Statalismo e bellicismo. Un binomio inscindibile nelle riflessioni di Albert Jay Nock e Ludwig von Mises alla luce delle due guerre mondiali

This paper examines Albert Jay Nock and Ludwig von Mises’ considerations on statism and warmongering in the light of the two World Wars. Despite reaching different conclusions on Germany’s WWI responsibility, they share common non-interventionist and anti-statism positions. In The Myth of a Guilty Nation (1922) Nock firmly blames the USA’s military intervention and implicitly criticizes Wilsonian idealism. In Our Enemy, the State (1935) he claims that every State is born as a result of the violence applied against an enemy group, that is through war. In conclusion, Nock finds a strong bond between warmongering and statism, anticipating Mises’ concerns about the link between the “total State” and the “total war” expressed in Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (1944).