WEBVTT NOTE 23. Last Years 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.320 Chapter 23 – Last Years 2 00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:12.280 Mises remained vigorous until about 1962. In the early 1960s he completed four major 3 00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:18.520 writing projects and gave several public lectures per year. At his public appearances, the frailty 4 00:00:18.520 --> 00:00:24.920 of his condition became increasingly obvious. More and more his feeble voice and his virtual 5 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:30.200 For deafness weighed against his legendary reputation, he had become a living icon of 6 00:00:30.200 --> 00:00:37.640 liberty, yet a fading icon after all. In 1962 he still had a substantial number 7 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:42.560 of speaking engagements, addressing for example the remnant, a group associated with Edmund 8 00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:47.440 Orpitz, a hundred and fifty student audience at the Nathaniel Brandon Institute, the Young 9 00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:53.080 Americans for Freedom, YAF, at Madison Square Garden, the Coast Federal Savings and Loan 10 00:00:53.080 --> 00:01:00.200 Association, the NYU Faculty Club, the American Management Association, and the Free Enterprise 11 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:05.680 Institute, in the same year on the night of May 16th. His voice was heard for the first 12 00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:11.200 time no long while at Harvard University. As one might guess, it was not the university 13 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:17.040 who had invited him. He was not even physically present. The United States Steel Corporation 14 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:22.960 had sponsored a series of radio shows featuring a six-minute taped speech on economic subjects. 15 00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:35.960 Mises spoke on the conflicts of interest between workers and employers. He was on the air simultaneously at Harvard, Brown and Cornell universities. The next day the speech was aired at Dartmouth and Yale. 16 00:01:35.960 --> 00:01:49.960 After 1962, public appearances became less frequent and Mises focused on his regular teaching activities. Until May 1969, he taught his NYU seminar. He had lectured at FEE seminars until 1972. 17 00:01:49.960 --> 00:01:56.440 In these very last years only his most faithful friends and admirers, most notably Percy Graves 18 00:01:56.440 --> 00:02:01.840 and Bettina Bean, continued to take part in his regular seminar sessions. They had become 19 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:08.200 used to the shortcomings of the presentation and still wrote diligent notes of each meeting. 20 00:02:08.200 --> 00:02:12.840 Graves always sat right next to Mises to facilitate all communication between the old master and 21 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:18.400 his seminar. When a student asked a question, Graves would shout this question into Mises's 22 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:25.400 Receive the answer from the old man's feeble lips and then repeat Mises' words with his booming voice to the audience. 23 00:02:25.400 --> 00:02:35.400 New people showed up from time to time out of curiosity, but did not stay because it was difficult to follow the lectures and impossible to engage the speaker. 24 00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:41.400 Such newcomers often wondered why the seminar had such visible success with the regular participants. 25 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:47.600 Some had the impression of a prayer meeting, involving a bunch of fervent disciples around 26 00:02:47.600 --> 00:02:53.160 an enigmatic guru, with Percy Graves as the high priest and Bettina Bean as the devoted 27 00:02:53.160 --> 00:02:59.080 abbess of a Mises cult. Mises did not ignore his physical condition and true to his nature 28 00:02:59.080 --> 00:03:04.280 prepared well in advance for the approaching end. He started skipping Montpellier society 29 00:03:04.280 --> 00:03:10.440 meetings which usually took place in Europe. The last one Mises attended was in 1965 in 30 00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:16.640 and Strasa, Italy. He saw his beloved Vienna for the last time in September 1964. 31 00:03:16.640 --> 00:03:21.920 At the end of July 1964, he gave a talk at the Walter Eucken Institute in Freiburg. He 32 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:27.360 followed an invitation by Hayek. He then attended the Demolpillerer Society meeting in Zimmering 33 00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:33.060 and also went to Vienna. There he visited the Institute for Business Cycle Research, 34 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:39.300 now Institute for Economic Research, which recognized him as its founder. He began selling 35 00:03:39.300 --> 00:03:47.740 In October 1958, he parted with his collection of Econometrica, the complete sets, volumes 36 00:03:47.740 --> 00:03:54.900 1 through 26, and in July 1965 cancelled his membership in the Royal Economic Society. 37 00:03:54.900 --> 00:04:00.420 In other correspondence, Mises emphasized that he was a member of the Econometric Society 38 00:04:00.420 --> 00:04:06.780 only to receive its periodical. Eventually, by the end of 1968, Percy Graves assisted 39 00:04:06.780 --> 00:04:17.020 Mises preserved his health almost until the end of his long life. In February 1962 he 40 00:04:17.020 --> 00:04:23.500 had to undergo surgery. In the spring of 1966, Mises must have suffered for a long time from 41 00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:30.780 a viral infection. On July 3, 1966, Ludwig and Margit had a car accident. Margit later 42 00:04:30.780 --> 00:04:36.420 Mises had to undergo surgery. At the end of October she was recovering well. In January 43 00:04:36.420 --> 00:04:43.580 1968, Mises had at least one tooth pulled. In June 1969, he and Margit were sick most 44 00:04:43.580 --> 00:04:49.260 of the month. He slowed down smoothly and was still around after many of his younger 45 00:04:49.260 --> 00:04:57.660 American friends and associates had already gone. Neumeier died in 1967, Courtney in 1971, 46 00:04:57.660 --> 00:05:00.620 Harper in April 1973. 47 00:05:00.620 --> 00:05:05.820 Just when Mises was starting to feel really old and somehow left over, it was time to 48 00:05:05.820 --> 00:05:11.460 congratulate Richard Schiller on the occasion of his 100th birthday. The last habitant of 49 00:05:11.460 --> 00:05:18.540 Carl Menger was still around. During a 1971 summer vacation in Manchester, Vermont, Ludwig 50 00:05:18.540 --> 00:05:24.260 fell ill with a serious infection. Even though he recovered physically, he had lost the ability 51 00:05:24.260 --> 00:05:30.260 to Concentrate and was incapable of doing any work from then on. His wife recalled him 52 00:05:30.260 --> 00:05:36.020 saying, The worst is that I still have so much to give to people, to the world, and 53 00:05:36.020 --> 00:05:42.760 I can't put it together any more. It is tormenting. During the last two years of his life, Mises 54 00:05:42.760 --> 00:05:48.900 was no longer himself and needed assistance and supervision. In this critical phase, to 55 00:05:48.900 --> 00:06:18.540 In July 1973, Margit took Ludwig for a last trip to Europe, to a spa up in the mountains, 56 00:06:18.540 --> 00:06:46.180 Last Writings 57 00:06:46.180 --> 00:06:51.460 In the last phase of his life, Mises completed four major writing projects, The Ultimate Foundation 58 00:06:51.460 --> 00:06:59.140 of Economic Science, 1962, The Second Edition of Human Action, 1963, a booklet on the historical 59 00:06:59.140 --> 00:07:05.420 setting of the Austrian School of Economics, 1969. This work was first published in a Spanish 60 00:07:05.420 --> 00:07:12.380 edition in Argentina in 1962. It was probably an outgrowth of the lecture he gave on May 61 00:07:12.380 --> 00:07:19.700 2nd 1962 to the NYU Faculty Club on the Austrian School of Economics at the University of Vienna 62 00:07:19.700 --> 00:07:26.140 and the 3rd edition of Human Action 1966. Apart from this, Mises produced a few articles. 63 00:07:26.140 --> 00:07:31.220 The most important publication of this period, and in fact the only book-length work, was 64 00:07:31.220 --> 00:07:36.040 The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science. The culmination of more than thirty years 65 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:41.500 of meditation on the epistemological problems of the social sciences, it deals with the 66 00:07:41.500 --> 00:07:46.280 and the most difficult problems in this field, written, as were all of his works, in accessible 67 00:07:46.280 --> 00:07:53.300 language and with a clear presentation. In many ways, it is one of Mises' finest books, 68 00:07:53.300 --> 00:07:58.380 and clarifies important points that he had introduced in his previous work. The central 69 00:07:58.380 --> 00:08:03.840 thesis is one, that there is such a thing as economic law that cannot be identified 70 00:08:03.840 --> 00:08:09.500 with the methods of the natural sciences, and two, that the arguments of those who advocate 71 00:08:09.500 --> 00:08:15.380 These methods in economics have no scientific foundation whatever, but are based on metaphysical 72 00:08:15.380 --> 00:08:16.380 speculation. 73 00:08:16.380 --> 00:08:22.260 In short, Mises's last book was an all-out frontal attack against positivism. 74 00:08:22.260 --> 00:08:27.700 This attack concerned not only the verificationist positivism of the Vienna Circle, Schrick, 75 00:08:27.700 --> 00:08:33.100 Canop, Funk and others, but also Karl Popper's falsificationist positivism. 76 00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:38.060 Popper's theory made ample room for the use of deduction, whereas the Vienna Circle advocated 77 00:08:38.060 --> 00:08:44.220 and its strict induction. He also claimed that only falsifiable statements can be scientific 78 00:08:44.220 --> 00:08:50.900 while the Vienna Circle posited that all non-verifiable statements are simply nonsensical. Such differences 79 00:08:50.900 --> 00:08:55.940 are certainly important in many respects, however, they are irrelevant as far as Mises' 80 00:08:55.940 --> 00:09:01.440 critique is concerned, because it aims at the common ground of both versions of positivism. 81 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:06.160 He stressed in particular that the positivist precept, testing economic theories by confronting 82 00:09:06.160 --> 00:09:11.080 to explain them with observed data is not itself derived from any empirical knowledge, rather 83 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:16.400 this precept is an a priori postulate that contradicts the most elementary empirical facts 84 00:09:16.400 --> 00:09:22.240 known about human action, in particular that human beings make choices and that there are 85 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:28.400 no known laws that determine those choices. It follows that the observed data in the social 86 00:09:28.400 --> 00:09:33.680 sciences have a completely different nature from the data used in the natural sciences. 87 00:09:33.680 --> 00:09:39.280 The latter are elements in an exhortable chain of cause and effect. Every single one of them 88 00:09:39.280 --> 00:09:45.280 can therefore be used to verify or refute the theories of physics, chemistry and so on. 89 00:09:45.280 --> 00:09:51.020 Mises accepts Popper's theory in this regard. The positivistic principle of verifiability 90 00:09:51.020 --> 00:09:56.640 as rectified by Popper is unassailable as an epistemological principle of the natural 91 00:09:56.640 --> 00:10:01.800 sciences. But the observed data in the social sciences do not stand in such a universally 92 00:10:01.800 --> 00:10:06.680 the present chain of cause and effect. More precisely, the only thing that is known about 93 00:10:06.680 --> 00:10:12.760 them is that they are not part of such a chain. They are singular events and must therefore 94 00:10:12.760 --> 00:10:19.100 be interpreted on a case-by-case basis. They cannot be used to derive any general laws. 95 00:10:19.100 --> 00:10:25.040 They are not a benchmark for verifying or refuting economic theories. Observation-based testing 96 00:10:25.040 --> 00:10:30.880 simply makes no sense in economics. Just as the Marxists claim to have knowledge 97 00:10:30.880 --> 00:10:57.640 Mises goes to great lengths to bolster his thesis. 98 00:10:57.640 --> 00:11:02.880 He shows that the existence of non-Euclidean geometry does not invalidate the case for 99 00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:08.320 an a priori economic science. Similarly, he argues that the development of probability 100 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:13.780 theory cannot possibly be a device to avoid the case for determinism, and in discussing 101 00:11:13.780 --> 00:11:19.180 the implications of the theory of evolution for a priori disciplines such as economics, 102 00:11:19.180 --> 00:11:24.760 he comes to conclusions very different from those of his friend Roger and others. Mises 103 00:11:24.760 --> 00:11:29.160 Mises stresses the hard fact that nothing is known about the future evolution of the 104 00:11:29.160 --> 00:11:35.200 human mind. Therefore, the logical and praxeological structure of this mind must be considered 105 00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:41.800 as if it were unchanging. For all practical purposes, it is an a priori for the social 106 00:11:41.800 --> 00:11:45.520 sciences. In clarifying the logical nature of economic 107 00:11:45.520 --> 00:11:50.520 science, Mises stressed that pure reasoning can give us empirical knowledge about the 108 00:11:50.520 --> 00:12:08.000 Following in the wake of Kant's analysis, philosophers raised the question, how can 109 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:13.760 the human mind, by aprioristic thinking, deal with the reality of the external world? 110 00:12:13.760 --> 00:12:17.400 As far as praxeology is concerned, the answer is obvious. 111 00:12:17.400 --> 00:12:22.680 Both a priori thinking and reasoning on the one hand and human action on the other are 112 00:12:22.680 --> 00:12:28.680 manifestations of the human mind. The logical structure of the human mind creates the reality 113 00:12:28.680 --> 00:12:37.080 of action. Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon. 114 00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:43.560 In this sense we may apply to praxeology the dictum of Empedocles, knowledge of the same 115 00:12:43.560 --> 00:12:48.680 through the same. Mises stressed that the questions whether the judgments of praxeology 116 00:12:48.680 --> 00:12:54.080 are to be called analytic or synthetic, and whether or not its procedure is to be qualified 117 00:12:54.080 --> 00:13:00.040 as merely tautological, are of verbal interest only. The point had been overlooked in traditional 118 00:13:00.040 --> 00:13:05.680 epistemology because the philosophers dealt with thinking as if it were a separate field 119 00:13:05.680 --> 00:13:10.880 cut off from other manifestations of human endeavour. They dealt with the problems of 120 00:13:10.880 --> 00:13:26.880 Mises argued that because economic theorems were deducted from the praxeological a priori, 121 00:13:26.880 --> 00:13:33.420 they provide knowledge of apodictic certainty. Every theorem of praxeology is deducted by 122 00:13:33.420 --> 00:13:39.760 logical reasoning from the category of action. It partakes of the apodictic certainty provided 123 00:13:39.760 --> 00:13:50.000 And he emphasized that even the most radical skepticism cannot affect this conclusion precisely 124 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:56.880 because acting and thinking stem from the same source and are in this sense homogenous. 125 00:13:56.880 --> 00:14:01.560 There is nothing in the structure of action that the human mind cannot fully explain. 126 00:14:01.560 --> 00:14:06.160 In this sense, praxeology supplies certain knowledge. 127 00:14:06.160 --> 00:14:10.160 And yet, right on the next page of his book, he was quick to emphasize that praxeological 128 00:14:10.160 --> 00:14:16.600 knowledge is but one ingredient of information necessary to succeed in the world. Future choices 129 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:21.600 cannot be determined in advance, and for this reason alone there is therefore an all-pervading 130 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:29.160 uncertainty in human affairs that the apodictic certainty of praxeology cannot alter or diminish. 131 00:14:29.160 --> 00:14:34.240 Man is at the mercy of forces and powers beyond his control. He acts in order to avoid as 132 00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:40.020 as much as possible what, as he thinks, will harm himself. But he can at best succeed only 133 00:14:40.020 --> 00:14:45.220 with a narrow margin, and he can never know beforehand to what extent his acting will 134 00:14:45.220 --> 00:14:50.360 attain the end sought, and, if it attains it, whether his action will in retrospect 135 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:55.700 appear to himself or to the other people looking upon it, as the best choice among those that 136 00:14:55.700 --> 00:15:01.060 were open to him at the instant he embarked upon it. Most importantly, uncertainty also 137 00:15:01.060 --> 00:15:09.820 Mises did not at all share the conceit displayed by positivists such as Bertrand Russell that 138 00:15:09.820 --> 00:15:14.740 the natural sciences will ultimately penetrate all secrets of the world. In his view, human 139 00:15:14.740 --> 00:15:19.860 science barely scratches the surface of things. Important though it may be, and Mises was 140 00:15:19.860 --> 00:15:25.160 convinced that science was the most important tool for human progress, it is not an intellectual 141 00:15:25.160 --> 00:15:30.820 panacea and does not make superfluous the virtues of humility and religion. Although 142 00:15:30.820 --> 00:15:35.580 Although the progress of the natural sciences tends to enlarge the sphere of such scientifically 143 00:15:35.580 --> 00:15:41.620 directed action, it will never cover more than a narrow margin of possible events. And 144 00:15:41.620 --> 00:15:46.780 even within this margin there can never be absolute certainty. The result aimed at can 145 00:15:46.780 --> 00:15:53.860 be thwarted by the invasion of forces not yet sufficiently known or beyond human control. 146 00:15:53.860 --> 00:15:58.980 Technological engineering does not eliminate the aleatory element of human existence. It 147 00:15:58.980 --> 00:16:04.640 It merely restricts its field a little. There always remains an orbit that to the limited 148 00:16:04.640 --> 00:16:10.920 knowledge of man appears as an orbit of pure chance and marks life as a gamble. Man and 149 00:16:10.920 --> 00:16:17.340 his works are always exposed to the impact of unforeseen and uncontrollable events. He 150 00:16:17.340 --> 00:16:21.980 cannot help banking upon the good luck not to be hit by them. Even dull people cannot 151 00:16:21.980 --> 00:16:26.720 fail to realize that their well-being ultimately depends on the operation of forces beyond 152 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:31.340 and Man's Wisdom, Knowledge, Prevision and Provision. 153 00:16:31.340 --> 00:16:35.100 With regard to these forces all human planning is vain. 154 00:16:35.100 --> 00:16:40.400 This is what religion has in mind when it refers to the unfathomable decrees of heaven 155 00:16:40.400 --> 00:16:43.440 and turns to prayer. 156 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:48.080 Mises probably started working on the second edition of Human Action in early 1962. 157 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:53.000 Percy Graves provided assistance and had already made suggestions for changes in the fall of 158 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:55.040 1961. 159 00:16:55.040 --> 00:16:59.440 While the two men worked together smoothly and productively, cooperation with the publisher 160 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:01.520 was far less successful. 161 00:17:01.520 --> 00:17:07.520 For reasons that were never entirely clarified, Yale University Press butchered the book. 162 00:17:07.520 --> 00:17:12.840 Mises's life achievement now featured many misprints, different shades of print, displacement 163 00:17:12.840 --> 00:17:17.540 and omitted paragraphs and pages, and no more running heads. 164 00:17:17.540 --> 00:17:21.560 He was more than a little angry and suspected political motives. 165 00:17:21.560 --> 00:17:25.400 The present management of the press regrets for political reasons the fact that their 166 00:17:25.400 --> 00:17:27.880 predecessors published my book. 167 00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:31.180 They are especially angry about the great success of Human Action. 168 00:17:31.180 --> 00:17:35.320 If they had any sense of propriety at all, they would openly tell the author that they 169 00:17:35.320 --> 00:17:41.880 do not want any longer to publish his books, and that he is free to look for another publisher. 170 00:17:41.880 --> 00:17:46.320 Eventually Yale University Press did show that sense of propriety, and Mises went on 171 00:17:46.320 --> 00:17:59.000 Mises had probably first heard about Regnery through Nijmijer in 1953. This time things 172 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:04.480 worked out as planned and he enjoyed a beautiful new edition. With one exception, the new editions 173 00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:10.280 did not feature any major changes or elaborations. Mises sent exhaustive lists of the changes 174 00:18:10.280 --> 00:18:16.180 to Reg and Madrid, who sought to keep the Spanish translation up to date. The exception 175 00:18:16.180 --> 00:18:20.980 One concerned the definition of freedom. This elaboration was prompted by the fact that 176 00:18:20.980 --> 00:18:26.860 in the 1950s some of Mises' most brilliant students, most notably Murray Rothbard and 177 00:18:26.860 --> 00:18:32.540 his Bastiat circle, had carried the case for the free market and against government interventionism 178 00:18:32.540 --> 00:18:38.540 to what they felt was its logical conclusion, political anarchism. 179 00:18:38.540 --> 00:18:44.580 Last Skirmishes with the Anarchists In 1949 Mises had defined freedom by stating 180 00:18:44.580 --> 00:19:13.820 The concept of freedom and bondage makes sense only when referring to the way in which government 181 00:19:13.820 --> 00:19:20.420 operates. As far as the government, the social apparatus of compulsion and oppression, confines 182 00:19:20.420 --> 00:19:25.300 the exercise of its violence and the threat of such violence to the suppression and prevention 183 00:19:25.300 --> 00:19:31.100 of antisocial action, there prevails what reasonably and meaningfully can be called 184 00:19:31.100 --> 00:19:38.180 liberty. Such coercion does not substantially restrict man's power to choose, if, however, 185 00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:42.700 the government does more than protect people against violent or fraudulent aggression on 186 00:19:42.700 --> 00:20:10.900 This elaboration of his position did not dissuade the anarchists, and it is not difficult 187 00:20:10.900 --> 00:20:17.020 In the above passage, Mises gives two definitions of freedom. According to the first, freedom 188 00:20:17.020 --> 00:20:23.100 prevails if force is limited to the suppression of antisocial behaviour. Mises gives only 189 00:20:23.100 --> 00:20:29.140 one example, robbery, to illustrate what he means by this term. If this was meant to imply 190 00:20:29.140 --> 00:20:33.740 that the use of force is legitimate if it concerns the protection of property rights, 191 00:20:33.740 --> 00:20:39.260 then Mises' definition of freedom was essentially compatible with the views of the anarchists, 192 00:20:39.260 --> 00:20:57.240 His occasional remarks on the question show that he believed the case for anarchism would 193 00:20:57.240 --> 00:21:03.840 only hold in a world inhabited by angels. A typical example from about the same period, 194 00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:09.280 A shallow-minded school of social philosophers, the anarchists, chose to ignore the matter 195 00:21:09.280 --> 00:21:14.320 by suggesting a stateless organisation of mankind. They simply passed over the fact 196 00:21:14.320 --> 00:21:19.840 that men are not angels. They were too dull to realise that in the short run an individual 197 00:21:19.840 --> 00:21:24.880 or a group of individuals can certainly further their own interests at the expense of their 198 00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:31.480 own and all other people's long-run interests. But, as Rothbard's writings on the question 199 00:21:31.480 --> 00:21:38.400 and show he was not that naive. Rothbard published Power and Market only in 1970, but the manuscript 200 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:44.520 of the book, which was originally conceived as a part of Man, Economy and State, was certainly 201 00:21:44.520 --> 00:21:48.520 available for Mises in the early 1960s. 202 00:21:48.520 --> 00:21:53.280 Mises's second definition of freedom was equally unlikely to steer the anarchists away 203 00:21:53.280 --> 00:21:59.000 from their orientation, though for a different reason. According to this one, human action 204 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:05.980 is said to be subject to two distinct influences, praxeological law and government intervention. 205 00:22:05.980 --> 00:22:10.720 The influence of the latter is presented as somehow adding to the influence of the former. 206 00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:15.440 But this does not square well with what Mises said in the rest of his book about praxeological 207 00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:20.320 laws. At all times, at all places, the impact that government intervention has on human 208 00:22:20.320 --> 00:22:27.760 beings is mediated through the laws of human action. Praxeological laws are not forces 209 00:22:27.760 --> 00:22:32.480 in the sense that human action, for example government action, is a force. Rather, they 210 00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:39.080 are the relations that tie up any given force in a chain of causes and consequences. 211 00:22:39.080 --> 00:22:45.760 In private correspondence with Bruno Leone, he regretted that anarchist ideas were supported 212 00:22:45.760 --> 00:22:50.440 by some of the most intelligent men of the American rising generation, but he had ready 213 00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:57.480 psychological explanation at hand. Anarchism was a reaction to the deification of the state. 214 00:22:57.480 --> 00:23:01.980 He had come in touch with the burgeoning anarchist movement already in the years leading up to 215 00:23:01.980 --> 00:23:06.820 the publication of Human Action, especially through his contacts with West Coast libertarians, 216 00:23:06.820 --> 00:23:12.480 but also in correspondence with Rose Wilder Lane. His debates with these American radicals 217 00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:18.640 had remained fruitless, but after some twenty years their extreme anti-statism had gained 218 00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:24.160 momentum. The best proof was the existence of the Cirque de Bastia, involving Rothbard, 219 00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:29.280 Rico and Lisio, Raymond Cyrus Hoyles, publisher of the Freedom newspaper chain, boasted of 220 00:23:29.280 --> 00:23:34.680 this growing impact in a letter to Mises, the first correspondent in 13 years. 221 00:23:34.680 --> 00:23:39.920 Answering Mises' contention that no rational man ever proposed that the production of security 222 00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:43.400 be entrusted to private associations, Hoyles said, 223 00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:46.280 I happen to know several people who so believe. 224 00:23:46.280 --> 00:23:50.720 Robert Lefevre, the founder of the Freedom School, I believe, believes that the market 225 00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:53.880 place is the best way to protect life and property. 226 00:23:53.880 --> 00:24:12.520 In a subsequent letter of May 21st, Hoyles argued that the production of security in 227 00:24:12.520 --> 00:24:17.160 a free market would be organized by insurance companies, thereby anticipating an important 228 00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:20.760 argument in later analysis of this problem. 229 00:24:20.760 --> 00:24:25.480 Mises replied in an Hobbesian manner, objecting that in the absence of a monopoly of the use 230 00:24:25.480 --> 00:24:32.240 of coercive force, everybody would have continually to defend himself against hosts of aggressors. 231 00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:37.100 He concluded, I think you err in assuming that your principles are those of the Declaration 232 00:24:37.100 --> 00:24:42.700 of Independence. They are rather the principles that led a hundred years ago the Confederate 233 00:24:42.700 --> 00:24:48.340 states to refuse to recognize the President elected by the majority. Wherever and whenever 234 00:24:48.340 --> 00:24:59.460 Notice that in the 1860 election Lincoln received far less than a majority of the votes. 235 00:24:59.460 --> 00:25:03.580 Now this point of view seems to be at odds with the principle of self-determination, at 236 00:25:03.580 --> 00:25:07.900 least in the form in which Mises had championed it for many years. 237 00:25:07.900 --> 00:25:10.620 Had Mises changed his mind? 238 00:25:10.620 --> 00:25:15.620 He had discussed this issue in correspondence from the early 1950s with Salvador de Madriaga 239 00:25:15.620 --> 00:25:16.800 in Oxford. 240 00:25:16.800 --> 00:25:22.480 In one of his letters, Mises held that Ernest Renan had settled the question unambiguously 241 00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:27.820 in his famous lecture on the nature of nations. Self-determination is the right of peoples 242 00:25:27.820 --> 00:25:34.100 to decide their own fate. However, according to Renan, a nation could be just any voluntary 243 00:25:34.100 --> 00:25:39.720 association of persons. What if a subgroup of an existing nation suddenly decided to 244 00:25:39.720 --> 00:25:45.720 go its own way? Would this not be an instance of self-determination? Mises was, of course, 245 00:25:45.720 --> 00:26:09.480 It is a fact that no ideology has been developed, which would have approved of the existence 246 00:26:09.480 --> 00:26:14.520 of a state composed of people speaking different languages. In the absence of such doctrine, 247 00:26:14.520 --> 00:26:18.320 There is no argument available against the ambitions of the majority of a territory's 248 00:26:18.320 --> 00:26:24.200 population asking for independent statehood. There is only the recourse to the Ultima Ratio 249 00:26:24.200 --> 00:26:31.280 Regum. Mises had criticised Madriaga in omnipotent government. Still, he had held the Spaniard 250 00:26:31.280 --> 00:26:35.800 in great esteem until this correspondence led to their falling out. He said, in fact, 251 00:26:35.800 --> 00:26:39.800 in the same letter, I think that I have never paid a higher tribute to the achievements 252 00:26:39.800 --> 00:26:45.140 of any living author than I did in speaking of you on page 15 of my book. 253 00:26:45.140 --> 00:26:50.880 And he concluded, to construct such an ideology of states, including various linguistic groups, 254 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:54.600 is one of the great tasks left to coming generations. 255 00:26:54.600 --> 00:26:59.680 He probably owed the idea that nations result from the construction of ideologies to his 256 00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:04.740 friend Louis Auger, who had argued that there are no objective or scientific criteria to 257 00:27:04.740 --> 00:27:06.920 delimit nations from one another. 258 00:27:06.920 --> 00:27:11.920 The true foundation of a nation is a specific political myth. But this conclusion begged 259 00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:17.280 a question. Self-determination is relevant only if there are disagreements between individuals 260 00:27:17.280 --> 00:27:23.680 and groups on ideological questions. How should secessionist movements be handled at a time 261 00:27:23.680 --> 00:27:28.540 when no great overarching ideology exists? The only solution available for classical 262 00:27:28.540 --> 00:27:33.820 liberals relied on the principle of self-determination. But when Mises applied this principle to 263 00:27:33.820 --> 00:27:46.100 It is of no avail for the discussion of our problem whether or not we qualify Lincoln's 264 00:27:46.100 --> 00:27:52.220 attitude as liberal. In denying to the Southerners the right to secede, the very right on which 265 00:27:52.220 --> 00:27:57.260 the existence of the United States was morally founded, he certainly did not behave as a 266 00:27:57.260 --> 00:28:01.580 liberal. But there was another problem in the case – slavery. One could argue the 267 00:28:01.580 --> 00:28:06.780 The real issue is not self-determination but slavery. In fact, most of the contemporary 268 00:28:06.780 --> 00:28:12.300 European liberals argued this way and sympathised with the Unionists. 269 00:28:12.300 --> 00:28:17.860 The quote shows how uneasy Mises was at discussing this problem. He just could not reach a clear 270 00:28:17.860 --> 00:28:23.380 conclusion. Ten years later he wrote, When every territory can, by majority vote, determine 271 00:28:23.380 --> 00:28:28.100 whether it should form an independent state or a part of a larger state, there will no 272 00:28:28.100 --> 00:28:48.740 The Liberals have always maintained that it does not matter for the people as a whole, 273 00:28:48.740 --> 00:28:53.100 and for individual citizens, whether their own state sovereignty stretches over a larger 274 00:28:53.100 --> 00:29:11.300 Mises ended their 1952-1953 correspondence rather abruptly, saying that the Madriagas 275 00:29:11.300 --> 00:29:16.500 point of view was the most anti-liberal proposition I have ever heard. 276 00:29:16.500 --> 00:29:22.260 He put an equally abrupt end to his 1962 correspondence with Hoyles, when the latter expressed his 277 00:29:22.260 --> 00:29:27.980 Mises regret to see Mises advocate any form of socialism or any form of tyranny. 278 00:29:27.980 --> 00:29:32.700 Two similar cases might be mentioned in which Mises did not pursue correspondence touching 279 00:29:32.700 --> 00:29:38.160 on the necessity of coercion, and Mr. Kuhlmann, who favoured an increase in inheritance taxes 280 00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:44.020 in order to decrease income taxes, reminded him, and remember you say taxes are necessary, 281 00:29:44.020 --> 00:29:48.100 and Mrs. Powell Moffat complained about his endorsement of conscription in the second 282 00:29:48.100 --> 00:29:52.700 Edition of Human Action. But this did not prevent his continued association with other 283 00:29:52.700 --> 00:29:58.120 members of the anarchist camp. In January 1964 he taught a course on money at Robert 284 00:29:58.120 --> 00:30:03.360 Lefevre's Freedom School. This was the same Lefevre who had praised Hoyer's succinct 285 00:30:03.360 --> 00:30:09.480 statement of the case for anarchism. Mises even served on the advisory board of the Freedom 286 00:30:09.480 --> 00:30:15.040 School and eventually also on the Council of Advisors for F. A. Baldry-Harper's Institute 287 00:30:15.040 --> 00:30:22.760 for Humane Studies, IHS in California. Baldi Harper had founded IHS in 1963, after leaving 288 00:30:22.760 --> 00:30:28.400 FEE, yet for some time worked for the Volcker Fund and then lectured at Wabash College. 289 00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:34.300 A champion of formal manners, Mises was close enough to Harper to address him as Baldi. 290 00:30:34.300 --> 00:30:38.460 In another letter he wrote that he could only stay for three days because he had to return 291 00:30:38.460 --> 00:30:44.480 for his NYU seminar. He also mentioned that his health was not very good. He also continued 292 00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:48.960 and his affiliation with Frank Chodorov's Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, 293 00:30:48.960 --> 00:30:54.480 which he had supported from the very beginning in 1952. Moreover, he praised the new individualist 294 00:30:54.480 --> 00:30:59.520 review that graduate student Ralph Reiko had established at the University of Chicago on 295 00:30:59.520 --> 00:31:04.520 behalf of a local chapter of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists. He wrote for it 296 00:31:04.520 --> 00:31:09.180 a review of Rothbard's Man, Economy and State, and seemed to rate it higher than the Freeman 297 00:31:09.180 --> 00:31:13.580 or any other journal. He also praised the work in correspondence with one of the thinkers 298 00:31:13.580 --> 00:31:29.140 Mises also followed Rothbard's subsequent writings and activities, often to his chagrin. 299 00:31:29.140 --> 00:31:34.180 A 1968 letter that Furtick wrote to Mises probably conveys Mises's own feelings as 300 00:31:34.180 --> 00:31:35.180 well. 301 00:31:35.180 --> 00:31:40.060 Among the things which are really disturbing is the case of Murray Rothbard. I enclosed 302 00:31:40.060 --> 00:31:45.260 the current issue of National Review. Now he's allied with the New Left. Imagine that! 303 00:31:45.260 --> 00:31:50.340 Just a short while ago he was on the committee that favoured Castro and Cuba. It's sad to 304 00:31:50.340 --> 00:31:55.620 see a brilliant mind like his go to pot that way. 305 00:31:55.620 --> 00:32:01.740 Last skirmishes were the monetarists. Rothbard's apparent decline was not the main worry for 306 00:32:01.740 --> 00:32:07.380 of the Aging Mises. He followed with great concern how the American monetary system, and 307 00:32:07.380 --> 00:32:13.420 the global monetary system built on it, unraveled all through the 1960s. In the middle of the 308 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:19.420 decade, the alarm bells were ringing at the headquarters of the US monetary authorities. 309 00:32:19.420 --> 00:32:23.140 Foreign central banks and individuals were following the lead of France in redeeming 310 00:32:23.140 --> 00:32:29.820 dollars in gold. The United States government's stock of gold shrank on a daily basis and 311 00:32:29.820 --> 00:32:35.900 at an Accelerating Rate. The new economists were quick to repeat their endless lamentation. 312 00:32:35.900 --> 00:32:40.700 Not all of this was the consequence of the unfavourable balance of payments, and they 313 00:32:40.700 --> 00:32:45.780 demanded measures against greedy businessmen driving up prices in the States. Some were 314 00:32:45.780 --> 00:32:51.220 even calling for controls of foreign exchange. Philip Courtney wrote to Mises, inquiring 315 00:32:51.220 --> 00:32:56.620 why he had not published anything on the present calamity. Mises replied that in his books 316 00:32:56.620 --> 00:33:26.620 The Theory of Money and Credit 317 00:33:26.620 --> 00:33:34.980 What a catastrophe if this happens to be a considerable part of the nation. The supporters 318 00:33:34.980 --> 00:33:40.180 of this doctrine are inconsistent as they think that this calamity can only occur in 319 00:33:40.180 --> 00:33:45.100 the mutual transactions of the inhabitants of sovereign nations and not also in the business 320 00:33:45.100 --> 00:33:50.740 relations of the administrative subdivisions. There prevails in the world the opinion that 321 00:33:50.740 --> 00:33:55.940 the inflationary policy of the American government will continue that sooner or later the gold 322 00:33:55.940 --> 00:34:05.940 The gold standard hoard in Fort Knox will be exhausted and the American administration will be forced to abandon its policy of selling the ounce to foreign governments and central banks at $35. 323 00:34:05.940 --> 00:34:08.940 This explains the drain upon the American government's gold holdings. 324 00:34:08.940 --> 00:34:15.940 If our civilization will not in the next years or decades completely collapse, the gold standard will be restored. 325 00:34:15.940 --> 00:34:22.940 Mises had already been informed by Machloupp himself. His former student asked him for hints about books or articles that may contain pertinent material to bolster his claim that the French monetary authorities in the 1920s had successfully abolished the gold standard. 326 00:34:45.940 --> 00:35:00.240 This must have come as a shock for Mises. In the fall of the same year, he met Machloupp 327 00:35:00.240 --> 00:35:06.260 at the Mont-Balarin Society meeting in Strasa, only to witness him reiterating his new views. 328 00:35:06.260 --> 00:35:11.460 He got very upset and told Margit not to talk to Machloupp any more. Here's Machloupp's 329 00:35:11.460 --> 00:35:19.460 Philip Courtney made his customary plea for an immediate return to the gold standard with a substantial increase in the official price of gold. 330 00:35:19.460 --> 00:35:27.460 After listening to the reasons he gave for raising the price of gold, I used the chairman's prerogative to make a comment in the subject. 331 00:35:27.460 --> 00:35:35.460 I compared the plea of the gold boosters to the pleas of trade union leaders who want wage rates to be raised after a period of falling prices, 332 00:35:35.460 --> 00:36:05.380 The break in friendly relations lasted for several years. 333 00:36:05.380 --> 00:36:16.380 No wonder Mises was upset. His former student, an erstwhile champion of the gold standard, had now publicly reduced the issue to a question of special interest politics. 334 00:36:16.380 --> 00:36:23.380 Another year later, Mises sensed a seismic shift in the quality of the developing crisis. He wrote, 335 00:36:23.380 --> 00:36:28.740 What not so long ago could be called a monetary crisis is more and more, at least for the US, 336 00:36:28.740 --> 00:36:34.740 developing into a most serious political crisis. The Federal Government, as well as the states 337 00:36:34.740 --> 00:36:41.140 and the municipalities, have since 1960 wasted fabulous sums of money for more or less unnecessary 338 00:36:41.140 --> 00:36:46.340 expenditures and are now facing tremendous deficits. There cannot be any question of a 339 00:36:46.340 --> 00:36:52.980 serious monetary reform, because the ruling party, for many years probably leftists, thinks 340 00:36:52.980 --> 00:37:21.620 Mises planned to take part in an April 1968 conference on international monetary problems, 341 00:37:21.620 --> 00:37:27.140 Organised by the Graduate Institute of International Studies, the invitation came from Jacques Freymont, 342 00:37:27.140 --> 00:37:31.780 who then headed the institute, but had been extended at the behest of Philip Courtney. 343 00:37:32.340 --> 00:37:36.820 Mises was looking forward to the event, but then Courtney explained that the agenda and the 344 00:37:36.820 --> 00:37:42.820 conclusions were already set, and that academic discussion was to be kept to a strict minimum. 345 00:37:42.820 --> 00:37:48.900 For your guidance, we do not recommend putting an end to the IMF. Mises immediately declined 346 00:37:48.900 --> 00:37:51.420 Participation. 347 00:37:51.420 --> 00:37:56.700 Last Honours On October 20, 1962, Mises received the Austrian 348 00:37:56.700 --> 00:38:01.680 Medal of Honour, Ian Seichen, at the Austrian Embassy in Washington. 349 00:38:01.680 --> 00:38:05.360 He had the embassy invite Otto Kalier for the luncheon. 350 00:38:05.360 --> 00:38:10.260 They also asked some of his other former students, probably those residing in Washington. 351 00:38:10.260 --> 00:38:14.820 In June 1963, he obtained an honorary doctorate from NYU. 352 00:38:14.820 --> 00:38:20.500 In 1964, an honorary doctorate in political science from University of Heiburg, Hayek 353 00:38:20.500 --> 00:38:26.920 was there during those years. In March 1969, probably in anticipation of his retirement, 354 00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:32.420 he was elected a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association. His election 355 00:38:32.420 --> 00:38:37.180 may have been an attempt to influence the Nobel Committee, which in the fall of the 356 00:38:37.180 --> 00:38:41.860 same year would grant the first Nobel Prize in Economics. The prize went instead to Ragnar 357 00:38:41.860 --> 00:38:47.860 Marfrisch and Jan Tinbergen, economists who are all but forgotten today. 358 00:38:47.860 --> 00:38:53.240 Mises would never receive the Nobel Prize, but one year after his death, Hayek won it 359 00:38:53.240 --> 00:38:57.980 for his elaboration of the Misesian business cycle theory. 360 00:38:57.980 --> 00:39:02.220 These official acknowledgments were gratifying, of course, but Mises did not pride himself 361 00:39:02.220 --> 00:39:05.540 too much on this type of recognition. 362 00:39:05.540 --> 00:39:10.040 Throughout his life, he remained dedicated more to his ideas than to the applause of 363 00:39:10.040 --> 00:39:15.800 of His Contemporaries. Thus he must have been even more pleased with the continued success 364 00:39:15.800 --> 00:39:23.320 of his books. Nymeyer had reprinted Planning for Freedom in 4000 copies by September 1965. 365 00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:30.760 Jonathan Cape republished Socialism in 1969 and FEE ordered 1000 copies. At the same time 366 00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:35.960 Yale University Press ceded its rights to bureaucracy, omnipotent government and theory 367 00:39:35.960 --> 00:39:40.860 History and History, which were now republished by Arlington House. A young Arlington House 368 00:39:40.860 --> 00:39:46.780 senior editor by the name of Llewelyn H. Rockwell Jr. was in charge of these projects. 369 00:39:46.780 --> 00:39:52.100 He had been a subscriber to the Freeman as a high school student, and in 1968 had moved 370 00:39:52.100 --> 00:39:58.060 to New York City, where he took part in FEE seminars and got in touch with George Roche. 371 00:39:58.060 --> 00:40:03.720 Rockwell followed Roche in 1971 to Hillsdale College to run its ideological and publications 372 00:40:03.720 --> 00:40:09.640 programs, which included a Mises Lecture Series, the newsletter Impromise, and Hillsdale College 373 00:40:09.640 --> 00:40:14.920 Press, and a few years later joined the staff of Congressman Ron Paul, a serious student of Mises, 374 00:40:14.920 --> 00:40:20.440 and a lifelong opponent of central banking. Rockwell only met Mises once, but he eagerly 375 00:40:20.440 --> 00:40:26.920 absorbed and digested his ideas. In 1982, he would establish the now-famous Ludwig von Mises 376 00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:32.200 Institute. A very different kind of recognition that he was happy to experience at the end of 377 00:40:32.200 --> 00:40:36.840 of His Life was the virtual vindication of his theory of economic calculation by the 378 00:40:36.840 --> 00:40:43.460 practitioners, the economists of the East Bloc. In the fall of 1967, a group of young 379 00:40:43.460 --> 00:40:48.920 economists in communist-rule Czechoslovakia had started reviving the socialist calculation 380 00:40:48.920 --> 00:40:55.560 debate of the 1920s and 1930s in light of post-war experiences with centrally planned 381 00:40:55.560 --> 00:41:02.180 economies. One of them, Dr. Karl Kuba, entitled his study Plan and Market in Socialism. This 382 00:41:02.180 --> 00:41:07.540 Mises was circulated for internal use of the Czechoslovak Academy of the Sciences. He studied 383 00:41:07.540 --> 00:41:13.740 Mises's original paper from 1920 and Hayek's later modification of the argument, as well 384 00:41:13.740 --> 00:41:20.280 as Oskar Lange's Scheme for Market Socialism, about which he wrote, Based on today's experiences, 385 00:41:20.280 --> 00:41:25.780 one can say that this is a purely theoretical demonstration. A colleague of Kubis, Aldrich 386 00:41:25.780 --> 00:41:42.660 Another Czechoslovakian economist, confided to Fritz Machlup, we have now learned that 387 00:41:42.660 --> 00:41:48.780 Mises and Hayek were right, and that Oskar Lange was an idealist. A few months later 388 00:41:48.780 --> 00:41:54.540 this intellectual rebellion ushered in the short-lived Prague Spring of 1968, almost 389 00:41:54.540 --> 00:42:00.700 Most eight months of political and economic liberalisation crushed by Soviet tanks. 390 00:42:00.700 --> 00:42:05.020 Most of all, Mises must have enjoyed the sort of recognition that comes from the concrete 391 00:42:05.020 --> 00:42:08.000 actions of people he had inspired. 392 00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:15.180 In April 1967, a man from Hollywood bound for the Vietnam War made FEE his life insurance 393 00:42:15.180 --> 00:42:17.220 beneficiary. 394 00:42:17.220 --> 00:42:22.360 In the event of my death, I would want this money, fifteen thousand dollars, to be used 395 00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:28.080 and only to place copies of Human Action by Ludwig von Mises in any libraries which will 396 00:42:28.080 --> 00:42:29.080 accept them. 397 00:42:29.080 --> 00:42:35.840 On a lighter note, after a libertarian conference in Orange County, California with Mises among 398 00:42:35.840 --> 00:42:41.920 the participants, local lefties carried around pictures of Marcuse, Mao and others at a May 399 00:42:41.920 --> 00:42:48.060 Day demonstration on the UC Irvine campus. Mises' host wrote and asked Mises for photos 400 00:42:48.060 --> 00:42:51.460 to use in an under attack. 401 00:42:51.460 --> 00:42:56.480 And on his 90th birthday, the CBS television show Spectrum featured a birthday special 402 00:42:56.480 --> 00:42:57.780 on Ludwig von Mises. 403 00:42:57.780 --> 00:43:03.620 The speaker, Jeffrey St. John, called Mises the de Tocqueville of modern economics and 404 00:43:03.620 --> 00:43:09.540 observed that he had explained long ago that Nixon-style price controls are economic dictatorship 405 00:43:09.540 --> 00:43:14.060 and have in the past produced communism, Nazism and fascism. 406 00:43:14.060 --> 00:43:19.900 On the same occasion, Harper's IHS had sponsored a two-volume festschrift, six copies of which 407 00:43:19.900 --> 00:43:25.180 were sent to Mises at the end of October. He was touched and commented to Market, 408 00:43:25.180 --> 00:43:31.820 The only good thing about being a non-agenarian is that you are able to read your obituaries 409 00:43:31.820 --> 00:43:38.100 while you are still alive. However, there were a few magnificent obituaries that Mises 410 00:43:38.100 --> 00:43:44.020 would not be able to read. The following obituaries were compiled by Petina Bean Graves 411 00:43:44.020 --> 00:43:51.620 and Robert W. McGee in Mises' Annotated Bibliography. American Economic Review 412 00:43:52.500 --> 00:44:02.820 In Memoriam, Ludwig von Mises, 1881, 1973, Volume 64, No. 3, June 1974. Drafted, but unsigned, 413 00:44:02.820 --> 00:44:09.780 by Fritz Machlup. Mises was certainly not a popular economist, by his blunt criticism of popular views 414 00:44:09.780 --> 00:44:17.140 and Policies, by his unrelenting attacks on inflationism, interventionism and socialism, 415 00:44:17.140 --> 00:44:22.020 and by his uncompromising steadfastness in arguing the case for private enterprise and 416 00:44:22.020 --> 00:44:27.340 free markets, he acquired as many intellectual enemies and detractors as any of the renowned 417 00:44:27.340 --> 00:44:33.020 economists of the 20th century. At the same time, Mises was a beloved teacher and friend 418 00:44:33.020 --> 00:44:38.260 of a host of students who came to appreciate the integrity and profundity of his teachings 419 00:44:38.260 --> 00:44:43.700 in Courses and Seminars, but particularly in his private seminar. 420 00:44:43.700 --> 00:44:49.940 Robert James Bidonado, Von Mises, The Final Salute, Unbound, Boston, Individuals for a 421 00:44:49.940 --> 00:44:56.300 Rational Society 2, No. 1, September-October 1973. 422 00:44:56.300 --> 00:45:02.300 Our age may well be labelled by future historians as the age of mediocrity. 423 00:45:02.300 --> 00:45:07.320 Nothing is so characteristic of this century as the ever-shrinking stature of men, yet 424 00:45:07.320 --> 00:45:12.160 But if these times are to be vindicated, it will be solely by the grace of a few lonely 425 00:45:12.160 --> 00:45:19.240 giants who stood tall and strode far, guided down unexplored paths by unflinching courage 426 00:45:19.240 --> 00:45:21.480 and unwavering vision. 427 00:45:21.480 --> 00:45:25.080 On October 10th, 1973, one of those giants fell. 428 00:45:25.080 --> 00:45:30.600 Dr. Ludwig von Mises is dead at the age of 92, and it is difficult to conceive of any 429 00:45:30.600 --> 00:45:38.400 Any person in our time who has given the world so much, yet been rewarded so little in return. 430 00:45:38.400 --> 00:45:47.720 John Chamberlain, Unsung Economist Who Was Profit, Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1973 431 00:45:47.720 --> 00:45:54.100 Genuine innovators such as von Mises have to wait for death to gain their rightful recognition. 432 00:45:54.100 --> 00:45:59.080 It is all very unfair, but the truth does eventually catch up with the showmen, relegating 433 00:45:59.080 --> 00:46:26.680 With the death of Professor Ludwig von Mises yesterday, aged 92, the world's liberal 434 00:46:26.680 --> 00:46:32.720 Liberal economists lose their most prolific pen and Austria loses the last lingering reminder 435 00:46:32.720 --> 00:46:37.040 of the intellectual preeminence of Vienna at the turn of the century. 436 00:46:37.040 --> 00:46:43.600 As an authoritative exponent of liberal economics, he has enjoyed a popularity never foreseen 437 00:46:43.600 --> 00:46:49.920 in the Asian liberal economies of Japan, Hong Kong and Formosa, and respect never foreseen 438 00:46:49.920 --> 00:46:55.000 in the communist countries for his exposition of the impossibility of calculation in a full 439 00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:03.400 The Gentle, witty, but tenaciously logical teaching of von Mises in Europe and America 440 00:47:03.400 --> 00:47:08.640 earned him a loyal army of auxiliary writers and pamphleteers. 441 00:47:08.640 --> 00:47:16.000 Henry Hazlitt, Remarks at Mises' Memorial Service, October 16, 1973 442 00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:21.880 His outstanding moral quality was moral courage, the ability to stand alone, and an almost 443 00:47:21.880 --> 00:47:41.960 International Herald Tribute 444 00:47:41.960 --> 00:47:48.480 Economist Ludwig von Mises Advanced Libertarian Theory, October 12, 1973 445 00:47:48.480 --> 00:47:53.360 Mr von Mises was recognised as a brilliant contributor to economic thought not only by 446 00:47:53.360 --> 00:48:01.080 his disciples but also by many who disagreed radically with his political and social philosophy. 447 00:48:01.080 --> 00:48:09.440 Israel M. Kirzner, Tribute in National Review 25, No. 45, November 9, 1973 448 00:48:09.440 --> 00:48:15.240 To those who knew him, Ludwig Mises was, in the face of shocking neglect by so many of 449 00:48:15.240 --> 00:48:21.620 of his contemporaries, a living exemplar of incorruptible intellectual integrity, a model 450 00:48:21.620 --> 00:48:27.180 of passionate, relentless scholarship and dedication, it will not be easy to forget 451 00:48:27.180 --> 00:48:31.860 these stern lessons which he so courageously personified. 452 00:48:31.860 --> 00:48:36.800 John McFaul's Investment Advisor, The Passing of Ludwig von Mises, Broadcast Memorial to 453 00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:45.180 Ludwig von Mises, October 14-16, 1973, During Value Action Radio Programs. 454 00:48:45.180 --> 00:48:51.260 Mises was a master of synthesis. He brought wholeness out of the fractured field of economics. 455 00:48:51.260 --> 00:48:56.900 He was a scholar of great patience and integrity, who believed that the movement toward collectivism 456 00:48:56.900 --> 00:49:02.020 and state intervention posed a grave threat to Western civilization. 457 00:49:02.020 --> 00:49:08.500 Monatsblätter für freiheitliche Wirtschaftspolitik, der letzte Liberale, The Last Liberal, 11 458 00:49:08.500 --> 00:49:15.520 November 1973, with the passing of the last liberal, a liberal of the old school who occasionally 459 00:49:15.520 --> 00:49:21.520 said liberalism, that is what I am. The last survivor of the epic-making Viennese school 460 00:49:21.520 --> 00:49:28.100 of economics is gone at 92 years of age. Now honoured by a diminishing band of followers, 461 00:49:28.100 --> 00:49:32.380 he has almost become a legend, on the one hand in the field of money and business cycle 462 00:49:32.380 --> 00:49:37.660 Theory, and on the other hand, and above all, in the world of economic and political 463 00:49:37.660 --> 00:49:39.140 theory. 464 00:49:39.140 --> 00:49:41.500 Translated from the German. 465 00:49:41.500 --> 00:49:45.620 William H. Peterson, Ludwig von Mises, in memoriam, The Wall Street Journal, October 466 00:49:45.620 --> 00:49:47.940 12, 1973. 467 00:49:47.940 --> 00:49:50.680 Mr. von Mises believed in choice. 468 00:49:50.680 --> 00:49:56.200 He believed that choosing among options determines all human decisions, and hence the entire 469 00:49:56.200 --> 00:49:58.360 sphere of human action. 470 00:49:58.360 --> 00:50:04.480 While man could destroy himself and civilization, he could also ascend in a free society, that 471 00:50:04.480 --> 00:50:11.220 is, a free economy to undreamed of cultural, intellectual and technological heights. 472 00:50:11.220 --> 00:50:14.760 In any event, thought would be decisive. 473 00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:19.560 Mr. von Mises believed in the free market of not only goods and services, but of ideas 474 00:50:19.560 --> 00:50:23.160 as well, in the potential of human intellect. 475 00:50:23.160 --> 00:50:29.640 He held that a free society and a free market are inseparable. He gloried in the potential 476 00:50:29.640 --> 00:50:37.520 of reason and man. In some, he stood for principle in the finest tradition of Western civilization. 477 00:50:37.520 --> 00:50:44.800 La Prensa, Buenos Aires. Ludwig von Mises murió en Nueva York. Ludwig von Mises died 478 00:50:44.800 --> 00:50:51.200 in New York, October 18th, 1973. Mises's life, his works and his conferences were all 479 00:50:51.200 --> 00:50:59.120 all dedicated to rounding out the thesis that men are not automatons. They act rationally, 480 00:50:59.120 --> 00:51:04.560 and the ideas that motivate them are the original cause of the course of history. His concepts 481 00:51:04.560 --> 00:51:09.160 make clear that government intervention leads inevitably not only to conflicts within a 482 00:51:09.160 --> 00:51:15.200 country, but also to international conflicts. 483 00:51:15.200 --> 00:51:21.360 Leonard Reed, Remarks at Memorial Service, October 16, 1973 484 00:51:21.360 --> 00:51:27.760 Ludwig Mises is truly, and I use this term in the present tense, a teacher. More than 485 00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:32.480 two generations have studied under him, and countless thousands of others have learned 486 00:51:32.480 --> 00:51:38.520 from his books. Books and students are the enduring monuments of a teacher, and these 487 00:51:38.520 --> 00:51:45.180 monuments are his. This generation of students will pass away, but the ideas set in motion 488 00:51:45.180 --> 00:51:51.020 by his writings will be a fountain source for new students for countless generations to come. 489 00:52:01.820 --> 00:52:06.140 Readers of Mises' majestic, formidable and uncompromising works 490 00:52:06.140 --> 00:52:10.940 must have often been surprised to meet him in person. Perhaps they had formed the image 491 00:52:10.940 --> 00:52:24.940 The image of Ludwig Mises is cold, severe, austere, the logical scholar repelled by lesser mortals, bitter at the follies around him and at the long trail of wrongs and insults that he had suffered. 492 00:52:24.940 --> 00:52:35.940 They couldn't have been more wrong, for what they met was a mind of genius blended harmoniously with a personality of great sweetness and benevolence. 493 00:52:35.940 --> 00:52:56.460 Not once has any of us heard a harsh or bitter word escape from Mises' lips. Unfailingly gentle and courteous, Ludwig Mises was always there to encourage even the slightest signs of productivity or intelligence in his friends and students, and always there as an inspiration and as a constant star. 494 00:52:56.460 --> 00:53:02.460 inserted by Philip M. Crane in Congressional Record, October 23, 1973. 495 00:53:02.460 --> 00:53:04.460 Murray Rothbard later added, 496 00:53:04.460 --> 00:53:08.460 When Mises died and I was preparing an obituary, 497 00:53:08.460 --> 00:53:15.460 Professor Reiko kindly sent me a deeply moving passage from Adonais, Shelley's great Eulogy to Keats, 498 00:53:15.460 --> 00:53:20.460 that as usual for Reiko struck just a right note in a final assessment of Mises. 499 00:53:20.460 --> 00:53:38.460 For such as he can lend, they borrow not glory from those who made to the world their prey and he is gathered to the kings of thought who waged contention with their time's decay and of the past are all that cannot pass away.