Abstract
Mises’s very first expression of a liberal outlook is usually associated with the 1919 Nation, Economy, and State because very little is known about his earlier work. Several recent studies, however, suggest that the Viennese social space and the Habsburg’s socioeconomic reality influenced Mises’s liberalism during his studies at the University of Vienna. This paper shows that Mises’s liberal outlook traces back to his early work, influenced by Younger Historicist members of the Verein für Sozialpolitik, such as Knapp and Grünberg. We argue that Mises’s early work expressed a rationalist liberal outlook that intertwined with the social policy reform aspirations of the Verein für Sozialpolitik.
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Notes
Schmoller was a professor at the University of Halle from 1864 to 1872 (Nau 2000).
Schmoller, Gustav. 1873. Eröffnungsrede in Verhandlungen der Eisenacher Versammlung zur Besprechung der socialen Frage am 6 und 7 Oktober 1872, Leipzig, Germany S. 4. Similarly, Schmoller argued in the 1875Über einige Grundfragen des Rechts und der Volkswirtschaft that the Verein was the third way between the Manchester School and the Social Democrats.
Hayek (1960) writes that he imports the definition of rationalism from Bernard Groethuysen in “Rationalism,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 13, p.113.
Dietzel (1900) writes about the individualist/collective divide of social reform to explain how social policy reform connects liberalism with interventionism. He defines liberalism as an outgrowth of rationalism and methodological individualism. Dietzel (ibid) argues that the collective principle that prioritizes collective welfare over individual welfare justifies interventionism as means of liberal social policy. Heinrich Dietzel (1857–1935) was a German economist and representative of the last generation of Younger Historicists.
Bismarck’s Anti-Socialist Legislation (1878–1889) lapsed in 1890 (Congleton 2011). Bismarck’s government implemented it in response to two failed assassination attempts on Wilhelm I in 1878. The legislation aimed to curtail the political activity of the Social Democrats, including outlawing trade unions and closing socialist newspapers.
In 1891, Bismarck’s government passed an act allowing factory workers to establish committees for overseeing work conditions (Grimmer-Solem 2003).
In his Memoirs, Mises criticizes both Grünberg’s work and his early work for following Knapp’s system because of its historicism (Mises, [1978] 2009: 6). We take this statement with skepticism as with any autobiographical publication.
Mises completed active army service between October 1, 1902 and September 30, 1903 (Hülsmann 2007: 74).
After his enrollment in the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna, Mises started working on a thesis project in the Grünberg seminar in the spring of 1901. The thesis project turned into his first academic publication. Hülsmann (2007: 69–73) provides an English-language summary of this book, and Krasnozhon and Bunyk (2018) present a detailed analysis of it.
Galicia, the birthplace of Mises, is now within the borders of modern Ukraine. In 1772, Russia, Prussia, and Austria partitioned Poland. Austria annexed Galicia.
For an English-language translation of Wimbersky (1906), please see Greaves and McGee (1993: 104). Wimbersky published two books on the history of agrarian social reform in Austria: Ernst Mischler and Hubert Wimbersky, Die landwirtschaftlichen Dienstboten in der Steiermark, Graz 1907 (Agricultural workers in Styria) and Hubert Wimbersky, Eine obersteirische Bauerngemeinde in ihrer wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung 1498–1899, Graz 1907 (Economic Development of Peasantry in Upper Styria, 1498–1899). Mischler was a student of Theodor von Inama-Sternegg (1843–1908), a head of the Austrian Office of Statistics and a leading representative of the historical economists in Austria (Grimmer-Solem 2003).
Franko earned a PhD in History from the University of Vienna in 1893. He was a member of the editorial board of the Polish newspaper Kurjer Lvowski, founded by Studnicki in Lemberg, Galicia, and a regular correspondent for the Viennese democratic weekly, Die Zeit.
Cohn (1906) writes that Austrian newspapers anticipated with excitement the Mannheim convention but it failed to provide new policy solutions. Cohn (ibid.) points out that Schmoller who led the discussion on antitrust policy strongly opposed nationalization of railways as a policy option. Mises had probably joined the Verein by that time (Boese 1939). In 1909, in Vienna, Mises attended the seminars organized by Philippovich at the Verein meetings (Hülsmann 2007: 195). Hülsmann (2007: 73-74) discusses Kaser (1904), Ludwig (1904), and Kaindl (1904).
Mises (1904) is a three-page research note that briefly reviews the history of Austrian social security system. It focuses on disability payments and retirement benefits. For more details, see Kott (1996) that compares German social security system to French one in the late nineteenth century. Like Austrian social reform, German social security reform focused on disability payments. By contrast, French reform prioritized retirement benefits.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Julio Cole, Daniel D’Amico, Michael Douma, Stephen Meardon, seminar participants at the Department of Economics and Finance at Troy University, and panel participants at the 2018 Southern Economic Association/Society for Development of Austrian Economics meeting, Washington, D.C., for helpful comments on earlier drafts. We thank Valentin Riebesell and Johannes Forstpointner for their outstanding research assistance.
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Bunyk, M., Krasnozhon, L. Young Mr. Mises and younger historicists: origins of Mises’s liberalism. Rev Austrian Econ 35, 177–191 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-020-00499-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-020-00499-5