Guido Hülsmann shows us in this monumental biography that a common view of Mises is mistaken. As even Macaulay’s schoolboy knows, the American economics profession, dominated by Keynesianism, shunted Mises aside when he came to America. He was viewed as a relic, preaching an extremist view of free enterprise; and, as the mainstream had it, his famous calculation argument that showed the impossibility of socialism had been refuted both in theory, by Lange, Taylor et hoc genus omne, and in practice by the immense achievements of Soviet Russia. Private funds paid Mises’s salary at the business school of New York University: no major university economics department could find space for this world-renowned scholar.
The situation had been better for Mises in his native Vienna. His famous seminar attracted visitors from all over the world. He was recognized not only as a famous teacher but also as a theorist of striking originality. But even here, the common picture has it, Mises remained a figure on the margins. He never held the rank of full professor at the University of Vienna.
Hülsmann overturns this picture. FULL ARTICLE
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Hülsmann overturns this picture.
Hasn’t the Mises Institute itself been a major offender in this regard, lauding the unrecognized dissident and often greatly overstating differences between their camp and the “mainstream” or “establishment” figures, including those in libertarianism and/or economics?
I give an example of one of the Mises bunch, in this case Tom DiLorenzo, going overboard against Cato here.
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