Matthew McCaffrey at the Mises Institute has a good piece on Ludwig von Mises’ views on racial collectivism.
Most contemporary economists discuss racism in the context of labor market discrimination. But for Mises, racism is mostly a methodological and epistemological problem. It’s for this reason that his critiques of racism usually appear in his writings on “polylogism.” Polylogism is the idea that the logical structure of the mind is different for different economic, social, or racial groups. The “logics” of different groups cannot be reconciled, and polylogism is therefore also a doctrine of group conflict. Its advocates (in their various forms) believe that supposed differences of mind can explain the economic and social development of different groups, and ultimately provide the justification for the dominion of some groups over others.
According to Mises, the most prevalent examples of polylogism are racism and Marxism, both of which he vigorously opposed on the grounds that they deny the universality of reason. According to Mises, these doctrines failed completely.
