Mises on the worship of the state or statolatry (1944)

A theme in Mises' writings is his critique of “the worship of the state”, which he also called “etatism” or “statolatry.” By this he meant the belief that the rulers of the state and their bureaucrats were more knowledgeable than others, less prone than ordinary people to allow their personal interests to overshadow their civi duty, accountable to a higher moral order, justified in using force against others to achieve the goals of “society”, and so on. Hence, they should be treated as godlike in their powers and virtue.

One can trace his use of the words from the Theory of Money and Credit (1912) and Socialism (1922) at the time of WW1, where “etatism” was the preferred term, to WW2 and its immediate aftermath when he introduced the word “statolatry” in Omnipotent Government (1944), Bureaucracy (1944), and Human Action (1949) as a harsher way of saying the same thing. The key point for Mises is the distinction between the State’s way of carrying out its affairs, and the the way things are done in the free market. The former “means coercion and compulsion”, the latter means cooperation and peaceful exchange.

In the modern era, Mises points out, the presence of democratic governments does not alter the fundamental equation as “majorities are no less exposed to error and frustration than kings and dictators.” He concludes that we must not forget that, like monarchs who ruled by divine right, “The individuals who form the majority are not gods, and their joint conclusions are not necessarily godlike.”