Politics & Power Quote by Ludwig von Mises

Mises links the pursuit of peace to the political economy of limited government. As an Austrian School economist who witnessed the collapse of empires, the rise of fascism and communism, and two world wars, he drew a direct line from statism to international conflict. When the state expands beyond safeguarding property, enforcing contracts, and defending against aggression, it begins to manage prices, trade, industry, and ideas. That move turns economic life into a political battlefield at home and a geopolitical contest abroad.

Protectionism, subsidies, and state-directed cartels do not merely shift income; they manufacture foreign enemies. If a government promises jobs through tariffs or resource monopolies, it must restrict imports, block migration, and bargain with threats. Each step invites retaliation, building a logic of conflict in which nations frame their prosperity as zero-sum. By contrast, open commerce makes peace the path of least resistance: it aligns interests by making others wealth and reliability part of ones own prosperity.

Mises also stresses that the modern state is a monopoly of coercion. The larger its economic and cultural reach, the more tools it has to mobilize populations for war and to suppress dissent about the costs of war. Economic planning pairs naturally with military planning, because both require compulsion and centralized command. Once a government claims the right to reorder society for collective ends, strategic objectives easily swallow moral restraints.

Limiting the state does not mean anarchy. It means confining political power to protecting rights, adjudicating disputes, and maintaining a framework where voluntary exchange can flourish across borders. Peace then depends less on precarious balances of power and more on everyday mutual advantage. Critics reply that some robust state capacity is needed to deter aggressors and provide global public goods. Mises would answer that capacity must be tightly bounded by law and market openness, or the very machinery built for security will generate the pretexts and pressures that lead back to war.