The Doctrine of Interventionism

To prescientific thinkers, a human society built on private property in the means of production seemed to be naturally chaotic. It received its order, so they thought, only from imposed precepts of morality and law. Society can exist only if buyer and seller observe justice and fairness. Government must intervene in order to avoid the evil that flows from an arbitrary deviation from the "just price." This opinion prevailed in all remarks on social life until the eighteenth century. It appeared for the last time in all its naivetk in the
writings of the mercantilists.

The anticapitalist writers are emphasizing that classical economics served the "interests" of the "bourgeoisie,"
which allegedly explains its own success, and led the bourgeois class to its successes. Surely, no one can doubt that the freedom achieved by classical liberalism paved the way for the incredible development of productive forces during the last century. But it is a sad mistake to believe that by opposing intervention classical liberalism gained acceptance more easily. It faced the opposition of all those whom the feverish
activity of government granted protection, favors, and privileges.

Classical liberalism was victorious with economics and through it. No other economic ideology can be reconciled with the science of catallactics. During the 1820s and 1830s, an attempt was made in England to use economics for demonstrating that the capitalist order does not function satisfactorily,
and that it is unjust. From this Karl Marx then created his "scientific" socialism. But even if these writers
had succeeded in proving their case against capitalism, they would have had to prove further that another social order, like socialism, is better than capitalism. This they were not able to do; they could not even prove that a social order could actually be built on public property in the means of production. By merely rejecting and ostracizing any discussion of the problems of socialism as "utopian" they obviously
did not solve anything.