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1. Austrian Sociology, Lecture 3
David Gordon, Mises Academy
March 27, 2013
HA, Chapter VIII, pp.166-176.

2. The Mystical Communion
• Mises is a social rationalist. He thinks that
society arises because people recognize that
mutual gains from trade and exchange are
possible.
• When Mises was writing, this theory wasn’t
popular. The dominant accounts claimed that
society arises from some non-rational process.
• Mises calls these accounts “the fable of the
mystic communion.”

3. Mystical Union
• One view is that people are in mystical union
with God. Cooperation in society is an aspect
of this mystical union.
• Mises’s enemy at the University of Vienna,
Othmar Spann, held this view.
• Mises answers that people may have such
feelings, but they arise only after people have
formed a society. They aren’t primary.

4. Voice of the Blood
• A racial theory popular among the Nazis was
that people of the same race here a “voice of
the blood” that impels them to get together.
This is similar to the ties of blood that bind
parents and children.
• Again, Mises doesn’t deny that these feelings
exist; but they arise after, not before, people
form a society.

5. More Criticism of Racial Theory
• The alleged “voice of the blood” doesn’t
operate in accord with racial theory.
• Germans include many people who have been
Germanized only recently.
• Sometimes, people don’t feel this voice from
people who are members of the same ethnic
group. In fact, they can be antagonistic to
other people in their racial group.
• “Races” are all mixed.

6. Biological Instinct Theory
• Another theory, related to the voice of the
blood view, is that people have a biological
instinct to form societies.
• After all, isn’t the mutual attraction of the
sexes biological?
• Mises admits this, but says it doesn’t account
for society. Families and larger groups aren’t
biologically necessary. Society stems from a
reasoned recognition of its advantages.

7. Antagonisms
• Hostility and antagonism between racial groups
isn’t biologically innate either.
• We can see this because of racial mixtures that
arise from interbreeding.
• Feelings of hostility need not prevent a society
composed of the hostile groups from arising.
• The Law of Association operates, regardless of
how the people cooperating feel about each
other.

8. War
• Once people form societies, not every type of
interaction they engage in counts as social.
• A war of annihilation isn’t a type of social
interaction.
• Many wars are not wars of annihilation.
People recognize that after a war, cooperation
with the people they are fighting will be
useful.

9. War Continued
• Because people realize this, rules of war
develop that limit what can be done in
warfare.
• E.g., civilians can’t be directly attacked, certain
weapons are forbidden.
• The groups that accept these rules form a
Great Society.

10. Aggression
• Some people emphasize that human beings
have an instinct for aggression and
destruction.
• Civilization weakens us and is the triumph of
weak values over our animal nature. Nietzsche
is one of the writers Mises has in mind here.
Georges Sorel is another.

11. Mises’s Response
• Mises does not deny the tendency to violence.
But this is no more a product of evolution
than is the tendency to cooperate. Social
cooperation is the way human beings survive.
• If people have an aggressive instinct, it
doesn’t follow that they are bound to act on
it. They can decide which of their feelings they
will act on.

12. Instinct and Value Judgments
• Is Mises saying that we “shouldn’t” act on the
instinct for aggression and destruction?
• He denies that he is doing this. He is pointing
out the consequences of doing so, and most
people will find these consequences
undesirable.
• Acting on the aggressive impulses is
incompatible with civilization.

13. Biology and Rights
• Some people attack the political program of
classical liberalism. This is based on equal rights,
but people are not equal, Biology shows this.
• People are very different in ability.
• Mises responds that his approach to liberalism
doesn’t depend on rights. It is utilitarian.
• Also, rights are what people ought morally to
have. A doctrine of rights isn’t a descriptive claim
about human properties.