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• Human Action: a Treatise On Economics: Vol. 3. Part 5: Social Cooperation Without a Market
• Chapter 25: The Imaginary Construction of a Socialist Society
• 1: The Historical Origin of the Socialist Idea
• 2: The Socialist Doctrine
• 3: The Praxeological Character of Socialism
• Chapter 26: The Impossibility of Economic Calculation Under Socialism
• 1: The Problem
• 2: Past Failures to Conceive the Problem
• 3: Recent Suggestions For Socialist Economic Calculation
• 4: Trial and Error
• 5: The Quasi-market
• 6: The Differential Equations of Mathematical Economics
• Part 6: The Hampered Market Economy
• Chapter 27: The Government and the Market
• 1: The Idea of a Third System
• 2: The Intervention
• 3: The Delimitation of Governmental Functions
• 4: Righteousness As the Ultimate Standard of the Individual’s Actions
• 5: The Meaning of Laissez Faire
• 6: Direct Government Interference With Consumption
• Corruption
• Chapter 28: Interference By Taxation
• 1: The Neutral Tax
• 2: The Total Tax
• 3: Fiscal and Nonfiscal Objectives of Taxation
• 4: The Three Classes of Tax Interventionism
• Chapter 29: Restriction of Production
• 1: The Nature of Restriction
• 2: The Price of Restriction
• 3: Restriction As a Privilege
• 4: Restriction As an Economic System
• Chapter 30: Interference With the Structure of Prices
• 1: The Government and the Autonomy of the Market
• 2: The Market’s Reaction to Government Interference
• Observations On the Causes of the Decline of Ancient Civilization
• 3: Minimum Wage Rates
• The Catallactic Aspects of Labor Unionism
• Chapter 31: Currency and Credit Manipulation
• 1: The Government and the Currency
• 2: The Interventionist Aspect of Legal Tender Legislation
• 3: The Evolution of Modern Methods of Currency Manipulation
• 4: The Objectives of Currency Devaluation
• 5: Credit Expansion
• The Chimera of Contracyclical Policies
• 6: Foreign Exchange Control and Bilateral Exchange Agreements
• Chapter 32: Confiscation and Redistribution
• 1: The Philosophy of Confiscation
• 2: Land Reform
• 3: Confiscatory Taxation
• Confiscatory Taxation and Risk-taking
• Chapter 33: Syndicalism and Corporativism
• 1: The Syndicalist Idea
• 2: The Fallacies of Syndicalism
• 3: Syndicalist Elements In Popular Policies
• 4: Guild Socialism and Corporativism
• Chapter 34: The Economics of War
• 1: Total War
• 2: War and the Market Economy
• 3: War and Autarky
• 4.: The Futility of War
• Chapter 35: The Welfare Principle Versus the Market Principle
• 1: The Case Against the Market Economy
• 2: Poverty
• 3: Inequality
• 4: Insecurity
• 5: Social Justice
• Chapter 36: The Crisis of Interventionism
• 1: The Harvest of Interventionism
• 2: The Exhaustion of the Reserve Fund
• 3: The End of Interventionism
• Part 7: The Place of Economics In Society
• Chapter 37: The Nondescript Character of Economics
• 1: The Singularity of Economics
• 2: Economics and Public Opinion
• 3: The Illusion of the Old Liberals
• Chapter 38: The Place of Economics In Learning
• 1: The Study of Economics
• 2: Economics As a Profession
• 3: Forecasting As a Profession
• 4: Economics and the Universities
• 5: General Education and Economics
• 6: Economics and the Citizen
• 7: Economics and Freedom
• Chapter 39: Economics and the Essential Problems of Human Existence
• 1: Science and Life
• 2: Economics and Judgments of Value
• 3: Economic Cognition and Human Action

2

Land Reform

The social reformers of older days aimed at the establishment of a community of autarkic farmers only. The shares of land allotted to each member were to be equal. In the imagination of these utopians there is no room for division of labor and specialization in processing trades. It is a serious mistake to call such a social order agrarian socialism. It is merely a juxtaposition of economically self-sufficient households.

In the market economy the soil is a means of production like any other material factor of production. Plans aiming at a more or less equal distribution of the soil among the farming population are, under the conditions of the market economy, merely plans for granting privileges to a group of less efficient producers at the expense of the immense majority of consumers. The operation of the market tends to eliminate all those farmers whose cost of production is higher than the marginal costs needed for the production of that amount of farm products the consumers are ready to buy. It determines the size of the farms as well as the methods of production applied. If the government interferes in order to make a different arrangement of the conditions of farming prevail, it raises the average price of farm products. If under competitive conditions m farmers, each of them operating a 1,000-acre farm, produce all those farm products the consumers are ready to acquire, and the government interferes in order to substitute 5 m farmers, each of them operating a 200-acre farm, for m, the previous numbers of farmers, the consumers foot the bill.

It is vain to justify such land reforms by referring to natural law and other metaphysical ideas. The simple truth is that they enhance the price of agricultural products and that they also impair nonagricultural production. As more manpower is needed to turn out a unit of farm produce, more people are employed in farming and less are left for the processing industries. The total amount of commodities available for consumption drops and a certain group of people is favored at the expense of the majority.