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NOTES AND REPLIES

How Different Were Ropke and Mises?

Ivan Pongracic

n The Wilhelm Ropke Review, founder and editor Ralph E. Ancil seeks to draw
a sharp distinction between the views of Wilhelm Répke and Ludwig von
Mises." Ancil complains that Ropke has been “co-opted into the more or
less libertarian thinkers whose position is further enhanced by whatever
weight or prestige his name may give.” Somehow, Ancil says, libertarians and
Austrians presume that Ropke and Mises “are in agreement on all important
issues.” But, insists Ancil, “nothing could be more incorrect.”
Since “nothing” is a strong word, the claim needs to be considered carefully.’
A good place to begin is with these very Misesian statements by Ropke:

The conviction that true creative power can prosper only in liberty and not in the
graveyard silence of prescribed opinions, that without intellectual individuality
society and the state must eventually wither, that man has a right to protection
against arbitrary power and the abuse of power, that the crushing of every
divergence of opinion and of any individual cast of mind must eventually lead to
a boredom in which the nation’s intellectual life is stifled, which lacks the
happiness of laughter, every sign of humor, and the spice of life, and in which
nothing flourishes but the brutish earnestness of the fanatic—that conviction, and
nothing else, constitutes the liberal’s much-maligned and much-misunderstood

individualism. Most illiberals take it for an expression of smug materialism.’

Ivan Pongracic is professor of economics at Indiana Wesleyan University.
"Ralph E. Ancil, “Ropke and Von Mises: The Difference,” The Wilhelm Ropke Review (Win-
ter/Spring 1994): 5-6.

Ancil is not alone among American conservatives in drawing sharp distinction between Ropke
and the other Austrians, especially Mises. One example among many: “Unlike many of the Austrian’
and ‘monetarist’ economists,” writes Gregory Wolfe, “whose ideas about human nature and
government are shallow, and influenced primarily by abstract individualism, Ropke was a man of
broad culture.” Right Minds: A Sourcebook of American Conservative Thought (Chicago: Regnery Books,
1987), p. 174.

Wilhelm Ropke, “End of an Era?” (1933), in idem, Against the Tide (Chicago: Henry Regnery,
1969), p. 8, emphasis in original.

Review of Austrian Economics 10, no. 1 (1997): 125-32
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126 Review of Austrian Economics 10, No.1 (1997)

[O]ur often so reckless anti-capitalists would do well to get thoroughly acquainted
with the voluminous literature on economics, which demonstrates that in practice
socialism must founder on the impossibility of economic calculation in a socialist

4
community.

[T]he welfare state’s compulsory aid paralyzes people’s willingness to take care of
their own needs and its financial burden considerably weakens people’s ability to
do so, while on the other hand, this limitation of self-provision makes people more

and more dependent upon compulsory public aid and increases their claim on it.

In spite of its alluring name, the welfare state stands or falls by compulsion. It is
compulsion imposed upon us with the state’s power to punish noncompliance.
Once this is clear, it is equally clear that the welfare state is an evil the same as

. Le 6
each and every restriction of freedom.

[Economics as a science has its origin in rational criticism of the naively

unscientific government practices of mercantilism.

Political anarchy leads invariably to chaos. But anarchy in economics, strangely,
produces an opposite result: an orderly cosmos. Our economic system may be
anarchic but is not chaotic. He who does not find this a wondrous phenomenon
and thereby deserving of the most patient study cannot be expected to take much

of an interest in economics.

[T]he “capitalistic” economic process can be compared to a continuing plebiscite
in which each piece of currency represents a ballot and in which the consumers,
via their demand, are constantly voting to decide what types and amounts of goods

shall be produced.’

Mises’s social philosophy is immediately recognizable. Should Mr. Ancil
really be so anxious to disprove the fact that Mises and Ropke are “in agreement
on all important matters?” Répke himself never expressed any disagreement with
Mises, and cited Mises frequently on a range of issues from monetary theory to
method. Ropke spent his life defending the same cause as Mises—a free soci-
ety—and using the tools provided by the Austrian tradition to bolster his case.

“Ropke, “The Intellectuals and Capitalism” (1931), in idem, Against the Tide, p. 28.

*Ropke, “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: On the Nature of the Welfare State” (1958), in idem,
Against the Tide, p. 210.

“Ibid. ,p- 212.

"Rope, “End of an Era?” p. 91.

Wihclm Ropke, Economics of the Free Society (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1963), p. 4.

’Ibid., p- 197.


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Pongracic: How Different Were Ropke and Mises? 127

Nevertheless, from the beginning, The Ripke Review has been more interested
in refuting “laissez-faire” ideology and its “latent nihilism” than in celebrating
the common cause of Répke and the broader Austrian tradition. While preparing
the ground for an anti-Misesian onslaught, Mr. Ancil wanted to convince his
readers that Répke and Mises represent two totally different social philosophies.
Mises, according to Mr. Ancil, believed in “no enduring values, no permanent
things, no absolute truths.”

On the one side there is a defender of “a free and truly humane society,”
who, according to Mr. Ancil, believed that “there is more to life and the economy
than technical economics comprehends.” On the other side a dogmatic pragma-
tist, who, although a “staunch defender of freedom and free markets,” was too
“technical” and “rather short-sighted,” about “legitimate government action.”

As such, Répke and Mises differed in three vital areas: first, they had
different solutions to the (“false”) dilemma of “either socialism or capitalism.”
Second, they disagreed about the nature of market intervention. Third, they
“differ[ed] in their judgments on the sufficiency and character of the competitive
system.” After analyzing all three, Mr. Ancil concludes that Répke, although
agreeing with Mises “on technical economics,” understood better “the broader
field of political economy and the important questions of how man should live.”

Now, Mr. Ancil is free to believe whatever he wants, and make it public in
his journal, but what should worry both Répkeans and Misesians together is
Wilhelm Répke’s reputation among those readers that are not so cognizant of his
writings. If we let Ropke speak for himself on these precise points, a different
picture emerges.

Wilhelm Répke was an economist who had a historic opportunity, in 1948,
to put Austrian economics to the test and to prove its practical viability. He did
it by influencing, from his voluntary exile in Switzerland, his student Ludwig
Erhard, the German economics minister.

The result was, of course, an economic miracle. (Répke himself was con-
stantly emphasizing in his writings that there was nothing miraculous in this. It
was simply the application of sound economic principles: “Its success was on the
contrary precisely what its architects had expected.”’’) Ropke did express one
regret about the reform: it did not go far enough. The post-war reform was
imperfect: “residues of collectivism, such as rent control, were scattered about
the market economy like unexploded mines, and they proved to be exceedingly

difficult to dispose of through normal democratic procedures.”

10, .
Ibid., p. 247.
"Wilhelm Répke, A Humane Economy (South Bend, Ind.: Gateway Editions, 1960), p. 28.


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128 Review of Austrian Economics 10, No.1 (1997)

Later, Ropke realized that Germany was turning away from the principles of
the free society, and he tried to stop the socialization of the German economy by
describing repeatedly what a free-market economy is all about. Répke insists that
“instead of trying to acquire the facile reputation of a ‘social-minded’ man by
vague demands for a ‘just wage,’ by railing against ‘interest slavery’ and ‘profi-
teering,” by emotional outpourings over ‘gluttonous landlords,’ and real estate
‘speculators,’ and instead of shoving aside as ‘liberalistic’ the objections of those
who understand something of these matters, one would serve his country better
by applying himself to an unprejudiced study of the complex interrelationships
of the economy.”

He wanted every German to understand that “our economic system stands
or fails with competition, since only competition can tame the torrent of private
interests and transform them into a force of good. It is competition which sees
to it that the high road to profit is entered only by the rendering of an equivalent
service (business principle). To restrict competition, then, is to jeopardize the
principle of economic reciprocity.”

Unfortunately for the Germans, they soon responded to the siren song of a
“third way.” Their destiny was sealed when Socialist Willy Brandt became the
Chancellor; with him, the free-market experiment was finished. Répke foresaw
all this and, like Mises, tried to prevent it. “The history of German economic
policy since 1948,” Ropke wrote, “has proved that economic freedom is like any
other freedom: it must, as Goethe says, be conquered anew each day."

“It cannot be too strongly emphasized that as far as the task of ordering
economic life is concerned, we have only this exclusive choice between market
economy and command economy,” he warned. Then, in a passage which Mr.
Ancil apparently overlooked, he made it clear that “[w]e cannot take refuge in
some third alternative, in cooperatives, trade unions, . . . or any other form of
‘ersatz’ socialism. We must choose between price or state command, between the
market and the authorities, between economic freedom or bureaucracy. . . . He
who chooses the market economy must, however, also choose: free formation of
prices, competition, risk of loss and chance for gain, individual responsibility,
free enterprise, private property.” 5

Because Germans and other West Europeans refused to listen, “ersatz”
socialism is now keeping most Western European countries in deep recession.
The European “third road” turned out to be neither “more realistic” nor “more

Rape, Economics of the Free Society, p. 186.
bid. , p- 236.

Raph, A Humane Economy, p. 27.
Repke, Economics of the Free Society, p. 254.


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Pongracic: How Different Were Ropke and Mises? 129

humane,” as Mr. Ancil would have us believe. Yet, Germany is currently under-
going its greatest economic difficulties since World War II, a result not of
integration with East Germany as such, but of welfarism, unsustainable social
insurance, inflexible regulations, an investment environment unfriendly to en-
trepreneurship, an overgrown bureacracy, and a dependent middle class—all the
sins of the “third way.” Germany’s welfare state (and Sweden’s and Finland’s and
all others, for that matter) may eventually come to an end with a bang not smaller
than the one produced by the end of Communism.

Ancil, who repeatedly states in his writing that market is not everything (as
if Mises ever stated that it was), forgets that both Mises and Répke understood
that the market is the only efficient way of coordinating the actions of producers
and consumers. “The market economy has the ability to use the motive power of
individual self-interest for turning the turbines of production,” writes Répke,
adding that “if the collectivist economy is to function, it needs heroes or saints,
and since there are none, it leads straight to the police state.” “Nothing could
more strikingly demonstrate the positive value of self-interested action than that
its denial destroys civilization and enslaves men.”'®

Ropke nails down his message from the “Preface” to A Humane Economy (that
the book was going to anger, among others, “pure moralists and romantics, who may
perhaps cite me as proof of how a pure soul can be corrupted by political econ-
omy” , with this conclusion: “Any attempt to base an economic order on a morality
considerably higher than the common man’s must end up in compulsion and the
organized intoxication of the masses through propaganda.”'®

For those who refused to understand this fact, Ropke had little patience:
“What overweening arrogance there is in the disparagement of things economic,
what ignorant neglect of the sum of work, sacrifice, devotion, pioneering spirit,
common decency, and conscientiousness upon which depends the bare life of the
world’s enormous and ever growing population! The sum of all these humble things
supports the whole edifice of our civilization, and without them there could be
neither freedom nor justice, the masses would not have a life fit for human
beings, and no helping hand would be extended to anyone. . . . Romanticizing
and moralistic contempt of the economy, including contempt of the impulses
which move the market economy and the institutions that support it, must be as

. yy Meee 19
far from our minds as economism, materialism, and utilitarianism.”

"®Ropke, A Humane Economy, p. 121.
bid., “Preface to the English Language Edition,” p. v.
18, .
Ibid., p. 121,
Ropke, A Humane Economy, p. 106-7. As for the supposed economism of which Mises is
sometimes accused, Mises himself says “it was a fundamental mistake . . . to interpret economics


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130 Review of Austrian Economics 10, No.1 (1997)

Répke’s “third road” is thus not about saving us from the market economy
(in which “anything goes,” according to Mr. Ancil), but about solving our
political, social, legal, and moral problems without which the free market cannot
exist. Despite Ancil’s opinion that, for Répke, the market “cannot serve its own
foundation; it is not self-sufficient; it is not a source of community; and it is not
a cure for other ills,” Répke himself made the most important clarification of his
own position. “In the absence of a market economy these problems are, in fact,
insoluble; only such an economy can guarantee us order in freedom, without
which all the rest is in vain.”

Ropke explains his “third road” as a road between socialism and a system
laden with “super-organization, centralization, Gargantuan concerns, machine
giants, mammoth towns, and titanic plans” (hardly a “libertarian” economy).”’ The
“third road” is to save us from “boredom” of a system that tends “to centralize and
overorganize the economy and society in a way which neglects the human ele-
ment.””? It is only “the market economy, with its variety, its stress on individual
action and responsibility, and its elementary freedoms, [that] is still the source of
powerful forces counteracting [this] boredom of mass society and industrial life,
which are common to both capitalism and socialism. "3 The “more we adulterate
the market economy with admixtures of intervention, the higher rises the

24
watermark of complusion, the narrower becomes the area of freedom.”

as the characterization of the behavior of an ideal type, the homo ceconomicus. According to this doctrine
traditional or orthodox economics does not deal with the behavior of man as he really is and acts, but
with a fictitious or hypothical image. It pictures a being driven exclusively by ‘economic’ motives, i.e.,
solely by the intention of making the greatest possible material or monetary profit. Such a being, say
these critics, does not have and never did have a counterpart in reality; it is a phantom of a spurious
armchair philosophy. No man is exclusively motivated by the desire to become as rich as possible; many
are not at all influenced by this mean craving. It is vain to refer to such an illusory homunculus in
dealing with life and history,” Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1966), p. 62.
While Mises thought classical economics was too often caricatured in this regard, he further clarified
matters by insisting economists should not study homo oeconomicus but homo agens, i.e. acting man.

In contrast to those who would rank Mises among the materialists, Mises himself writes that
“[I]n reality no food is valued solely for its nutritive power and no garment or house solely for the
protection it affords against cold weather and rain. It cannot be denied that the demand for goods is
widely influenced by metaphysical, religious, and ethical considerations, by aesthetic value judg-
ments, by customs, habits, prejudices, tradition, changing fashions, and many other things. To an
economist who would try to restrict his investigations to ‘material’ aspects only, the subject matter
of inquiry vanishes as soon as he wants to catch it.” Ibid, p. 234.

Ropke held the identical view: “The ordinary man is not such a homo oeconomicus, just as he is
neither hero nor saint. The motives which drive people toward economic success are as varied as
the human soul itself.” Ropke, A Humane Economy, p. 121.

20a pke, Economics of the Free Society, p. 256.

~ Ropke, A Humane Economy, p. 259.

2 bid, , P- 255.
* Ibid. , p- 87.
Ibid. , p- 261.


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Pongracic: How Different Were Ripke and Mises? 131

The “third road” is also to save us from the economists who are “fascinated
by the mathematical elegance of fashionable macroeconomic models, by the
problems of moving aggregates, by the seduction of grandiose projects for
balanced growth, by the dynamizing effects of advertising or consumer credit, by
the merits of ‘functional’ public finance, or by the glamour of progress surround-
ing giant concerns.””® For these people, “the economy takes on the appearance
of a giant pumping engine, and it is quite consistent” that economic science “is
turning itself into a sort of engineering science. Equations proliferate, while the
theory of prices all but falls into oblivion.””® It is precisely this tendency against
which Mises battled during much of his life.

For Répke, as for Mises, a “[f]ree economy stands or falls with the free
entrepreneur and merchant, just as such an economy is inconceivable without
free prices and markets. There is no way of defending the free economy against
the still powerful forces of collectivism except by having the courage to stand by
these central figures of a free economy and protect them from the wave of
distrust and resentment to which . . . they are exposed.””’

There can be no doubt that Répke was a Misesian in more ways than just
“technical economics.” In a 1959 tribute, EA. Hayek credits Répke for rightly
believing that “an economist who is nothing but an economist cannot be a good
economist.” But this insight, said Hayek, was pioneered by “a man of the
preceding generation,” Ludwig von Mises, “whose decisive work had just ap-
peared when we concluded our studies.” It was Mises’s Socialism (1922) that first
“demonstrated how economic thought can serve as the basis for a comprehensive
social philosophy and can provide answers to the pressing problems of the time.”
Mises provided the model that “determined the common development of our
generation,” including the writings of Répke.”®

The market economy is the sine qua non of a free society, and it was positively
endorsed by Répke: “I champion an economic order ruled by free prices and
markets . . . the only economic order compatible with human freedom, with a state
and society which safeguard freedom, and with the rule of law. . . . There is a
profound ethical reason why an economy governed by free prices, free markets,
and free competition implies health and plenty, while the socialist economy means
sickness, disorder, and lower productivity. The liberal economic system releases
and utilizes the extraordinary forces inherent in individual self-assertion,

S1bid., p. 99.

21bid., p. 247.

ibid, p. 30.

28E A. Hayek, The Fortunes of Liberalism: Essays on Austrian Economics and the Ideal of Freedom
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 196.


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132 Review of Austrian Economics 10, No.1 (1997)

whereas the socialist system suppresses them and wears itself out in opposing
them. We have . . . every reason to distrust the moralizing attitudes of those who
condemn the free economy.” »

Répke knew that, “however much we may have had to criticize it,” it is
“impossible to overstate the value of the impersonal integration of people
through the market in comparison with their conglomeration in a collectivist
economy . . . it does have the merit of coordinating rather than subordinating
people. The market and power do not go well together. n30

The state, on the other hand, is the market’s “most immediate and tangible
threat . . . I want to repeat this because it cannot be stressed too much. The state
and the concentration of its power, exemplified in the predominance of the
budget, have become a cancerous growth gnawing at the freedom and order of
society and economy.” In supposed contrast, Ancil accuses Mises of being
“dogmatic” and “rather short-sighted” about “legitimate government action.”
Ropke’s final warning against “the eternal romantic’s contempt of the economy,
a contempt shared often enough by reactionaries and revolutionaries, as well as
by aloof aesthetes”’” was a warning for all the future Ancils to heed.

One might think that The Wilhelm Ripke Review would be devoted to what Ropke
saw as the real enemy, the planned economy. After all, we remain at the mercy of
neo-Keynesian government policy, when government consumes as much as half of
the national wealth, when neo-Keynesians are well positioned on the Federal Re-
serve Board. Why shouldn’t John Maynard Keynes (whose economics Répke de-
scribed as “a typically intellectual construction that forgets the social reality behind
the integral calculus”), his followers, and his legacy, and not Mises, be the focus of
attack?

One final note. There was probably less disagreement between Répke and
Mises than between Mises and Hayek, yet it was Hayek who several times
emphasized that, although he “wasn’t always satisfied by [Mises’s] arguments,”
or found seldom his “arguments to be completely convincing,” in the end he
“only slowly learned that [Mises] was mostly right.”** Would that other mis-
guided critics acquire such humility.

- Rape, A Humane Economy, p. 6.

> Ibid, , p- 237.

Ibid. , p- 33

> Ibid. , p- 118.

33 Ropke, “Keynes and the Revolution in Economics” (1952), in idem, Against the Tide, p. 180.

FA. Hayek, “Introduction,” to the German edition of Mises’s Notes and Recollections,
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, trans., Austrian Economics Newsletter (Fall 1988): 1-3.