追求真理，永不懈怠（谈经济学教育的重要性）

靠税收维持的某些大学，必然会受到执政党的支配。当局只聘用那些愿意宣扬所赞成之观念的人当教授。由于今天所有非社会主义的都坚信干预主义，所以他们只任用干预主义者。在他们看来，大学的首要任务，乃在于向下一代推销官方的社会哲学。他们用不着经济学家。

但是，干预主义在许多独立的大学也一样地流行。

按照古老的传统，大学的目的不只是教学，同时也要促进知识与科学。大学教师的责任不只是把别人已建立的知识体系传授给学生，他还应该对他自己那一门知识的进一步发展有所贡献。他应该成为知识界具备充分学术资格的成员，在走向更丰富更优良的知识道路上，他是一位创新者或先锋人物。一个大学不应甘心承认它的教授在其专业领域中不及他人。每个大学教授应该要求自己能够与同门学科中的其他大师相比肩。像他们当中最伟大的人一样，在知识的增进中也有他的一份功劳。

“所有的教授都不相上下”这个想法，当然只是一个假想而非事实。在天才的创造性著作与某一专家的论文之间，存在着很大的差异。但是在经验研究的领域里，这一假想不算过分。伟大的创新者和简单的常规操作者，在他们的研究过程中，使用的是相同的技术手段和研究方法。他们在实验室里做试验或者收集历史性的记录。在外人看来，他们的工作没什么两样。他们发表的论著讨论的是相同的学科和问题。因而他们是可以等量齐观的。

但在理论科学领域，像哲学和经济学，情况就完全不一样了。在这些领域，例行工作者按照刻板的模式进行研究无法取得任何成就。这里不需要专家性作者的日常勤恳而辛劳的工作。这里不需要经验性的研究；所有的成就都必须依靠深思熟虑与逻辑推理能力。这里不存在什么专门化，因为所有的问题都是相互关联的。一旦涉及这个知识体系的任何部分，实际上即必须对待其整体。有一位杰出的历史学家，曾经从心理和教育的观点来形容博士论文，他说，这种论文给作者一种骄傲的自信，自信虽然他只进入了那个知识领域的一个小角落，但他不比任何人差。显然，这种效果是一篇经济分析的论文所无法产生的。在经济思想的理论体系中，不存在任何孤立的角落。

在同一时期对经济学有重要贡献的人，从来不超过十个。有原创力的人，在经济学方面如此之少，在其他知识领域也同样地少。而且，有原创力的经济学家，有许多并不属于教师群体。但大学和学院需要的经济学教师则数以千计。学术界的传统是要求每位教师都发表原创性贡献以证明自己的学术价值，而非仅编一些教科书和手册。一位大学教师的声望和薪水，应该由他的学术性著作而不是他的教学能力来决定。一位教授不得不出版几本书。如果他觉得自己没有相当的能力去写经济学书籍，他最好转向经济史或描述经济学。但因为怕丢面子，他还要坚称他处理的问题是纯经济学的，而非经济史。他甚至强词夺理地说，他的论著并未越出经济研究的正当范围，而且只有这些论著才是经验的、归纳的和科学的，至于那些“讲坛”理论家纯抽象的著作，才空洞无物。如果他不这样说，他就得承认经济学教师当中有两类人：一类是那些对经济思想的发展曾经有贡献的人，一类是那些在思想方面没有贡献，但在其他方面，如最近的经济史领域做得不错的人。这样一来，学术界的气氛，对他们就十分不利了。许多教授——幸而不是所有的教授——存心蔑视他们所谓的“空洞理论”。他们企图用那种缺乏系统的历史和统计的基据的拼凑来替代经济分析。他们把经济学割裂成许多独立的部门，然后专攻农业、劳工、拉丁美洲和其他类似的科目。

让学生熟悉一般的经济史，乃至最近的经济发展，这的确是大学教育的工作之一。但是，所有这一类的教学，如果没有经济学作基础，是注定要失败的。经济学不允许被割裂为一些特殊部门。它处理的，必定是一切行动现象的相互关系。如果我们分别处理生产的每个部门，人的行动学的一些共同问题就难以显现。研究劳动和工资，而不涉及物价、利率、利润和亏损、货币和信用，以及其他一切有关的重大问题，那是不可能的。工资率决定这个问题的实质，在“劳动经济”这一课程当中甚至无法被触及。事实上，根本不存在所谓的“劳动经济学”或“农业经济学”。我们所有的只是一个有机结合的经济学。

这些专家在他们的讲演和所发表的论文中涉及的，都不是经济学，而是各种压力团体的辩解。他们不理睬经济学，因而不得不被某一压力团体的意识形态所俘虏。甚至那些不公开偏袒某一压力团体并自诩中立的专家，也在无意中赞成干预主义者的某些基本信条。在讨论林林总总之干预的时候，他们并没有坚持他们所说的“纯消极主义”。如果他们批评采取的措施，也只是为了推荐他们自己标榜的那种干预主义以替代另一种干预主义。他们毫不愧疚地赞成干预主义和社会主义的基本论点——自由的市场经济只有利于无情的剥削者，而不公正地伤害了绝大多数人的切身利益。照他们的看法，凡是论证干预主义徒劳无益的经济学家，就毫无例外地属于被大企业收买并为不公平的权益辩护的人。所以他们主张一定要把这些歹徒排斥于大学之外，而且拒绝他的论文发表在学校的刊物上。

学生迷惑了。在数理经济学家教授的课程中，他们被灌输了许多关于均衡状态假说的公式，而在均衡状态下不再有任何行动。他们很容易得出这样一个结论：这些方程式对于经济活动的了解没有任何用处。在专家的演讲中，他们又听到了许多关于干预措施的细节，他们必然推论出一些矛盾的条件，因为从来就不存在均衡，而且工资率与农产品价格也没有高到工会和农民希求的高度。于是他们断定，激烈的改革显然是必不可少的。但需要的是哪一种改革呢？

大多数学生毫无顾忌地拥护教授推荐的干预主义万灵之药。他们相信，当实行最低工资率，为每个人提供适当的食物和住宅的时候，或者当人造奶油的销售和外国糖品的进口被禁止的时候，社会情况能够让人完全满意。他们难以觉察出老师的话里存在许多的矛盾，这些为人师表者今天感叹竞争的疯狂，明天又感叹垄断罪恶；今天抱怨物价下跌，明天又抱怨生活费上涨。这些矛盾，大多数的学生察觉不到。他们需要取得学位，需要尽快地在或某一强势压力团体中谋得一个职位。

但这并不妨碍一些头脑敏锐的年轻人能够看透干预主义的那些谬误。他们虽然接受了老师对自由市场经济的反对，但他们不相信干预主义的那些孤立的措施，能够达成其追求的目的。他们一以贯之地把教师的思想推演到最后的逻辑结论。于是他们转向了社会主义。他们向苏维埃制度欢呼，认为它是一个新的更好文明的开始。

然而，造成今天许多大学成为社会主义温床的上述情形，在经济学系里却不像其他各系那么突出。在经济学系里还可以找到若干杰出的经济学家，甚至在经济学系教授其他课程的教师，也熟悉经济学家反对社会主义的理由。这种情形与许多教哲学、历史、文学、社会学和政治科学的教师不同。后者乃立基于断章取义和漏洞百出的辩证唯物论去解释历史。其中的一些人，即便是因为不赞同唯物主义和无神论而激烈地反对马克思主义，也仍然受到《共产党宣言》和共产国际政治纲领所体现的那些观念的支配。他们把经济萧条、大量失业、通货膨胀、战争和贫穷，皆解释为资本主义的必然灾难，而这些灾难只有当资本主义退出历史舞台后才能够被消灭。

在那些不受各种语言集团相互攻击而困扰的国家里，公共教育，如果仅局限于读、写和计算，就能够办得很好。针对那些聪明的小孩，还不妨再教点最浅显的几何学、自然科学和本国现行法律的基本概念。但一旦他想多学一些东西，就会出现严重的困难。基层水准的教育必然是注入式的。如果把一个问题的各种看法都摆在青年面前，让他们从中加以选择，是断然行不通的。另一方面，能够把自己的不同意见，像自己同意的一样，乐于讲给学生听的教师，也很难找得到。而且主办这些学校的党派，甚至会在校内宣传它的主义或信条，同时轻蔑其他党派的主义或信条。

在教会学校里，自由主义者解决这个问题的办法是把政治与宗教分开。在自由国家，公立学校不再讲授宗教的教义。但是学生的家长可以自由地把子女送到教会办的学校。但这里的问题不只涉及宗教教义以及某些与圣经冲突的自然科学理论，它甚至涉及历史和经济学的教学。

关于这件事，一般人知道的只有国际史的教学。现在，有些人说到历史教学时，必须避免民族主义和排外主义的影响。但是很少有人知道公平而客观地看待这个问题，这种情形也同样发生于国内史的教学方面。教师自己的和教科书作者的社会哲学，自然会渲染他们所讲的和所写的故事内容。为使小孩和青年易于了解，必须简单扼要地讲授；可是越简单扼要，效果也越糟。

按照马克思主义者和干预主义者的看法，学校里教的历史，被古老的自由主义观念污染了。他们企图以自己的历史解释来替代“布尔乔亚”的历史解释。在马克思的见解中，1688年的英国革命、美国革命、法国大革命，以及19世纪欧洲大陆的某些革命运动，都是布尔乔亚的运动。这些运动的结果，是封建制度的崩溃，以及资产阶级的优势随之建立。无产阶级大众并没有得到解放；他们只是从贵族阶级的统治，转而受资本主义剥削阶级的统治。为了解放劳工，必须摧毁资本主义的生产方式。干预主义者主张用德国式的社会政策或美国式的新政来实现这个目标。另一方面，正统的马克思主义者则断言：只有用暴力推翻资产阶级的政治制度才能够更有效地解放无产阶级。

对这些争执不下的问题及其隐含的经济学说，如果缺乏明确的立场，是不可能去讨论任何一段历史的。在对待需要共产革命去完成“未竟的革命”的鼓吹面前，教科书和教师们也无法选择一种超然的中立性。每一种关于近300年来历史事件的陈述，都涉及对这些争论的明确的价值判断。人们不可避免地要在独立宣言、葛底斯堡演说和共产党宣言的哲学之间作出选择。

在高中，甚至在学院这个阶段，历史和经济学的传授实际上是填鸭式的。大多数学生确实还没有成熟到拥有自己的判断能力。

如果公共教育在实际上更有效率，那些政党将会更加控制学校系统，以决定这些课程的教学方式。然而普通教育对于后代人政治的和社会经济的观念的形成，发生的作用不大。报纸、广播和周围环境的影响力，远比教师和教科书的影响来得大。教堂、政党以及压力团体的宣传，也胜过学校的影响力，不管学校教授的是什么。学校里面教的东西常常会被很快地忘掉，而无法长期保持住对不断变化的生活环境的免疫力。

经济学不可拘限于学校教室和统计官署，更不可停留于秘密传授的圈子里。它是人的生活和行动的哲学，它关系到每个人和每件事。它是文明的精髓，也是我们人类“人道地存在”所不可或缺的东西。

本文提到这个事实并不像某些专家一样，故意夸大其知识部门的重要性。今天赋予经济学重要地位的，不是经济学家，而是所有的人。

今天的一切政治问题都涉及广义的经济问题。当前关系社会公共事务的一切议论，都涉及人的行动学和经济学的基本因素。每个人都醉心于经济学学说。哲学家和神学家对于经济问题的兴趣，似乎超过了前辈人所关心的一些主要的哲学和神学问题的兴趣。甚至眼下流行的小说和剧本，也大都从经济学说的角度来处理所有的人事——包括性关系在内。每个人都在思考经济学，不管他是否意识到这是经济学。加入一个政党并投出他的选票，一个公民即在无意中表明了他对重要经济理论采取的立场。

在16、17世纪，宗教是欧洲政治争论中的主要问题。到了18、19世纪，无论是欧洲还是美国，代议制和王权专制之争成了主要问题。今天则是市场经济对社会主义的问题。这是一个绝对需要依靠经济分析来解决的问题。诉之于空洞的口号，或诉之辩证唯物主义的神话，都无异于缘木求鱼。

任何人都无法逃避自身的责任。凡是疏于检讨一切与自己有关的问题的人，等于甘愿放弃他固有的权利而受制于某一自命为超人的精英，在生死攸关的重要事情上，盲目地信赖“专家”，或不假思索地接受那些流行的标语和偏见，则等于放弃自决权而听任别人摆布。在今天的情形下，对于每个有理解力的人而言，没有比经济学更重要的。他本人的及其子孙的命运都与经济学息息相关。

对经济思想体系能够有所贡献的人实属罕见。但所有理智的人，都必须去熟悉经济学。在我们这个时代，这是公民的基本责任。不管我们是否喜欢它，经济学再也不能是秘密传授的知识部门，也不再是少数学者和专家独享的知识。经济学处理的是社会的基本问题；它关系到每个人，它属于所有的人。它是每个公民的必修课。

经济观念在公共事务的决定上所起的作用，往往非常的巨大，这就能够解释，为何、政党和压力团体会极力限制经济思想的自由（fre-edom）。他们急于宣传的是“好的”学说，同时不让“坏的”学说声张。照他们的看法，真理仅凭借其固有的力量是无法取得最后胜利的。为了实现真理，必须有警察或其他的武装暴力行动作后援。在这个见解下，真理的标准是看谁能以武力制胜。这意味着，指挥一切人事的上帝或某种神秘力量，总是襄助那些为正义而奋斗的人获得胜利。来自上帝，因而它肩负着消除异端的神圣使命。

对异端不宽容并加以迫害的这种学说，包含着许多矛盾，而且缺乏逻辑的一致性。对于这种矛盾和不一致，没有详加讨论的必要。这个世界从来没有过如现代、政党和压力团体所建立的如此机敏的宣传和压迫制度。但所有这些庞大的建构，一旦遭受一个伟大的意识形态的攻击，就像小孩用纸牌做的房子一样将立即倒塌下来。

今天，经济学的研究几乎成为非法的活动，这不仅在野蛮专制和新兴野蛮专制的国家是如此，在所谓西方民主国家也如此。经济问题的公开讨论，几乎完全抹煞了经济学家在200年前讲的一切。人们在讨论物价、工资、利率、利润时，似乎它们的决定，皆不受任何法则的支配。通过法令强制实施最高商品价格和最低工资率。政客则劝告工商业者减少利润、降低价格、提高工资，似乎这些事情都立基于个人的善意。在讨论到国际经济关系的时候，大家又轻率地采纳重商主义者的某些最为天真的谬见。很少人清楚所有这些著名学说的缺陷所在，或认识到为什么基于这些学说的政策必然引起普遍的灾难。

这些都是可悲的事实。只有一个方法我们可用以回应这个事实：追求真理，永不懈怠。

此文选自米塞斯《人的行动》（Human Action）

译文 余晖

标题译文 谢宗林

Economics and the Universities

Tax-supported universities are under the sway of the party in power. The authorities try to appoint only professors who are ready to advance ideas of which they themselves approve. As all nonsocialist governments are today firmly committed to interventionism, they appoint only interventionists. In their opinion, the first duty of the university is to sell the official social philosophy to the rising g-eneration. They have no use for economists.

However, interventionism prevails also at many of the independent universities.According to an age-old tradition the objective of the universities is not only teaching, but also the promotion of knowledge and science. The duty of the university teacher is not merely to hand down to the students the complex of knowledge developed by other men. He is supposed to contribute to the enlargement of this treasure by his own work. It is assumed that he is a full-fledged member of the world-embracing republic of scholarship, an innovator and a pioneer on the road toward more and better knowledge. No university would admit that th-e members of its faculty are inferior to anybody in their respective fields. Every university professor considers himself equal to all other masters of his science. Li-ke the greatest of them, he too contribu-tes his share to the advancement of learning.

This idea of the equality of all professors is, of course, fictitious. There is an enormous difference between the creative work of the genius and the nomograph of a specialist. Yet in the field of empirical research it is possible to cling to this fiction. The great innovator and the simple routinist resort in their investigations to the same technical methods of research. They arrange laboratory experiments or collect historical documents. The outward appearance of their work is the same. Their publications refer to the same subjects and problems. They are commensurable.

It is quite otherwise in theoretical sciences like philos-ophy and economics.Here there is nothing that the routinist can achieve according to a more or less stereotyped pattern. There are no tasks which require the conscientious and painstaking effort of sedulous monographers. There is no empirical research; all must be achieved by the power to reflect, to meditate, and to reason. There is no specialization, as all problems are linked with one another. In dealing with any part of the body of knowledge one deals actually with the whole. An eminent historian once described the psychological and educational significance of the doctoral thesis by declaring that it gives the author the proud assurance that there is a little corner, although small, in the field of learning in the knowledge of which he is second to none.

It is obvious that this effect cannot be realized by a thesis on a subject of economic analysis. There are no such isolated corners in the complex of economic thought. There never lived at the same time more than a score of men whose work contributed anything essential to economics. The number of creative men is as small in economics as it is in other fields of learning. Besides, many of the creative economists do not belong to the teaching profession. But there is a demand for thousands of university and college teachers of economics. Scholastic tradition requires that each of them should attest his worth by the publication of original contributions, not merely by compiling textboo-ks and manuals. An academic teacher’s reputation and salary depend more on his literary work than on his didactic abilities. A professor cannot help publishing books. If he does not feel the vocation to write on economics, he turns to economic history or descriptive economics. But then, in order not to lose face, he must insist on the claim that the problems he treats are economics proper, economy unfairly harms the vital interests of the immense majority for the sole benefit of callous exploiters. As they see it, an economist who demonstrates the futility of interventionism is a bribed champion of the unjust claims of big business. It is imperative to bar such scoundrels from access to the universities and their articles from being printed in the periodicals of the associations of university teachers.

The students are bewildered. In the courses of the mathematical economists they are fed formulas describing hypothetical states of equilibrium in which there is no longer any action. They easily conclude that these equations are of no use whatever for the comprehension of economic activities.

In the lectures of the specialists they hear a mass of detail concerning interventionist measures. They must infer that conditions are paradoxical indeed. because there is never equilibrium, and wage rates and prices of farm products are not so high as the unions or the farmers want them to be. It is obvious, they conclude that a radical reform is indispensable. But what kind of reform?

The majority of the students espouse without any inhibitions the interventionist panaceas recommended by their professors. Social conditions will be perfectly satisfactory when the government enforces minimum wage rates and provides everybody with adequate food and housing, or when the sale of margarine and the importation of foreign sugar are prohibited. They do not see the contradictions in the words of their teachers, who one day lament the madness of competition and the next day the evils of monopoly, who one day complain about falling prices and the next day about rising living costs. They take their degrees and try as soon as possible to get a job with the government or a powerful pressure group.

But there are many young men who are keen enough to see through the fallacies of interventionism. They accept their teachers’rejection of the unhampered market economy. But they do not believe that the isolated measures of interventionism could succeed in attaining the ends sought.

They consistently carry their preceptors’ thoughts to their ultimate logical consequence. They turn toward socialism. They hail the Soviet system as the dawn of a new and better civilization.

However, what has made many of the present-day universities by and large nurseries of socialism is not so much the conditions prevailing in the departments of economics as the teachings handed down in other departments. In the departments of economics there can still be found some economists, and even the other teachers may be familiar with some of the objections raised against the practicability of socialism. The case is different with many of the teachers of philosophy, history, literature, sociology, and political science. They interpret history on the ground of a garbled vulgarization of dialectical materialism. Even many of those who passionately attack Marxism on account of its materialism and atheism are under the sway of the ideas developed in the Communist Manifesto and in the program of the Communist International. They explain depressions, mass unemployment, inflation, war and poverty as evils necessarily inherent in capitalism and intimate that these phenomena can disappear only with the passing of capitalism.

General Education and Economics

In countries which are not harassed by struggles between various linguistic groups public education can work if it is limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic. With bright children it is even possible to add elementary notions of geometry, the natural sciences, and the valid laws of the country. But as soon as one wants to go farther, serious difficulties appear. Teaching at the elementary level necessarily turns into indoctrination. It is not feasible to represent to adolescents all the aspects of a problem and to let them choose between dissenting views. It is no less impossible to find teachers who could hand down opinions of which they themselves disapprove in such a way as to satisfy those who hold these opinions. The party that operates the schools is in a position to propagandize its tenets and to disparage those of other parties.

In the field of religious education the nineteenth-century liberals solved this problem by the separation of state and church. In liberal countries religion is no longer taught in public schools. But the parents are free to send their children into denominational schools supported by religious communities.

However, the problem does not refer only to the teaching of religion and of certain theories of the natural sciences at variance with the Bible. It concerns even more the teaching of history and economics.

The public is aware of the matter only with regard to the internati onal aspects of the teaching of history. There is some talk today about the necessity of freeing the teaching of history from the impact of nationalism and chauvinism. But few people realize that the problem of impartiality and objectivity is no less present in dealing with the domestic aspects of history. The teacher’s or the textbook author’s own social philosophy colors the narrative. The more the treatment must be simplified and condensed in order to be comprehensible to the i-mmature minds of children and adolescents, the worse are the effects.

As the Marxians and the interventionists see it, the teaching of history in the schools is tainted by the endorsement of the ideas of classical liberalism. They want to substitute their own interpretation of history for the “bourgeois” interpretation. In Marxian opinion the English Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution, the great French Revolution, and the nineteenthcentury revolutionary movements in continental Europe were bourgeois movements. They resulted in the defeat of feudalism and in the establishment of bourgeois supremacy. The proletarian masses were not emancipated; they merely passed from the class rule of the aristocracy to the class rule of the capitalist exploiters. To free the working man, the abolition of the capitalist mode of production is required. This, contend the interventionists, should be brought about by Sozialpolitik or the New Deal. The orthodox Marxians, on the other hand, assert that only the violent overthrow of the bourgeois system of government could effectively emancipate the proletarians.

It is impossible to deal with any chapter of history without taking a definite stand on these controversial issues and the implied economic doctrines. The textbooks and the teachers cannot adopt a lofty neutral ity with regard to the postulate that the “unfinished revolution” needs to be completed by the communist revolution. Every statement concerning events of the last three hundred years involves a definite judgment on these controversies. One cannot avoid choosing between the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address and that of the Communist Manifesto. The challenge is there, and it is useless to bury one’s head in the sand. On the high school level and even on the college level the handing down of historical and economic knowledge is virtually indoctrination. The greater part of the students are certainly not mature enough to form their own opinion on the ground of a critical examination of their teachers’representation of the subject.

If public education were more efficient than it really is, the political parties would urgently aim at the domination of the school system in order to determine the mode in which these subjects are to be taught. However, general education plays only a minor role in the formation of the political, social, and economic ideas of the rising generation. The impact of the press, the radio, and environmental conditions is much more powerful than that of teachers and textbooks. The propaganda of the churches, the political parties, and the pressure groups outstrips the influence of the schools, whatever they may teach. What is learned in school is often very soon forgotten and cannot carry on against the continuous hammering of the social milieu in which a man moves.

Economics and the Citizen

Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man’s human existence.

To mention this fact is not to indulge in the often derided weakness of specialists who overate the importance of their own branch of knowledge. Not the economists, but all the people today assign this eminent place to economics. All present-day political issues concern problems commonly called economic. All arguments advanced in contemporary discussion of social and public affairs deal with fundamental matters of praxeology and economics. Everybody’s mind is preoccupied with economic doctrines. Philosophers and theologians seem to be more interested in economic problems than in those problems which earlier generations considered the subject matter of philosophy and theology. Novels and plays today treat all things human—including sex relations—from the angle of economic doctrines. Everybody thinks of economics whether he is aware of it or not. In joining a political party and in casting his ballot, the citizen implicitly takes a stand upon essential economic theories.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries religion was the main issue in European political controversies. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe as well as in America the paramount question was representative government versus royal absolutism. Today it is the market economy versus socialism. This is, of course, a problem the solution of which depends entirely on economic analysis. Recourse to empty slogans or to the mysticism of dialectical materialism is of no avail.

There is no means by which anyone can evade his personal responsibility. Whoever neglects to examine to the best of his abilities all the problems involved voluntarily surrenders his birthright to a self-appointed elite of supermen. In such vital matters blind reliance upon “experts” and uncritical acceptance of popular catchwords and prejudices is tantamount to the abandonment of selfdetermination and to yielding to other people’s domination. As conditions are today, nothing can be more important to every intelligent man than economics. His own fate and that of his progeny is at stake.

Very few are capable of contributing any consequential idea to the bodyof economic thought. But all reasonable men are called upon to familiarize themselves with the teachings of economics. This is, in our age, the primary civic duty.

Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that economics cannot remain an esoteric branch of knowledge accessible only to small groups of scholars and specialists. Economics deals with society’s fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen.

Economics and Freedom

The paramount role that economic ideas play in the determination of civic affairs explains why governments, political parties, and pressure groups are intent upon restricting the freedom of economic thought. They are anxious to propagandize the “good” doctrine and to silence the voice of the “bad” doctrines. As they see it, truth has no inherent power which could make it ultimately prevail solely by virtue of its being true. In order to carry on, truth needs to be backed by violent action on the part of the police or other armed troops. In this view, the criterion of a doctrine’s truth is the fact that its supporters succeeded in defeating by force of arms the champions of dissenting views. It is implied that God or some mythical agency directing the course of human affairs always bestows victory upon those fighting for the good cause. Government is from God and has the sacred duty of exterminating the heretic.

It is useless to dwell upon the contradictions and inconsistencies of this doctrine of intolerance and persecution of dissenters. Never before has the world known such a cleverly contrived system of propaganda and oppression as that instituted by contemporary governments, parties, and pressure groups. However, all these edifices will crumble like houses of cards as soon as a great ideology attacks them.

Not only in the countries ruled by barbarian and neobarbarian despots, but no less in the so-called Western democracies, the study of economics is practically outlawed today. The public discussion of economic problems ignores almost entirely all that has been said by economists in the last two hundred years. Prices, wage rates, interest rates, and profits are dealt with as if their determination were not subject to any law. Governments try to decree and to enforce maximum commodity prices and minimum wage rates. Statesmen exhort businessmen to cut down profits, to lower prices, and to raise wage rates as if these matters were dependent on the laudable intentions of individuals. In the treatment of international economic relations people blithely resort to the most naive fallacies of Mercantilism. Few are aware of the shortcomings of all these popular doctrines, or realize why the policies based upon them invariably spread disaster.

These are sad facts. However, there is only one way in which a man can respond to them: by never relaxing in the search for truth.