edition from Two Essays by Ludwig von Mises (Auburn, Ala.: The Mises Institute, 1991, pp. 42-68).

Contents

Introduction

1. Socialism

2. Interventionism, Allegedly a Middle-of-the-Road Policy

3. How Interventionism Works 

4. How Price Control Leads to Socialism 

5. The Zwangswirtschaft Type of Socialism

6. German and British Experience

7. Crises and Unemployment

8. Two Roads to Socialism

9. Foreign Exchange Control

10. Progressive Taxation

11. The Trend Toward Socialism

12. Loopholes Capitalism

13. The Coming of Socialism is Not Inevitable