The key distinction between East and West, according to Mises, is that the East was 'foreign to the Western spirit that has created capitalism'. As a result, he contended that, 'if the Asiatics and Africans really enter into the orbit of Western civilisation, they will have to adopt the market economy without reservation'. Adopting the market did not merely mean adopting a technical means of allocating goods; it required a profound cultural, moral and subjective transformation. Market peoples are peace loving, Mises warned, but would fight to the death against anyone who interfered with this division of labour, and 'repel the barbarian aggressors whatever their numbers may be'. Earlier, he had suggested that, if only some nations became socialist, the cause would not be lost. The remaining capitalist ones – driven by the 'fundamental social law' to extend the global division of labour – would 'impose culture upon the backward nations or destroy them if they resisted'. Conversion or destruction were the only options available to those who sought to exist outside the world market.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 115