1. The Nation as a Speech Community

The concepts nation and nationality are relatively new in the sense in which we understand them. Of course, the word nation is very old; it derives from Latin and spread early into all modern languages. But another meaning was associated with it.

The pages that I herewith submit to the public do not presume to be more than observations about the crisis in world history that we are living through and contributions to understanding the political conditions of our time. I know that any attempt to offer more would be premature and therefore mistaken. Even if we were in a position to see interrelations clearly and to recognize where developments are heading, it would be impossible for us to confront the great events of our day objectively and not let our view be blurred by wishes and hopes.

Ludwig von Mises wrote Nation, State and Economy in the same year, 1919, as John Maynard Keynes wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace, a better known diagnosis of and prescription for the postwar economic situation. Mises, writing a few months earlier, presumably had less detailed knowledge of the Versailles Treaty and so was less concerned with its specific provisions. Keynes went into more detail than Mises in estimating such things as the wealth of the belligerents, the amount of destruction suffered, and the capacity of the Germans to pay reparations.

THE COOPERATIVE IDEA*

I. Cooperatives not a Method of World Reconstruction

In spite of their steady expansion and the growth of their turnover, the cooperatives as they exist and operate today are merely dim shadows of what they were designed to be in the ambitious schemes of their first promoters.

I.*

If no radical changes in the prevailing political trends and tendencies occur very soon, the system of full government control of human activities will within a few years triumph in all countries this side of the Iron Curtain.

The bosses of the Russian Communist Administration are disturbed by the fact that economic conditions in the countries which have not adopted the methods of the Communist International are by far more satisfactory than those in their own country.* If they could succeed in keeping their “comrades” in complete ignorance of the achievements of W

I.*

In this year 1967, in which the University of Chicago celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary, the present-day world’s most powerful political movement, Marxism, commemorates the two most important dates of its history.

A Statement of the Concept

Human action is the use of means to arrive at preferred ends. Such action contrasts to the observed behavior of stones and planets, for it implies purpose on the part of the actor. Action implies choice among alternatives. Man has means, or resources, which he uses to arrive at various ends; these resources may be time, money, labor energy, land, capital goods, and so on. He uses these resources to attain his most preferred ends. From his action, we can deduce that he has acted so as to satisfy his most highly valued desires or preferences.