Mises on Tolerance

"Toleration" is political, not ethical, moral, or aesthetical.

In "The Cultural Thought of Ludwig von Mises," (The Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol X no 1, Fall, 1991), Jeffrey A. Tucker and Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., write:

As far as art and architecture are concerned, genius must have the freedom to breathe. When freedom creates base culture, it is the fault of the masses. Says Mises: "It is not the fault of capitalism that the masses prefer a boxing match to a performance of Sophocles's Antigone, jazz music to Beethoven symphonies, and comics to poetry" (Mises, 1958, p. 27). "The moral corruption, the licentiousness and the intellectual sterility of a class of lewd would-be authors and artists is the ransom mankind must pay lest the creative pioneers be prevented from accomplishing their work. Freedom must be granted to all, even to base people, lest the few who can use it for the benefit of mankind be hindered" (p. 108). 

How could Mises deliver such harsh judgments on aesthetic issues? Does liberalism not mean tolerance? Indeed, in Liberalism (1927) Mises writes that "[l]iberalism demands tolerance as a matter of principle, not from opportunism. It demands tolerance even of obviously nonsensical teachings, absurd forms of heterodoxy, and childishly silly superstitions. It demands toleration for doctrines and opinions that it deems detrimental and ruinous to society and even for movements that it indefatigably combats. For what impels liberalism to demand and accord toleration is not consideration for the content of the doctrine to be tolerated, but the knowledge that only tolerance can create and preserve the condition of social peace without which humanity must relapse into the barbarism and penury of centuries  long past" (pp. 56-57). By toleration, however, Mises means that coercion ought not to be used to prevent the public from being exposed to these  ideas-not that the public should grant even passive approval to them. In  fact, it is the job of the liberal to discourage that approval. "Against what  is stupid, nonsensical, erroneous, and evil, liberalism fights with the  weapons of the mind . . . " (p. 57).6

6. The very discussion of tolerance presupposes the legitimacy of disapproval; if it were possible and desirable for everyone to be equally approving of all doctrines, cultures, and practices, there would be no reason to raise the question of toleration. See Mises,  1967, p. 218.  

---. 1958. Liberty and Property. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1988.
---. 1967. "A Hundred Years of Marxian Socialism." Pp. 215-31 in Mises, 1990b.
---. 1990b. Money, Method, and the Market Process: Essays by Ludwig von Mises.
Richard M. Ebeling, ed. Nonuell, Mass.: Kluwer.