Having discovered
the enormous power of collective will, Dr. Lueger successfully blended into his
propaganda work “three bigs”: nationalism, religion, and socialism. From early
on, he billed himself as an advocate of the “little people.” Raised by a
widowed mother, Lueger managed to get a law degree and quickly made a name for
himself as a protector of the common folk against “big shots.” As mayor, he
enjoyed the tremendous support of Vienna’s workers, shopkeepers, and underclass
elements.
These predominantly German-speaking Catholics
felt that they were cheated by the rich and displaced by the influx of Slavic,
Hungarian, and especially Jewish migrants to the city. The latter usually sided
with another group of collectivists — Social Democrats, who challenged Lueger’s
Christian socialism with their class-based Marxist socialism. The contest
between these two groups of collectivists for the minds of the masses was
epitomized in a personal tug of war between Dr. Lueger and Victor Adler, a
Jewish Marxist and leader of the Austrian Social Democrats.
Culturally and
ethnically, many in the large Jewish community of Vienna did not fit into
Lueger’s movement, which was heavily loaded with “soil-based”Catholicism and
Germanic tradition. Thus, they instinctively gravitated toward the cosmopolitan
message of Marxism (the famous Marxian motto being “workers have no
fatherland”), which perfectly resonated with the people residing in diasporas…..acquaintances
sincerely wondered why Mises, being of Jewish origin, was somehow not a
socialist....To Read More.....
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