Mises had hoped that democracy would lead to free societies after World War II ended. He did not foresee the illiberal turn in the West in the last decade.
Once the Southern states accepted the Thirteenth Amendment, Lincoln was entirely content for the old Southern elites to resume their positions of power and for many blacks to continue in a condition little better than bondage.
Mises saw essentialist values as fallacies because they were unverifiable and saw metaphysical ideas as a key component of authoritarianism. His solution was utilitarianism.
Even if Powell is sincere in this stated desire to slay inflation with more rate hikes, recent bank failures will put the Fed under enormous pressure to end its rate hikes and to once again embrace easy money to save the banks and Wall Street.
Printing and raising taxes are not social policies. It is profoundly anti-social, as it destroys the middle class and makes the economy weaker. Raising the debt ceiling is also extremely negative for the middle class because it means more taxes.
