Ludwig von Mises
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Categories: 1881 births | 1973 deaths | American economics writers | American economists | American libertarians | Austrian economists | Austrian nobility | Austrian School economists | Austrian philosophers | Austrian-Americans | Ukrainian Jews | Austrian Jews | Swiss Jews | American Jews | Jewish businesspeople | People from Lviv | Social philosophy | Classical liberals | German-language philosophers | Heterodox economists | Libertarian theorists | Libertarian economists | Minarchists | Austrian anti-communists | Mont Pelerin Society members
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (pronounced [ˈluːtvɪç fɔn ˈmiːzəs]) (September 29, 1881 – October 10, 1973) was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and a major influence on the modern libertarian movement. He has been called the "uncontested dean of the Austrian School of economics".[1] The Ludwig von Mises Institute is named after him.
BiographyEarly life
Coat of arms of Ludwig von Mises' great-grandfather, Mayer Rachmiel Mises, awarded upon his 1881 ennoblement by Franz Joseph I of Austria
Ludwig von Mises was born on September 29, 1881 in the city of Lemberg, Austria-Hungary, (now Lviv, Ukraine), to Jewish parents Arthur Edler von Mises and Adele von Mises (née Landau). Arthur was stationed there as a construction engineer with Czernowitz railroad company. Mises had two younger brothers: physicist Richard von Mises, and later Karl von Mises, who died in infancy from scarlet fever. When Ludwig and Richard were small children, his family moved back to their ancestral home of Vienna. In 1900, he attended the University of Vienna, becoming influenced by the works of Carl Menger. Mises' father died in 1903, and in 1906 he was awarded his doctorate. Professional lifeIn the years from 1904 to 1914, Mises attended lectures given by the prominent Austrian economist Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk. Mises taught as a Privatdozent at the Vienna University in the years from 1913 to 1934, while also serving as a principal economic adviser to the Austrian government during the Austrofascist regime of Engelbert Dollfuss. To avoid the influence of Nazis in his Austrian homeland, and fearing repression due to his Jewish ancestry[2], in 1934 Mises left for Geneva, Switzerland, where he was a professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies until 1940. In 1940, he emigrated to New York City. He was a visiting professor at New York University from 1945 until he retired in 1969, though he was not salaried by the university. Instead, he earned his living from funding by businessmen such as Lawrence Fertig. For part of this period Mises worked on currency issues for the Pan-Europa movement led by a fellow NYU faculty member and Austrian exile, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi.[3] He received an honorary doctorate from Grove City College. Despite his growing fame, Mises listed himself plainly in the New York phone directory and he welcomed students freely to his home. Mises died at the age of 92 at St Vincent's hospital in New York. Contributions to the field of economics
Mises wrote and lectured extensively on behalf of classical liberalism and is seen as one of the leaders of the Austrian School of economics. In his treatise on economics, Human Action, Mises introduced praxeology as the conceptual foundation of the science of human action, establishing economic laws of apodictic certainty rejecting positivism and material causality. Many of his works, including Human Action, were on two related economic themes:
Mises in his library
Mises argued that money is demanded for its usefulness in purchasing other goods, rather than for its own sake and that any significant credit expansion causes business cycles. His other notable contribution was his argument that socialism must fail economically because of the economic calculation problem — the impossibility of a socialist government being able to make the economic calculations required to organize a complex economy. Mises projected that without a market economy there would be no functional price system, which he held essential for achieving rational allocation of capital goods to their most productive uses. Socialism would fail as demand cannot be known without prices, according to Von Mises. Mises' criticism of socialist paths of economic development is well-known.
These arguments were elaborated on by subsequent Austrian economists such as Hayek. In Interventionism, An Economic Analysis (1940), Ludwig von Mises wrote:
Bibliography
See also
Further reading
Notes
External linksWikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Online e-books
da:Ludwig von Mises de:Ludwig von Mises et:Ludwig von Mises el:Λούντβιχ φον Μίζες es:Ludwig von Mises eo:Ludwig von Mises fr:Ludwig von Mises is:Ludwig von Mises it:Ludwig von Mises he:לודוויג פון מיזס ka:ლუდვიგ ფონ მიზესი lt:Ludwig von Mises nl:Ludwig von Mises ja:ルートヴィヒ・フォン・ミーゼス no:Ludwig von Mises pl:Ludwig von Mises pt:Ludwig von Mises ro:Ludwig von Mises ru:Мизес, Людвиг фон sk:Ludwig von Mises fi:Ludwig von Mises sv:Ludwig von Mises tr:Ludwig von Mises uk:Людвіг фон Мізес | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
