Phil Magness reveals just how Quinn Slobodian misrepresents Ludwig von Mises. Four slices:
Academic works on “neoliberalism” almost invariably share three characteristics. First, they portray neoliberalism as the dominant paradigm of the global economy since the mid-twentieth century. Second, they treat that development as harmful, attributing a long list of social ills to its rise. Third, they rarely explain what “neoliberalism” actually means. Nevertheless, the term has become one of academia’s favorite buzzwords, generating tens of thousands of books and journal articles purporting to document its corrosive effects on society.
Boston University Professor of International History Quinn Slobodian ranks among the most visible figures in this burgeoning genre of “neoliberalism studies.” His 2025 book Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. He holds various elite academic honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, visiting stints at Harvard and Brown, and six-figure grants from a Hewlett Foundation program, which funds research opposing neoliberalism. All evince a strong adversarial stance toward the subject of his research.
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Intrigued, and taken aback, by these unfamiliar arguments, I decided to examine Slobodian’s evidence more closely. My worst suspicions were quickly confirmed. Slobodian had not, in fact, uncovered the much-touted “parenthetical openings” to racism and colonialism in Mises’s writings. Instead, I found a pattern of contextomy: selectively edited quotations in which phrases were clipped from sentences and adjoining passages omitted, all to shoehorn Mises’s interwar-era words into Slobodian’s own twenty-first-century political interpretations.
A revealing example appears below. Slobodian quotes a passage from Mises that seems to rationalize the violent history of European colonialism by appealing to its net economic benefits. In reality, he simply omits the second half of the sentence, where Mises explicitly disavows the very position that Slobodian uses the first half to attribute to him.
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In another example, Slobodian accuses Mises of drawing a distinction between persecuted white European minorities and nonwhite racial groups. Yet a review of the full paragraph reveals that he simply misrepresented its argument. Mises was describing Nazi efforts to identify purportedly “Jewish” ancestry among other white Europeans through facial features and bodily characteristics. Slobodian then spliced this discussion into an unrelated passage about differences in black and white skin color. Contrary to his claim, the second quotation appears nowhere near the argument to which he attributes it.
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In the passage at issue, Mises was once again arguing against the scientific validity of efforts to link intellectual capacity to race or ethnicity. And once again, Slobodian was “bastardizing” the text—rearranging quotations, splicing together unrelated excerpts, and constructing a false version of Mises’s position that conveniently reinforced the political narrative of Hayek’s Bastards.
What Trump and Sanders have in common is that neither is calling for outright nationalization in the public interest (although Ezra Klein has done so, proposing a “public option” large language model). Instead, they favor different mechanisms for embedding public power within private enterprise. Both cloak the idea in the language of “sharing the gains,” but both are equally clear about the importance of state direction. Intel’s own press release described the equity stake as an $8.9 billion government investment tied to “key national priorities.” Sanders says his public ownership model would “give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology.”
Smith’s indictment of the East India Company focused heavily on its role as the governing power over large parts of India. The Company possessed territorial authority, military power, the ability to raise taxes, and political protection at home. At the same time, it distorted trade, prices, and capital allocation throughout Britain. In many respects, the Company’s vices stemmed from its position as an arm of the British state.
Obviously, neither Intel nor AI companies possess territorial power, but the underlying confusion of roles is similar. While the firm remains formally private, its fortunes become politically significant to the state, which simultaneously acts as regulator, funder, and investor.
Note that almost all the World Cup tourists are, by nearly any standard, quite well-off. The cheapest World Cup tickets theoretically start at about $140 each and go way, way higher, now starting at about $900 on resale sites. Flying to the U.S. from a foreign country was never inexpensive, and that was before all the higher jet-fuel costs drove up airfares even more. It also doesn’t count the costs of staying in a hotel, local transportation, food, souvenirs, etc. And yet these tourists marvel at how wealthy America is, which appears to give us an answer to the question of why Americans think Europe feels richer when the statistics say the poorest U.S. states have a per capita gross domestic product significantly higher than European states. Our wealth is visible in ways that are mundane and ordinary to Americans.
American wealth manifests in some expected ways — larger houses, more spread-out suburbs, bigger cars, wider highways — but also in unexpected ways, such as ubiquitous water fountains and free public restrooms, nearly universal air conditioning, free glasses of ice water when you sit down at a restaurant, complimentary chips and salsa at Mexican eateries. Europe has its own convenience stores attached to gas stations; it just doesn’t have anything like Buc-ee’s.
The confiscation of farms, haciendas and ranches triggered an immediate contraction of the food supply. By 1960 there was a meat shortage, according to Jorge Salazar-Carrillo and Andro Nodarse-León, authors of “Cuba: From Economic Take-Off to Collapse Under Castro” (2015). “Per capita consumption of meat in 1958 was 112 pounds per year. The collectivization of the cattle industry created such disruption that not even a meager ration of 0.75 pounds of meat per week (39 pounds per year) could be met. This also applied to dairy products such as milk, butter, and cheese.” The authors cite “lack of organization and inefficient production” on agricultural lands converted into “the People’s Farms.” The government couldn’t “depend on collectivized production.”
Ms. [Alma] Guillermoprieto witnessed Castro’s absurd effort to reverse the decline in sugar output with the order of a “10-million ton” harvest. Voluntary brigades worked alongside those forced into compulsory service. The plan failed and the diversion of resources from other industries increased dependency on Soviet borrowing.
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By the mid-2000s the lack of investment in infrastructure was compounding the high cost of central planning. “In June 2005 the national electricity system (SEN) was working at half capacity and blackouts lasted from 7 to 12 hours daily,” the prominent economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago explained in a 2005 paper for the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy. “Instead of blackouts, Cubans jokingly refer to periods when electricity was available as ‘light-ins.’”
Most of the thermoelectric plants were 25 to 35 years old, Mr. Mesa-Lago wrote, and sourcing parts was “extremely difficult.” The plants used crude “heavy with high sulfur content that requires frequent maintenance,” and “many electric poles are rotten.” Some “1.9 million breakers must be replaced, and distribution leaks are estimated to waste 17-18% of electricity generated.”
Twenty years later the system has collapsed and the country has been plunged into darkness. It’s not that the regime hierarchy doesn’t know what it’s doing. It has gotten rich off this way of life, and it doesn’t want the party to end.
Earlier this month the Justice Department moved to rein in the EEOC’s use of “disparate impact,” or racially disproportionate results, to determine whether an employer has run afoul of civil-rights statutes. “Although the Constitution now guarantees equal treatment, it has never guaranteed equal results,” Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel said in an opinion that describes the agency’s Title VII rules and guidance as unconstitutional and inconsistent with recent Supreme Court decisions.
“Despite trying to promote equality, EEOC’s disparate impact liability interpretation under Title VII actually fosters the very discrimination its guidelines seek to address,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “This opinion will now allow businesses to hire based on performance, restoring equal opportunities in the American workplace.”
The straightforward intent of Title VII was to outlaw racial discrimination in the labor force, where blacks were being kept out of jobs and denied promotions. The act stated in plain English that it “shall be an unlawful employment practice” to “fail or refuse to hire or discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
Jessica Riedl tweets: (HT Scott Lincicome)
For those seeking clarification – yes, according to the Social Security actuaries, eliminating the tax cap (even without earning benefit credits) keeps Social Security out of annual deficits for just 4 years.
A rational, common-sense approach to the subject matter of political economy begins with the fact that the economic problem for any individual or group is to make the best of what it has, through comparison, selection, and combination of competing alternative ends and procedures in the use of means. All practical problems arise out of conflicts of interest and differences of opinion. Economic problems arise out of conflicts due to limitation of resources in relation to total needs or wants, and these are social problems when the ends are those of diferent people. But human nature is clearly averse to such rational comparison. Men seize on particular aims or courses of action and treat them as absolute. Our whole moral tradition, sanctioned by our religious tradition, stresses disdain for the counting of costs. It is anti-intellectual; it teaches that if the heart is right, in relation to emotional or transcendental values, all concrete problems will be solved automatically. In this connection, it is the failure of men’s professions to carry over into practical thinking and action which saves them from disaster instead of causing it. Even “scientific” economics has slowly and as yet imperfectly come around to the comparative point of view, to recognition that the only cost which makes sense is a sacrificed alternative.
Empirically, however, we find strong evidence that large potential audiences support product differentiation. Larger cities typically have more diverse cultural offerings than do much smaller cities or rural areas.
As for civilian essentials like medical supplies and food, a free and competitive economy unburdened by tariffs and unimpaired by industrial policy is invariably a more flexible and dynamic economy. This means that different industries can switch quickly to the production of other goods in emergencies. This regularly happens in time of war or national emergencies. The capacity of many American manufacturers to pivot rapidly to the production of medical equipment and supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic is a good example of such resilience.
Free Trade, on the other hand, requires no force; it is what men engage in of their own motive and for the joint benefit or mutual benefit of both buyer and seller. It is true to the definition of principle—it is “an admitted truth which requires no further proof,” that “the rule of action among human beings,” who have risen above the stage of savagery, is to trade freely; that is to say, to exchange products with each other for mutual benefit. It does away with distribution by war, slavery, and force, substituting exchange by mutual agreement for the profit of both buyer and seller. It is “an admitted truth which requires no further proof,” that this exchange of product for product is an exchange of service by which men help each other. Free Trade or commerce among men and nations tends to the maintenance of peace, order, and industry.
