Ludwig von Mises
would be 134 today. The grandson of an East-European (Galicia) cum Austrian
rabbi in a rabbinic dynastic family which became prominently involved in
finance and was ennobled by Austro-Hungarian emperor. He studied economics at
the University of Vienna with teachers from the original Austrian School of
Economics founded by Carl Menger. He was always swimming against the stream
of political short-sightedness in a turbulent age. He was advisor to the
minister of finance in Austria in the inter-war period and helped Austria avoid
the ravages of hyperinflation. He was economist to the Chamber of Commerce in
Austria and, though always controversial, was quite influential.
With
rise of the Nazis, he was personally targeted as they advanced into Austria
with the signing of the Anschluss – he was a Jew and a prominent liberal (in
the true European sense). He fled literally hours before they arrived for him.
After a few years in Switzerland, during which time he wrote his famous Nationale
Ekonomie, he was persuaded to leave for the United States (people feared
that the Nazis would invade Switzerland). He lived the rest of his life in New
York. He remained a visiting professor at NYU for that time. In both New York
and Vienna he had weekly seminars. In Vienna these were attended by many of the most prominent
scholars of the time. His junior colleague Friedrich Hayek had gone to London
in the 1930’s and won the Nobel prize in 1974. Mises died at the age of 93 in
1973. During his years in America he wrote profusely – in English – including
the English version of his Nationale Ekonomie, Human Action.
When
the Nazis arrived at his apartment in Vienna they packed up his voluminous
library, including some of his work and work-in-progress, and put it in
storage. Years later my friend and colleague Richard Ebeling, who had married
Anna who is Russian, discovered Mises’s library in Moscow – the Russians had
shipped it back from Vienna. Richard has now compiled, translated and published
three volumes of Mises’s hitherto unknown early papers, which provide a
precious account of the economics of the interwar years.
It is
hard to overstate the magnitude of Mises’s intellect and his achievements. He
was one of the greatest economists ever, and maybe the greatest. For him
economic knowledge was indispensable to the understanding of civilization and
economic ignorance was more than regrettable, it was positively dangerous, a
matter of the life and death of civilization.
"The
body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human
civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the
moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last
centuries have been built. It rests with men whether they will make the proper
use of the rich treasure with which this knowledge provides them or whether
they will leave it unused. But if they fail to take the best advantage of it
and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they
will stamp out society and the human race." (Human
Action)
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