Preface

With the collapse of the socialist ideology and the failure of its recipes for the salvation of the world, the Social Democratic Party has not vanished from the scene. It persisted, even after its original programme had failed. Though it may not wish to admit this openly, its new programme is called: consumption of the masses of goods accumulated by capitalism.

In the new agrarian programme of Austrian Social Democracy, this endeavour confronts us more nakedly and openly than elsewhere. The large agricultural enterprise works more rationally than the peasant and the smallholder; the agrarian programme cannot dispute this, yet it nevertheless demands the expropriation of large landed agricultural property and its transfer into the ownership of the federal state, although everyone knows that all federal enterprises operate at a loss. Twelve per cent of the entire forest area of Austria is managed by the federal state; year after year they devour a deficit running into the billions, whereas all private forest owners achieve returns. Nonetheless, the agrarian programme calls for the expropriation and nationalisation of large private forest holdings. The socialised forests, it then goes on to say, are to be managed “not as capitalist profit forests, but as socialist welfare forests”. The addition was superfluous; in any case, after the experiences we have had ample opportunity to gather, surely no one need fear that enterprises of the federal state or of the communal economy might yield returns. In a word: the goal pursued by the Social Democratic agrarian programme is the transformation of a large part of agriculture and forestry into a subsidised enterprise; land and soil are no longer to yield any net return, and those engaged in working it are to be supported by inflows from other sources. Almost every paragraph of the agrarian programme speaks of expenditures from public funds in favour of agriculture. Thus, for example, draught-animal cooperatives of cottagers and smallholders are to be “promoted from public funds”. The expenditure of federal and provincial funds is further demanded for measures that facilitate the procurement of good seed, artificial fertiliser and good breeding animals, for the establishment of agricultural machinery stations, and so forth.

Where the means are to come from to meet all these expenditures is, however, not stated in the Social Democratic programme. On the other hand, the abolition of various taxes existing today is proposed, for example the sugar tax and the wine tax. The reduction of the wine tax is presumably meant to promote alcoholism! Substantive misgivings do not seem to have troubled the authors of the new Social Democratic agrarian programme unduly. The only consideration they had in drafting the programme was precisely this: the effect on the voters.

Hitherto the Social Democratic Party, in its treatment of all questions connected with agriculture, has exclusively represented the standpoint of the urban consumer. Now, however, in order to attain full dominion, it also needs the votes of the rural electorate, and therefore drafts an agrarian programme full of enticing promises. Will the farmers allow themselves to be deceived by this programme? Will they not recognise that, in the long run, it will surely not be possible for the Social Democratic Party to impose burdens on the urban population in favour of agriculture? Will not the interest that has suddenly awakened in the Social Democratic Party for agricultural matters strike them as suspicious?

Dr Siegfried Strakosch, our most successful farmer, equally distinguished as a natural scientist and as an economic writer, has taken upon himself the task of examining the Social Democratic agrarian programme in detail. When Dr Strakosch speaks on questions of agricultural policy, everyone in Austria can learn from him, even if they do not entirely agree with him on certain economic matters. The sober objectivity of his exposition will not fail to have its effect. Let us hope that it will open the eyes of many to the magnitude of the danger that the implementation of even a part of the Social Democratic agrarian programme would inevitably conjure up over our country.

Vienna, 5 January 1926.

Professor Dr Ludwig Mises.