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Marxism Unmasked: From Delusion to Destruction

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_Marxism Unmasked_ is a compilation of short-hand notes from someone who attended nine lectures that were delivered by the famous Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises in San Francisco in 1952. At this time, socialism was the zeitgeist. "In both Europe and the United States it was presumed that capitalism, when left unregulated, could only lead to exploitation, misery, and social injustice. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic were introducing ever more stringent interventionist and welfare statist policies meant to ameliorate the supposed cruelty of the market economy."

One of the main contributors to this trending of socialism at the time were the writings of Karl Marx. Hence, von Mises engaged in a fairly counter-cultural activity when he delivered these lectures in critique of Marxism.

In the first five lectures, von Mises talks about Marx and reveals the discrepancy and contradiction with many of his ideas. He refers to Marx as a man full of economic ignorance. He also notes that Marx seemed only familiar with classical economists when he critiqued capitalism and was either unable or unwilling to read the political and economic literature of the day, much of which ran contrary to his ideas of class warfare, etc.

In the last four lectures, von Mises presents the Austrian School perspective on savings and investment, business cycles, economic calculation, etc.

_Marxism Unmasked_ is an enjoyable, if short, critique of Marxism. There are plenty of more important and weightier books by von Mises on the subject, but this may serve as a nice, light introduction.