Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War

by Ludwig Von Mises (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0910884150

ISBN-10: 0910884153

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At the close of the Second World War, Mises saw the destruction of the old world and the beginnings of a new one that did not look promising, especially for European politics. Socialism appeared to sweep all before it, and the social democratic variety in the West was not much of an improvement. Mises set out to explain and bitterly denounce the trends toward the total state, and demonstrate that Communism and Nazism were both species of interventionism.

Though Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom was more widely promoted, and achieved a far greater fame, this Mises work, which appeared in the same year, offers a more consistent critique of industrial central planning, warfare, and the welfare state. There are no concessions to the prevailing social democratic consensus, and Mises is no less harsh on interventionism of the democratic form. The last chapter is a prescient critique of the idea of world government, including world trade agreements.

ISBN 0910884153
291 pp. (pb)

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Omnipotent Government is not only a history of the fall of Germany, but also a powerful critique of the political, social, and economic ideologies that have shaped Western history in the last two hundred years. The ordeal of two World Wars, according to Mises, was the inevitable result of ideologies that call upon government for the management of human affairs. People today hail every step toward more government as "progress," and call for more laws, regulations, and their enforcement by courts and police. They are yearning for Caesar. They forget the consequences of total government. Omnipotent Government is a potent reminder.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Libertarian Pr (August 1, 1985)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 291 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0910884153
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0910884150
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,463,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,044 in Political Ideologies
- #4,666 in Theory of Economics
- #20,577 in History & Theory of Politics

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The inevitability of destruction with the empowerment of the state

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2017

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Von Mises is an expert at demonstrating the principles that underlie various philosophies. This book does not only show how the specific case of Nazi Germany manifested itself, but how the underlying principles led to the atrocities committed and how they will lead to this again. He shows how the policies advocated by etatists are evil in nature and the true motives of its proponents.

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Facts are facts. What is said in this book ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2017

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Facts are facts. What is said in this book is true and happens all the time.

One person found this helpful

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M. Powell

Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2016

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really heavy reading, textbook

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Roy Hobbes

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2017

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Outstanding!

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Michael

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2016

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I'm only about half way through, but very enlightening.

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Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2016

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This was a gift from nieces and nephews.

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Bravo Blues

Great book

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2015

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Product very professionally wrapped and brand new. Arrived on time as promised.

Thank you.

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J. A. Lopez

As long as Etatism (of any flavor) is the core of governments we can't get rid of wars.

Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2015

Ludwin Von Mises wrote Omnipotent Government in 1944 at the last days of WWII. Mises describes the philosophical grounds of the Nazi movement. A book rich in history background and a though provoking plan for the future.

In the first part Mises explains the German Liberalism during the middle of the XIX when the ideas of the classical Liberalism were partially adopted in Germany. According to Mises:

"At about the middle of the nineteenth century those Germans interested in political issues were united in their adherence to liberalism. Yet the German nation did not succeed in shaking off the yoke of absolutism and in establishing democracy and parliamentary government."
Mises explains the history of Germany from the late XVIII to the early XX with a different point of view from the dominant Socialist Historians. Overall he shows how and why a powerful-educated German society fell into Nazism.
"The questions to be answered are not: Why did the bankers and the rich entrepreneurs and capitalists desert liberalism? Why did the professors, the doctors, and the lawyers not erect barricades? We must rather ask: Why did the German nation return to the Reichstag members who did not abolish absolutism? Why was the army, formed for a great part of men who voted the socialist or the Catholic ticket, unconditionally loyal to its commanders? Why could the antiliberal parties, foremost among them the Social Democrats, collect many millions of votes while the groups which remained faithful to the principles of liberalism lost more and more popular support? Why did the millions of socialist voters who indulged in revolutionary babble acquiesce in the rule of princes and courts?"

For Mises the German Liberals were unable to protect the principles and ideas that help them succeed. They saw Socialism and Nazism as temporary setbacks and never recognize the deep roots of Etatism. Soon Etatism armed with a strong military evolved into nationalism.

"As soon as liberalism reached Germany and Italy the problem of the extent of the state and its boundaries was raised. It solution seemed easy. The nation is the community of all people speaking the same language; the state's frontiers should coincide with the linguistic demarcations."

"The principle of nationality is an outcome of the interpretation which people in Central and Eastern Europe, who never fully grasped the meaning of liberal ideas, gave to the principle of self-determination. It is a distortion, not a perfection, of liberal thought."

The nationalism originally define as unity of language evolved to unity of race. The idea that Germany was the strongest among European nations contrasted with the defeat after WWI and the unacceptable conditions of the Versailles Treaty. It fueled the legend of "the stab in the back" followed by the total failure of the Weimar Republic setting the conditions to the advent of Nazism. The party sold itself as the enemy of the communist to the liberals and as saver of the poor from the bourgeois. But overall a saver of the German Nationalism, nationalism now defined by race with a common enemy, Jews.

Mises' conclusion can be read two ways. Considering the era when The Omnipotent Government was published he recognize the improbability of a liberal world, necessary to discard aggression from other countries, plus the risk of government to close their borders establishing autarkic states and starting aggression against their neighbors to eliminate its dependency.

"But will all men rightly understand their own interests? What if they do not? This is the weak point in the liberal plea for a free world of peaceful coöperation. The realization of the liberal plan is impossible because—at least for our time—people lack the mental ability to absorb the principles of sound economics. Most men are too dull to follow complicated chains of reasoning. Liberalism failed because the intellectual capacities of the immense majority were insufficient for the task of comprehension."

But sixty years later we can read his conclusion as a kind of prophecy of how humanity is condemned to live with the risk of war supporting strong armies as long as the different flavors of etatism are not replaced by liberalism, where goods and people move freely anywhere in the world.

Is capitalism an all or nothing global condition for peace? Are global coalitions and governments the only defense to totalitarian neighbors?

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Julian B.

Sehr interessantes Buch!

Reviewed in Germany on September 6, 2020

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Es dreht sich in diesem Buch viel um die Geschichte Deutschlands und es werden sehr viele interessante Aspekte genannt. Wie immer ein sehr empfehlenswertes Buch von Ludwig von Mises.

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Hermann Luyken

Interessant, hatte aber was anderes erwartet.

Reviewed in Germany on December 31, 2019

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Ein interessantes Buch. Mir war allerdings nicht klar, daß es vor allem um Nazismus geht. Ich hatte eigentlich wirtschaftliche Thesen erwartet, die aber auch vorhanden sind. Trotzdem kann ich das Buch weiterempfehlen.

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Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War

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