there is a sense in which Marxists do the same. In both cases, the crisis is a confirmation of beliefs. In both cases, the believer sees the crisis as—in some way—a sign of the oncoming future. Endogenously unstable, irreformable, and ultimately replaceable; or perfect but for the artificial imperfections, forced on it by parasitic and unnecessary meddling. The Austrians are like the communists of the 20th century who, aware that Stalinist Russia had become a monstrous perversion, were still defending it as some form of ‘degenerated’ workers’ state, essentially saying that it might be a
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