“East Side Story”: Enduring Lessons from Mises’s Plan for Post-War Reconstruction in the Danubian Europe

Abstract

Abstract The scope of this paper is to analyze Mises’s proposed plan for addressing the problems of militant nationalism and economic nationalism that were plaguing Central and Eastern Europe in the interwar and post-war eras. Due to this region’s overlapping nationalities and geopolitical tensions, Mises had to identify a pragmatic solution that could work in an age of economic interventionism. Starting from this objective, Mises specifically designed a supra-national institutional framework that could eliminate discrimination, ensure peace in the region, and simultaneously represent a rallying point for collective defence against the menace of the dynamic nations. We will show that Mises thought-out this compromise solution very carefully by using scientific insights and his deep understanding of the relations in the area. Furthermore, his plan had built-in elements that would have been conducive to the re-emergence of the classical-liberal international order. Also, because Mises’s plan was never implemented, we will critically assess it considering the actual historical outcome that followed the Second World War.