Professor von Mises addressed himself to a particular issue: what is the essential difference between bureaucratic management by government and market management in a system based on private ownership of the means of production? Mises does not discuss bureaus or bureaucrats, but inexorable principles of human action. He does not condemn bureaucracy, which is the appropriate technique for the conduct of government agencies such as courts of law, police departments, and the Internal Revenue Service; however, in economic production and distribution, the bureaucratic method is shown to be an abomination that spells universal ruin and disaster.
