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]]]]]]]]] THE RACIAL INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY [[[[[[[[[[[
(8/29/1989)
[From Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Theory and History: An
Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (Westport, CT:
Arlington House Publishers, 1969. Reprint of edition originally
published in 1957 by Yale University Press), pp. 332-337.]
[Kindly uploaded by Freeman 10602PANC]
It is a historical fact that the civilizations developed by
various races are different. In earlier ages it was possible to
establish this truth without attempting to distinguish between
higher and lower civilizations. Each race, one could contend,
develops a culture that conforms to its wishers, wants, and
ideals. The character of a race finds its adequate expression in
its achievements. A race may imitate accomplishments and
institutions developed by other races, but it does not long to
abandon its own cultural pattern entirely and to substitute an
imported alien system for it. If about two thousand years ago
the Greco-Romans and the Chinese had learned about each other's
civilizations, neither race would have admitted the superiority
of the other's civilization.
But it is different in our age. The non-Caucasians may hate
and despise the white man, they may plot his destruction and take
pleasure in extravagant praise of their own civilizations. But
they yearn for the tangible achievements of the West, for its
science, technology, therapeutics, its methods of administration
and of industrial management. Many of their spokesmen declare
that they want only to imitate the material culture of the West,
and to do even that only so far as it does not conflict with
their indigenous ideologies or jeopardize [333] their religious
beliefs and observances. They fail to see that the adoption of
what they disparagingly call the merely material achievements of
the West is incompatible with preserving their traditional rites
and taboos and their customary style of life. They indulge in the
illusion that their peoples could borrow the technology of the
West and attain a higher material standard of living without
having first in a Kulturkampf divested themselves of the world
view and the mores handed down from their ancestors. They are
confirmed in this error by the socialist doctrine, which also
fails to recognize that the material and technological
achievements of the West were brought about by the philosophies
of rationalism, individualism, and utilitarianism and are bound
to disappear if the collectivist and totalitarian tenets
substitute socialism for capitalism.
Whatever people may say about Western civilization, the fact
remains that all peoples look with envy upon its achievements,
want to reproduce them, and thereby implicitly admit its
superiority. It is this state of affairs that has generated the
modern doctrine of race differences and its political offshoot,
racism.
The doctrine of race differences maintains that some races
have succeeded better than others in the pursuit of those aims
that are common to all men. All men want to resist the operation
of the factors detrimental to the preservation of their lives,
their health, and their well-being. It cannot be denied that
modern Western capitalism has succeeded best in these endeavors.
It has increased the average length of life and raised the
average standard of living unprecedentedly. It has made [334]
accessible to the common man those higher human accomplishments
-- philosophy, science, art -- which in the past were everywhere,
and today outside the countries of Western capitalism still are,
accessible only to a small minority. Grumblers may blame Western
civilization for its materialism and may assert that it gratified
nobody but a small class of rugged exploiters. But their laments
cannot wipe out the facts. Millions of mothers have been made
happier by the drop in infant mortality. Famines have
disappeared and epidemics have been curbed. The average man
lives in more satisfactory conditions than his ancestors or his
fellows in the noncapitalistic countries. And one must not
dismiss as merely materialistic a civilization which makes it
possible for practically everybody to enjoy a Beethoven symphony
performed by an orchestra conducted by an eminent master.
The thesis that some races have been more successful than
others in their efforts to develop a civilization is unassailable
as a statement about historical experience. As a SUM of what
has happened in the past it is quite correct to assert that
modern civilization is the white man's achievement.
However, the establishment of this fact justifies neither the
white man's racial self-conceit nor the political doctrines of
racism.
Many people take pride in the fact that their ancestors or
their relatives have performed great things. It gives some men a
special satisfaction to know that they belong to a family, clan,
nation, or race that has distinguished itself in the past. But
this innocuous vanity easily turns into scorn of those who do not
belong to [335] the same distinguished group and into attempts to
humiliate and to insult them. The diplomats, soldiers,
bureaucrats, and businessmen of the Western nations who in their
contacts with the colored races have displayed overbearing
effrontery had no claim at all to boast of the deeds of Western
civilization. They were not the makers of this culture which
they compromised by their behaviour. Their insolence which found
its expression in such signs as ``Entrance forbidden to dogs and
natives'' has poisoned the relations between the races for ages
to come. But we do not have to deal with these sad facts in an
analysis of racial doctrines.
Historical experience warrants the statement that in the past
the efforts of some subdivisions of the Caucasian race to develop
a civilization have eclipsed those of the members of other races.
It does not warrant any statement about the future. It does not
permit us to assume that this superiority of the white stock will
persist in the future. Nothing can be predicted from historical
experience with a likelihood that can be compared with the
probability of predictions made in the natural sciences on the
basis of facts established by laboratory experiments. In 1760 a
historian would have been right in declaring that Western
civilization was mainly an achievement of the Latins and the
British and that the Germans had contributed little to it. It
was permissible at that time to maintain that German science,
art, literature, philosophy, and technology were insignificant
compared to the accomplishments of the members of some other
nations. One could fairly contend that those Germans who had
distinguished themselves in these [336] fields -- foremost among
them the astronomers Copernicus [note omitted] and Kepler and the
philosopher Leibniz -- could succeed only because they had fully
absorbed what non-Germans had contributed, that intellectually
they did not belong to Germany, that for a long time they had no
German followers, and that those who first appreciated their
doctrines were predominantly non-German. But if somebody had
inferred from these facts that the Germans are culturaly inferior
and would rank in the future far below the French and the
British, his conclusion would have been disproved by the course
of later history.
A prediction about the future behavior of those races which
today are considered culturally backward could only be made by
biological science. If biology were to discover some anatomical
characteristics of the members of the non-Caucasian races which
necessarily curb their mental faculties, one could venture such a
prediction. But so far [c.1957] biology has not discovered any
such characteristics.
It is not the task of this essay to deal with the biological
issues of the racial doctrine. It must therefore abstain from
analysis of the controversial problems of racial purity and
miscegenation. Nor is it our task to investigate the merits of
the political program of racism. This is for praxeology and
economics.
All that can be said about racial issues on the ground of
historical experience boils down to two statements. First, the
prevailing differences between the various [337] biological
strains of men are reflected in the civilizatory achievements of
the group members. Second, in our age the main achievements in
civilization of some subdivisions of the white Caucasian race a
viewed by the immense majority of the members of all other races
as more desirable than characteristic features of the
civilization produced by members of their respective own races.
* * *
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