Ortega y Gasset and the Austrian Economists: A Missed Encounter

Abstract

There is an unwritten page in the history of ideas, because the main actors, who might have usefully come into contact with each other, did not. Due to the many accidents of life, they were unable to take each other’s works into consideration. If this had happened, today we would have at our disposal a more extensive basis of knowledge on which to work. What I am referring to is the encounter which never took place between José Ortega y Gasset and Carl Menger (and the first exponents of the Austrian School of Economics). They clearly showed hostility toward contractualist theories of society and their ‘false individualism’. Ortega and the ‘Austrians’ analyzed social phenomena through the lens of cultural evolution and were in search of a “true individualism.” They recognized how limited the forces of the individual are and how strong the necessity is to channel the knowledge and the resources of each into a grand social (atheleological) process.

It is a great pleasure for me to contribute to this volume of writings in honour of Jesús Huerta de Soto, which allows me the opportunity to recall some very pleasant moments of my life. My friendship with Jesús goes back many years. I owe it to our common publisher, the late lamented Juan Marcos de la Fuente, who translated and published my books into Spanish. Later, our relationship grew stronger during the time when Jesús invited me, as a visiting professor, to the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid. That was a fruitful stay for me, which also gave me the opportunity to collect material for my research on the philosophy of the social sciences. At the same time, I got to know Jesús’s family, so much so that one of his daughters, Silvia, moved to Rome for a semester to follow my course there; and she was one of my most exemplary students. I believe that the most joyful moment of our friendship was the day when Jesús came, together with his wife and children, to visit me at my university. It was a joyous occasion for all of us!