Why Fighting Marxism Means Fighting Its Ideas, Not Labels

Debate continues over whether Nazis were really socialists. They called themselves socialists, but self-described socialists like Scott Sehon say the Nazis do not count. David Gordon pointed out in response that Sehon never investigates what the Nazis meant by the word or why they used it.

Mises defined socialism as “the socialization of the means of production with its corollary, the centralized control of the whole of production by one social or, more accurately, state organ.” But if North Korea is almost the only country that will admit to being socialist by that definition, the word serves little purpose in understanding the contemporary world.

In Omnipotent Government, Mises described the Nazis’ economic system as “socialism in the outward guise of capitalism.” He was not impressed that formal ownership of the means of production remained in private hands. “Market exchange is only a sham,” he wrote. “All the prices, wages, and interest rates are fixed by the central authority. They are prices, wages, and interest rates in appearance only; in reality they are merely determinations of quantity relations in the government’s orders. The government, not the consumers, directs production.”

F.A. Hayek took a similar approach in The Road to Serfdom. He observed that many people thought socialism could not possibly be as bad as he warned. English socialists were not followers of Marx and Engels, nor did they agree with Stalin’s brutal methods. Six years of socialist government in England had not produced anything resembling a totalitarian state, so it did not seem there was much to worry about.

Hayek’s response: “But those who argue that this has disproved the thesis of The Road to Serfdom have really missed one of its main points: that the most important change which extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.”

By character, he meant political ideals and attitudes toward authority. People become accustomed to being controlled by political overlords. They forget what it means to live free, and they become increasingly unlikely to object to the schemes of “the unscrupulous and uninhibited” politicians Hayek identified as the ringleaders in a society tending toward totalitarianism.

The important issue is not taxonomy. It is identifying and addressing the threats to liberty. Ideas and policies must be evaluated on their own merits, not by classification and labeling. We can and should oppose Marxist doctrines even if the people advancing them deny being Marxists. The real threat comes from their policies, no matter how benign their stated intentions.