CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

Inter-bank Liquidity; Bank Reserves

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

Does the World Need a World Bank and More Money?

CHAPTER

TWENTY

Conclusion

The Rise of the Total State and Total War

BY

Ludwig von Mises

NEW HAVEN

Yale University Press

1944

COPYRIGHT, 1944, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

A WARTIME BOOK

THIS COMPLETE EDITION IS PRODUCED IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH THE GOVERNMENT’S REGULATIONS FOR CONSERVING PAPER AND OTHER ESSENTIAL MATERIALS.

IN dealing with the problems of social and economic policies, the social sciences consider only one question: whether the measures suggested are really suited to bringing about the effects sought by their authors, or whether they result in a state of affairs which—from the viewpoint of their supporters—is even more undesirable than the previous state which it was intended to alter. The economist does not substitute his own judgment about the desirability of ultimate ends for that of his fellow citizens.

I AM grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation and to the National Bureau of Economic Research for grants which enabled me to undertake this study. Mr. Henry Hazlitt has helped me greatly with his criticism and suggestions and by editing the whole manuscript. Mr. Arthur Goodman has advised me in linguistic and stylistic problems. Mr. Eugene Davidson of Yale University Press has assisted me in many ways. The responsibility for all opinions expressed is, of course, exclusively my own.

Introduction

I

THE essential point in the plans of the German National Socialist Workers’ party is the conquest of Lebensraum for the Germans, i.e., a territory so large and rich in natural resources that they could live in economic self-sufficiency at a standard not lower than that of any other nation. It is obvious that this program, which challenges and threatens all other nations, cannot be realized except through the establishment of German world hegemony.