~200 words, ~1 min reading time
Full text available from the Mises Institute or Amazon.
The Individual in Society – This chapter is about the meaning of “freedom”. Mises suggests that there is no such thing as “freedom” from nature. All people are bound by scientific laws. To be meaningful, “freedom” then is freedom from the arbitrarily imposed will of others. At the same time, complete freedom from the influence of others would come at the price of abandoning all social relations. A market economy based on private property allows for interactions that enhance our productivity, while still allowing people to be free from compulsion and coercion. Historically, those who want to subvert freedom have tended to shift the definitions of terms – suggesting that employees are “wage slaves” rather than being really free, for example.
The Elite Under Capitalism – People are born unequal in certain respects – leading to “superior” and “inferior” people. In precapitalist societies, the superior used violence to take advantage of the inferior. In the market economy, the superior can only benefit by serving the inferior – producing products that the inferior are willing to pay enough for. So, in a market economy, the consumers – most of whom belong to the “inferior” group – end up “ruling” the superior – in that it is the masses of consumers that determine how profitable a business will be.