Mises blamed Asia’s poverty on egalitarian moral economies that blocked property accumulation

Evidence

Mises attributed mass penury in Asia to the absence of ‘a legal and constitutional system which would have provided the opportunity for large-scale capital accumulation’. Mises identified the fundamental problem as that of an egalitarian moral economy, which had licensed the confiscation of private property. China lacked the morals of the market he suggested, and without a transformation of mentality and morality, aid and industrialisation would be followed only by expropriation and the consolidation of centralised state structures. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 298

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows the specific neoliberal sense of ‘morals of the market’ — institutions and mentality that enable private capital accumulation.
• XREF: Connects to debates on whether neoliberalism is a project of enforced dispossession; resonates with Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine framing. — connects to: Mises saw non-Western peoples as needing market adoption or destruction — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 115; Elite economists blamed poverty on the supposed deficiencies of the poor themselves — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 226; Development economics RCTs blame individuals while ignoring poverty’s structural causes — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 289

Broader Connections

• Elite economists blamed poverty on the supposed deficiencies of the poor themselves #exemplifies (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 226
• Development economics RCTs blame individuals while ignoring poverty’s structural causes #exemplifies (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 289