Every sort of national chauvinism is to be rejected

Strangers Nowhere in the World rom Coordination Problem by Peter Boettke

That phrase comes from Kant, but it is also the title of an excellent book that I am reading at the moment by Margaret Jacob (U of Penn Press, 2006).  Jacob's book is about the rise of cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe.  It is, in short, about the rise of European Liberalism.

This last point I want to stress because too often in the popular media the teachings of the Austrian school are identified with conservative politics when in fact the great Austrian economists, such as Menger, Mises and Hayek were in fact European Liberals.  Radical liberals that opposed intolerance, militarism, and arbitrary state authority.  Yes they were economic liberals, but their views on economic policy were part of a larger world view that followed consistently from an embracing of the cosmopolitanism that Jacob writes about.

For anyone who doubts this, read Mises's Liberalism.  As he says on p. 56, "Liberalism demands toleration as a matter of principle, not from opportunism."  Only toleration, he continues, "can create and preserve the condition of social peace without which humanity must relapse into barbarism and penury of centuries long past."

On colonialism, Mises wrote: "No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism.  Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly.  Flourishing lands were laid waste; whole peoples destroyed and exterminated.  All this can in no way be extenuated or justified." (see p. 125)

Every sort of national chauvinism is to be rejected, and instead the free mobility of people and goods is to be pursued.  We are to be citizens of the world.  Cosmopolitanism, toleration, trade are the hallmarks of liberalism.  That is what Ludwig von Mises stood for in his politics. 

Bengal discovered a Mazzini in Sri Aurobindo

Right to freedom of religion: a study in Indian secularism - Kanan Gahrana - 2001 - 195 pages 

With most of the leaders of the modern renaissance in India, Sri Aurobindo shared an abhorrence of quietism, asceticism and illusionism. He was more thorough going in his opposition to these tendencies than the rest of them. ...

The Indian Encyclopaedia: Gautami Ganga -Himmat Bahadur - Page 2604 - Subodh Kapoor - 2002 - 322 pages - Preview

Ghosh exhibited his abhorrence for terrorist style militant resistance. He had propagated the idea of an open armed ... Ghosh came to be known as Sri Aurobindo to the world. Aurobindo completed his "Savitri", which he began writing in ...

The Mother: the story of her life - George Van Vrekhem - 2000 - 545 pages 

'He felt no call for the ICS and was seeking some way to escape from that bondage,' Sri Aurobindo would write about himself ... Besides, he abhorred the administrative aspect of all ICS offices, with their routine and dreary paper work. ...

Decolonization and development: Hind svaraj revisioned - Makarand R. Paranjape - 1993 - 240 pages 

Both had a deep abhorrence for this civilization. Aurobindo, though, accepted a whole set of liberal values, including parliamentary government, democracy, human rights, and so on. Gandhi, on the other hand, had little respect for ...

Colonialism, tradition, and reform: an analysis of Gandhi's ... - Bhikhu C. Parekh - 1989 - 288 pages 

Aurobindo expressed a similar view:" Liberty is the life-breath of a nation; and when the life is attacked, ... On occasion after occasion, they expressed their abhorrence of violence and insisted that they would have preferred to ...

Human consciousness and its evolution: a multidimensional view - Richard W. Coan - 1987 - 189 pages 

Both Aurobindo and Wilber argue that the concept of evolution logically implies involution or that the one process requires the ... or psychological state that seems ideal to one person may be viewed with abhorrence by someone else. ...

Netaji, a realist and a visionary - Amita Ghosh - 1986 - 276 pages - Snippet view

... Cuttack who roused the feelings of wrath and abhorrence against British imperialism in Bose's heart. ... The ideas of Aurobindo also influenced him to some extent. Indeed, Bose was also influenced by Candhi's non-violent ...

Through different eyes: foreign responses to Indian writing in English - Kirpal Singh - 1984 - 284 pages - Snippet view

Even P. Lal in his introduction to Modern Indian Poetry in English cites Aurobindo as the major influence that had to be ... This New Poetry was new because it abhorred the old conventional jargon (sociological as well as literary) and ...

The intimate enemy: loss and recovery of self under colonialism - Ashis Nandy - 1983 - 121 pages 

On his yogic intervention in the war, see Sri Aurobindo, On Himself (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), pp. 38-9, 393-9; see also p. 388 for his comments on Lenin and the Russian Revolution which seem to suggest that Aurobindo ...

Kundalini, evolution, and enlightenment - John Warren White - 1979 - 482 pages 

In the integral approach of Sri Aurobindo, there is a full appreciation of the many-sided perspective of tantra on the ... Therefore it is not to be neglected, abhorred, or condemned, but understood and transmuted for the higher purpose ...

Glory of India: Volumes 3-4 - 1979 

Sri Aurobindo, the great Yogi and philosopher of modern times, discusses here the principal ideas of all the variations of Yoga ... however which is based mainly upon those aspects of Tantrism formerly looked on with so much abhorrence. ...

The Quarterly review of historical studies: Volumes 17-18 - Institute of Historical Studies (Calcutta, India) - 1978 

Bengal discovered a Mazzini in Aurobindo. He joined, while in London, a secret society called 'Lotus and Dagger', ... spirit of Mazzini as the foundation stone of his actions and motives, although he abhorred Mazzini's violent method. ...

Economic and political weekly: Volume 12 - 1977 

The reflection of this 'reaction' can be found in Dadabhai Naoroji, Aurobindo. Wadia, Tilak, and Gandhi as well as ... movement very often coincided with tendencies towards national regeneration and abhorrence for modernisation and...

The Hindu personality in education: Tagore, Gandhi, Aurobindo - William Cenkner - 1976 - 230 pages 

What urged him to place his theory on a national scale was an abhorrence of the British system of education imposed upon India. Considering the British system as impractical and destructive of the Indian imagination, Gandhi called it an ...

Long journey home: a biography of Margaret Noble (Nivedita) - Barbara Foxe - 1975 - 239 pages 

More dangerous to her was her friendship with Aurobindo. His aims were frankly revolutionary at this period of his life. ... and the rock which finally smashed the Kali-symbol as a rallying-point for a united India was Muslim abhorrence ...

Social and political ideas of Bipin Chandra Pal - Amalendu Prasad Mookerjee - 1974 - 184 pages 

What, therefore, can fairly be said about Pal is that in the ultimate analysis, he differed from all the three — Tilak, Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo in the matter of religion and philosophy. He abhorred revivalism and medievalism of any ...

Evolution and the earthly destiny - Nolini Kanta Gupta - 1976 - 378 pages 

Its dislike and even abhorrence for things it chooses to call immoral is the ransom it pays for rescuing its sense of morality, and paradoxically this very abhorrence for unholy things has pushed it all the more into their grasp. ...