Ludwig von Mises, Freizügigkeit als internationales Problem (1935)

Mises’s political-economic essay intervenes in debates over the League of Nations and the economic conditions of lasting peace. Its central move is to replace the supposed problem of unequal raw-material distribution with that of restricted international migration. The argument proceeds from a critique of territorial redistribution, through an account of wages and labor mobility, to a warning that immigration barriers may produce conflict between emigration and immigration countries.

Mises first separates political sovereignty from commercial access. Transferring Australian wool-producing territory to European states would not relieve European manufacturers of the need to purchase wool. British sovereignty likewise gives British buyers no inherent price advantage over foreign competitors. Territorial possession, on this account, is the wrong measure of access to productive resources. What matters for European workers is whether they can move to places where their labor yields higher returns.

Wir wollen nicht, daß die Wanderungen der Arbeiter zur Ausgleichung der Lohnhöhe fortgesetzt werden.

English translation: We do not want the migrations of workers for the equalization of the level of wages to be continued.

This sentence belongs to Mises’s dramatized account of the position adopted by descendants of earlier emigrants. Relatively sparse populations and favorable natural conditions make labor more productive, and wages higher, in the United States and British dominions. Immigration restrictions preserve these differentials by obstructing the movement that would tend to equalize wages. Mises turns this argument against Marxist claims of international proletarian solidarity: unions in high-wage countries defend their members’ advantages by excluding workers from poorer countries. The interests of workers across borders therefore cannot simply be assumed to coincide.

Yet Mises distinguishes these immediate distributional interests from the longer-term gains of international specialization:

Man muß sich freilich vor der irrigen Auffassung hüten, als ob die Arbeiter der mit günstigeren natürlichen Produktionsbedingungen ausgestatteten Länder durch die Einwanderungssperre auf die Dauer besser fahren können als bei Wanderungsfreiheit.

English translation: One must, to be sure, guard against the erroneous view that the workers of the countries endowed with more favorable natural conditions of production can in the long run fare better under the immigration barrier than under freedom of migration.

Workers prevented from emigrating still produce at home, compensating for inferior productive conditions through lower wages. Their goods then compete with those of the countries excluding them. Tariffs and import prohibitions may suppress that competition, but only by sacrificing the benefits of a wider division of labor. Mises thus links migration barriers to commercial protection: both prevent production from concentrating where a given expenditure yields the greatest output. His claim that even protected workers would ultimately benefit from freer movement rests on the larger world product such a reallocation would generate.

The essay next distinguishes artificially protected industry from industry made economically viable by low wages. Mises considers Eastern European attempts to foster industry through trade barriers unsuccessful, but argues that continued restrictions on emigration would attract capital and enterprise to cheap labor there. Such industrialization could be viable without bringing high living standards. It would therefore leave intact the grievance against countries possessing more favorable productive conditions and might encourage an armed coalition of excluded populations.

The conclusion returns to the League of Nations’ investigations into peaceful international change. Studies confined to raw materials, or proposals to redistribute colonial and mandated territories, would miss the mechanism generating discontent. Even expanded German or Italian colonial possessions would not necessarily provide the opportunities European emigrants sought.

Ohne Wiederherstellung der Freizügigkeit im Weltverkehr wird es keinen dauernden Frieden geben.

English translation: Without the restoration of freedom of movement in international intercourse there will be no lasting peace.

The categorical conclusion makes freedom of movement a condition of peace rather than merely a labor-market policy. Its scope is nevertheless historically specific: Mises frames the desired destinations around European settlement and climatic suitability for white workers, particularly in America and Australia. The essay’s enduring conceptual significance lies in its separation of sovereignty over resources from access to economic opportunity, and in its account of how nationally protected labor advantages can undermine both international economic integration and political peace.