über den Sozialismus (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1922). A few paragraphs and the appendix were added to the second German edition, published by the same firm in 1932, and a few more paragraphs were included in the first English translation—Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, translated by J. Kahane (London: Jonathan Cape, 1936).
An enlarged edition of the Kahane translation was published in 1951 (New Haven: Yale University Press). This edition included an epilogue originally published (and still available) under the title Planned Chaos (Irvington, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1947). This enlarged edition was reprinted by Jonathan Cape (London) in 1969, and is here reprinted again, in 1981, by Liberty Fund (Indianapolis).
This edition leaves the text as translated by Kahane in 1936 and added to by Mises in 1951 undisturbed. The present publisher has, however, undertaken to add certain features to aid the contemporary reader. Translations have been provided for all non-English expressions left untranslated in the Jonathan Cape edition. These translations appear in parentheses after the expressions or passages in question. Chapters have been numbered consecutively throughout the book.
All footnotes have been checked against the second German edition. When works in languages other than English are cited by Mises, information concerning versions in English has been provided when such versions could be located. The corresponding page references in the English versions are also provided insofar as location of these was possible. Complete information
[print edition page xvi]
concerning the English version is provided at the first citation of a given work. Only the page references in the English are provided in later citations, but full information is easily located in the Index to Works Cited. All bibliographical information added to the footnotes is clearly labeled as a publisher’s note.
Having been written in 1922 in Austria and ranging over many fields of learning, Socialism contains a number of references to individuals and events with which many readers will not be familiar. Brief explanations of such references are provided by asterisked footnotes printed below Mises’ notes and clearly labeled as being added by the publisher. Such notes also offer explanations quoted from Mises of his special use of a few English terms.
In order to facilitate study of the book, two new indexes have been provided. An Index to Works Cited lists all books and authors cited in Socialism. This index also provides English versions of works cited by Mises in German. In cases where no English version has been found, a literal translation of the title has been provided. A general Subject and Name Index is also provided.
Socialism has been available in English for more than forty years and references to it abound in the scholarly literature. Since Liberty Fund editions are set in new type, the pagination of this new edition differs from the earlier ones. We have, therefore, indicated the pagination of the expanded edition of 1951 in the margins of the Liberty Fund edition.
The pagination of all previous English language editions was the same from pages 15 through 521. In the enlarged edition of 1951, a Preface was added as pages 13–14, and the Epilogue was added as pages 522–592. By placing the pagination of the 1951 edition in the margins of our edition, we provide a guide to the location of citations of all earlier English editions.
The publisher wishes to acknowledge with thanks the aid of several persons who helped with this edition. The many aids to study and understanding offered in this edition are due primarily to the work of Bettina Bien Greaves of the Foundation for Economic Education. She performed the monumental task of checking the footnotes against the second German edition. She also undertook the equally difficult task of providing most of the citations to English language versions of works cited in German. She provided most of the material for the asterisked explanations of unfamiliar references. She also did most of the work of preparing the new indexes. If this edition is more easily studied by contemporary readers, most of the credit should go to Mrs. Greaves.
For aid with translations from Greek, the publisher acknowledges the help
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of Professors Perry E. Gresham and Burton Thurston of Bethany College. For help with Latin translations, Professor Gresham must be acknowledged again along with Father Laut of Wheeling College. Percy L. Greaves, Jr., of Dobbs Ferry, New York, provided translations from French. Professor H. D. Brueckner of Pomona College provided aid with locating translations and citations of Kant.
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When Socialism first appeared in 1922, its impact was profound. It gradually but fundamentally altered the outlook of many of the young idealists returning to their university studies after World War I. I know, for I was one of them.
We felt that the civilization in which we had grown up had collapsed. We were determined to build a better world, and it was this desire to reconstruct society that led many of us to the study of economics. Socialism promised to fulfill our hopes for a more rational, more just world. And then came this book. Our hopes were dashed. Socialism told us that we had been looking for improvement in the wrong direction.
A number of my contemporaries, who later became well known but who were then unknown to each other, went through the same experience: Wilhelm Röpke in Germany and Lionel Robbins in England are but two examples. None of us had initially been Mises’ pupils. I had come to know him while working for a temporary Austrian government office which was entrusted with the implementation of certain clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. He was my superior, the director of the department.
Mises was then best known as a fighter against inflation. He had gained the ear of the government and, from another position as financial adviser to the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, was immensely busy urging the government to take the only path by which a complete collapse of the currency could still be prevented. (During the first eight months I served under him, my nominal salary rose to two hundred times the initial amount.)
As students during the early 1920’s, many of us were aware of Mises as the somewhat reclusive university lecturer who, a decade or so earlier, had
[print edition page xx]
published a book1 known for its successful application of the Austrian marginal utility analysis theory of money—a book Max Weber described as the most acceptable work on the subject. Perhaps we ought to have known that in 1919 he had also published a thoughtful and farseeing study on the wider aspects of social philosophy, concerning the nation, the state, and the economy.2 It never became widely known, however, and I discovered it only when I was his subordinate at the government office in Vienna. At any rate, it was a great surprise to me when this book, Socialism, was first published.3 For all I knew, he could hardly have had much free time for academic pursuits during the preceding (and extremely busy) ten years. Yet this was a major treatise on social philosophy, giving every evidence of independent thought and reflecting, through Mises’ criticism, an acquaintance with most of the literature on the subject.
For the first twelve years of this century, until he entered military service, Mises studied economic and social problems. He was, as was my generation nearly twenty years later, led to these topics by the fashionable concern with Sozialpolitik, similar in outlook to the “Fabian” socialism of England. His first book,4 published while he was still a young law student at the University of Vienna,
