Chapter 23 – Last Years
Mises remained vigorous until about 1962. In the early 1960s he completed four major
writing projects and gave several public lectures per year. At his public appearances, the frailty
of his condition became increasingly obvious. More and more his feeble voice and his virtual
For deafness weighed against his legendary reputation, he had become a living icon of
liberty, yet a fading icon after all. In 1962 he still had a substantial number
of speaking engagements, addressing for example the remnant, a group associated with Edmund
Orpitz, a hundred and fifty student audience at the Nathaniel Brandon Institute, the Young
Americans for Freedom, YAF, at Madison Square Garden, the Coast Federal Savings and Loan
Association, the NYU Faculty Club, the American Management Association, and the Free Enterprise
Institute, in the same year on the night of May 16th. His voice was heard for the first
time no long while at Harvard University. As one might guess, it was not the university
who had invited him. He was not even physically present. The United States Steel Corporation
had sponsored a series of radio shows featuring a six-minute taped speech on economic subjects.
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.
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.
In these very last years only his most faithful friends and admirers, most notably Percy Graves
and Bettina Bean, continued to take part in his regular seminar sessions. They had become
used to the shortcomings of the presentation and still wrote diligent notes of each meeting.
Graves always sat right next to Mises to facilitate all communication between the old master and
his seminar. When a student asked a question, Graves would shout this question into Mises's
Receive the answer from the old man's feeble lips and then repeat Mises' words with his booming voice to the audience.
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.
Such newcomers often wondered why the seminar had such visible success with the regular participants.
Some had the impression of a prayer meeting, involving a bunch of fervent disciples around
an enigmatic guru, with Percy Graves as the high priest and Bettina Bean as the devoted
abbess of a Mises cult. Mises did not ignore his physical condition and true to his nature
prepared well in advance for the approaching end. He started skipping Montpellier society
meetings which usually took place in Europe. The last one Mises attended was in 1965 in
and Strasa, Italy. He saw his beloved Vienna for the last time in September 1964.
At the end of July 1964, he gave a talk at the Walter Eucken Institute in Freiburg. He
followed an invitation by Hayek. He then attended the Demolpillerer Society meeting in Zimmering
and also went to Vienna. There he visited the Institute for Business Cycle Research,
now Institute for Economic Research, which recognized him as its founder. He began selling
In October 1958, he parted with his collection of Econometrica, the complete sets, volumes
1 through 26, and in July 1965 cancelled his membership in the Royal Economic Society.
In other correspondence, Mises emphasized that he was a member of the Econometric Society
only to receive its periodical. Eventually, by the end of 1968, Percy Graves assisted
Mises preserved his health almost until the end of his long life. In February 1962 he
had to undergo surgery. In the spring of 1966, Mises must have suffered for a long time from
a viral infection. On July 3, 1966, Ludwig and Margit had a car accident. Margit later
Mises had to undergo surgery. At the end of October she was recovering well. In January
1968, Mises had at least one tooth pulled. In June 1969, he and Margit were sick most
of the month. He slowed down smoothly and was still around after many of his younger
American friends and associates had already gone. Neumeier died in 1967, Courtney in 1971,
Harper in April 1973.
Just when Mises was starting to feel really old and somehow left over, it was time to
congratulate Richard Schiller on the occasion of his 100th birthday. The last habitant of
Carl Menger was still around. During a 1971 summer vacation in Manchester, Vermont, Ludwig
fell ill with a serious infection. Even though he recovered physically, he had lost the ability
to Concentrate and was incapable of doing any work from then on. His wife recalled him
saying, The worst is that I still have so much to give to people, to the world, and
I can't put it together any more. It is tormenting. During the last two years of his life, Mises
was no longer himself and needed assistance and supervision. In this critical phase, to
In July 1973, Margit took Ludwig for a last trip to Europe, to a spa up in the mountains,
Last Writings
In the last phase of his life, Mises completed four major writing projects, The Ultimate Foundation
of Economic Science, 1962, The Second Edition of Human Action, 1963, a booklet on the historical
setting of the Austrian School of Economics, 1969. This work was first published in a Spanish
edition in Argentina in 1962. It was probably an outgrowth of the lecture he gave on May
2nd 1962 to the NYU Faculty Club on the Austrian School of Economics at the University of Vienna
and the 3rd edition of Human Action 1966. Apart from this, Mises produced a few articles.
The most important publication of this period, and in fact the only book-length work, was
The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science. The culmination of more than thirty years
of meditation on the epistemological problems of the social sciences, it deals with the
and the most difficult problems in this field, written, as were all of his works, in accessible
language and with a clear presentation. In many ways, it is one of Mises' finest books,
and clarifies important points that he had introduced in his previous work. The central
thesis is one, that there is such a thing as economic law that cannot be identified
with the methods of the natural sciences, and two, that the arguments of those who advocate
These methods in economics have no scientific foundation whatever, but are based on metaphysical
speculation.
In short, Mises's last book was an all-out frontal attack against positivism.
This attack concerned not only the verificationist positivism of the Vienna Circle, Schrick,
Canop, Funk and others, but also Karl Popper's falsificationist positivism.
Popper's theory made ample room for the use of deduction, whereas the Vienna Circle advocated
and its strict induction. He also claimed that only falsifiable statements can be scientific
while the Vienna Circle posited that all non-verifiable statements are simply nonsensical. Such differences
are certainly important in many respects, however, they are irrelevant as far as Mises'
critique is concerned, because it aims at the common ground of both versions of positivism.
He stressed in particular that the positivist precept, testing economic theories by confronting
to explain them with observed data is not itself derived from any empirical knowledge, rather
this precept is an a priori postulate that contradicts the most elementary empirical facts
known about human action, in particular that human beings make choices and that there are
no known laws that determine those choices. It follows that the observed data in the social
sciences have a completely different nature from the data used in the natural sciences.
The latter are elements in an exhortable chain of cause and effect. Every single one of them
can therefore be used to verify or refute the theories of physics, chemistry and so on.
Mises accepts Popper's theory in this regard. The positivistic principle of verifiability
as rectified by Popper is unassailable as an epistemological principle of the natural
sciences. But the observed data in the social sciences do not stand in such a universally
the present chain of cause and effect. More precisely, the only thing that is known about
them is that they are not part of such a chain. They are singular events and must therefore
be interpreted on a case-by-case basis. They cannot be used to derive any general laws.
They are not a benchmark for verifying or refuting economic theories. Observation-based testing
simply makes no sense in economics. Just as the Marxists claim to have knowledge
Mises goes to great lengths to bolster his thesis.
He shows that the existence of non-Euclidean geometry does not invalidate the case for
an a priori economic science. Similarly, he argues that the development of probability
theory cannot possibly be a device to avoid the case for determinism, and in discussing
the implications of the theory of evolution for a priori disciplines such as economics,
he comes to conclusions very different from those of his friend Roger and others. Mises
Mises stresses the hard fact that nothing is known about the future evolution of the
human mind. Therefore, the logical and praxeological structure of this mind must be considered
as if it were unchanging. For all practical purposes, it is an a priori for the social
sciences. In clarifying the logical nature of economic
science, Mises stressed that pure reasoning can give us empirical knowledge about the
Following in the wake of Kant's analysis, philosophers raised the question, how can
the human mind, by aprioristic thinking, deal with the reality of the external world?
As far as praxeology is concerned, the answer is obvious.
Both a priori thinking and reasoning on the one hand and human action on the other are
manifestations of the human mind. The logical structure of the human mind creates the reality
of action. Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.
In this sense we may apply to praxeology the dictum of Empedocles, knowledge of the same
through the same. Mises stressed that the questions whether the judgments of praxeology
are to be called analytic or synthetic, and whether or not its procedure is to be qualified
as merely tautological, are of verbal interest only. The point had been overlooked in traditional
epistemology because the philosophers dealt with thinking as if it were a separate field
cut off from other manifestations of human endeavour. They dealt with the problems of
Mises argued that because economic theorems were deducted from the praxeological a priori,
they provide knowledge of apodictic certainty. Every theorem of praxeology is deducted by
logical reasoning from the category of action. It partakes of the apodictic certainty provided
And he emphasized that even the most radical skepticism cannot affect this conclusion precisely
because acting and thinking stem from the same source and are in this sense homogenous.
There is nothing in the structure of action that the human mind cannot fully explain.
In this sense, praxeology supplies certain knowledge.
And yet, right on the next page of his book, he was quick to emphasize that praxeological
knowledge is but one ingredient of information necessary to succeed in the world. Future choices
cannot be determined in advance, and for this reason alone there is therefore an all-pervading
uncertainty in human affairs that the apodictic certainty of praxeology cannot alter or diminish.
Man is at the mercy of forces and powers beyond his control. He acts in order to avoid as
as much as possible what, as he thinks, will harm himself. But he can at best succeed only
with a narrow margin, and he can never know beforehand to what extent his acting will
attain the end sought, and, if it attains it, whether his action will in retrospect
appear to himself or to the other people looking upon it, as the best choice among those that
were open to him at the instant he embarked upon it. Most importantly, uncertainty also
Mises did not at all share the conceit displayed by positivists such as Bertrand Russell that
the natural sciences will ultimately penetrate all secrets of the world. In his view, human
science barely scratches the surface of things. Important though it may be, and Mises was
convinced that science was the most important tool for human progress, it is not an intellectual
panacea and does not make superfluous the virtues of humility and religion. Although
Although the progress of the natural sciences tends to enlarge the sphere of such scientifically
directed action, it will never cover more than a narrow margin of possible events. And
even within this margin there can never be absolute certainty. The result aimed at can
be thwarted by the invasion of forces not yet sufficiently known or beyond human control.
Technological engineering does not eliminate the aleatory element of human existence. It
It merely restricts its field a little. There always remains an orbit that to the limited
knowledge of man appears as an orbit of pure chance and marks life as a gamble. Man and
his works are always exposed to the impact of unforeseen and uncontrollable events. He
cannot help banking upon the good luck not to be hit by them. Even dull people cannot
fail to realize that their well-being ultimately depends on the operation of forces beyond
and Man's Wisdom, Knowledge, Prevision and Provision.
With regard to these forces all human planning is vain.
This is what religion has in mind when it refers to the unfathomable decrees of heaven
and turns to prayer.
Mises probably started working on the second edition of Human Action in early 1962.
Percy Graves provided assistance and had already made suggestions for changes in the fall of
1961.
While the two men worked together smoothly and productively, cooperation with the publisher
was far less successful.
For reasons that were never entirely clarified, Yale University Press butchered the book.
Mises's life achievement now featured many misprints, different shades of print, displacement
and omitted paragraphs and pages, and no more running heads.
He was more than a little angry and suspected political motives.
The present management of the press regrets for political reasons the fact that their
predecessors published my book.
They are especially angry about the great success of Human Action.
If they had any sense of propriety at all, they would openly tell the author that they
do not want any longer to publish his books, and that he is free to look for another publisher.
Eventually Yale University Press did show that sense of propriety, and Mises went on
Mises had probably first heard about Regnery through Nijmijer in 1953. This time things
worked out as planned and he enjoyed a beautiful new edition. With one exception, the new editions
did not feature any major changes or elaborations. Mises sent exhaustive lists of the changes
to Reg and Madrid, who sought to keep the Spanish translation up to date. The exception
One concerned the definition of freedom. This elaboration was prompted by the fact that
in the 1950s some of Mises' most brilliant students, most notably Murray Rothbard and
his Bastiat circle, had carried the case for the free market and against government interventionism
to what they felt was its logical conclusion, political anarchism.
Last Skirmishes with the Anarchists In 1949 Mises had defined freedom by stating
The concept of freedom and bondage makes sense only when referring to the way in which government
operates. As far as the government, the social apparatus of compulsion and oppression, confines
the exercise of its violence and the threat of such violence to the suppression and prevention
of antisocial action, there prevails what reasonably and meaningfully can be called
liberty. Such coercion does not substantially restrict man's power to choose, if, however,
the government does more than protect people against violent or fraudulent aggression on
This elaboration of his position did not dissuade the anarchists, and it is not difficult
In the above passage, Mises gives two definitions of freedom. According to the first, freedom
prevails if force is limited to the suppression of antisocial behaviour. Mises gives only
one example, robbery, to illustrate what he means by this term. If this was meant to imply
that the use of force is legitimate if it concerns the protection of property rights,
then Mises' definition of freedom was essentially compatible with the views of the anarchists,
His occasional remarks on the question show that he believed the case for anarchism would
only hold in a world inhabited by angels. A typical example from about the same period,
A shallow-minded school of social philosophers, the anarchists, chose to ignore the matter
by suggesting a stateless organisation of mankind. They simply passed over the fact
that men are not angels. They were too dull to realise that in the short run an individual
or a group of individuals can certainly further their own interests at the expense of their
own and all other people's long-run interests. But, as Rothbard's writings on the question
and show he was not that naive. Rothbard published Power and Market only in 1970, but the manuscript
of the book, which was originally conceived as a part of Man, Economy and State, was certainly
available for Mises in the early 1960s.
Mises's second definition of freedom was equally unlikely to steer the anarchists away
from their orientation, though for a different reason. According to this one, human action
is said to be subject to two distinct influences, praxeological law and government intervention.
The influence of the latter is presented as somehow adding to the influence of the former.
But this does not square well with what Mises said in the rest of his book about praxeological
laws. At all times, at all places, the impact that government intervention has on human
beings is mediated through the laws of human action. Praxeological laws are not forces
in the sense that human action, for example government action, is a force. Rather, they
are the relations that tie up any given force in a chain of causes and consequences.
In private correspondence with Bruno Leone, he regretted that anarchist ideas were supported
by some of the most intelligent men of the American rising generation, but he had ready
psychological explanation at hand. Anarchism was a reaction to the deification of the state.
He had come in touch with the burgeoning anarchist movement already in the years leading up to
the publication of Human Action, especially through his contacts with West Coast libertarians,
but also in correspondence with Rose Wilder Lane. His debates with these American radicals
had remained fruitless, but after some twenty years their extreme anti-statism had gained
momentum. The best proof was the existence of the Cirque de Bastia, involving Rothbard,
Rico and Lisio, Raymond Cyrus Hoyles, publisher of the Freedom newspaper chain, boasted of
this growing impact in a letter to Mises, the first correspondent in 13 years.
Answering Mises' contention that no rational man ever proposed that the production of security
be entrusted to private associations, Hoyles said,
I happen to know several people who so believe.
Robert Lefevre, the founder of the Freedom School, I believe, believes that the market
place is the best way to protect life and property.
In a subsequent letter of May 21st, Hoyles argued that the production of security in
a free market would be organized by insurance companies, thereby anticipating an important
argument in later analysis of this problem.
Mises replied in an Hobbesian manner, objecting that in the absence of a monopoly of the use
of coercive force, everybody would have continually to defend himself against hosts of aggressors.
He concluded, I think you err in assuming that your principles are those of the Declaration
of Independence. They are rather the principles that led a hundred years ago the Confederate
states to refuse to recognize the President elected by the majority. Wherever and whenever
Notice that in the 1860 election Lincoln received far less than a majority of the votes.
Now this point of view seems to be at odds with the principle of self-determination, at
least in the form in which Mises had championed it for many years.
Had Mises changed his mind?
He had discussed this issue in correspondence from the early 1950s with Salvador de Madriaga
in Oxford.
In one of his letters, Mises held that Ernest Renan had settled the question unambiguously
in his famous lecture on the nature of nations. Self-determination is the right of peoples
to decide their own fate. However, according to Renan, a nation could be just any voluntary
association of persons. What if a subgroup of an existing nation suddenly decided to
go its own way? Would this not be an instance of self-determination? Mises was, of course,
It is a fact that no ideology has been developed, which would have approved of the existence
of a state composed of people speaking different languages. In the absence of such doctrine,
There is no argument available against the ambitions of the majority of a territory's
population asking for independent statehood. There is only the recourse to the Ultima Ratio
Regum. Mises had criticised Madriaga in omnipotent government. Still, he had held the Spaniard
in great esteem until this correspondence led to their falling out. He said, in fact,
in the same letter, I think that I have never paid a higher tribute to the achievements
of any living author than I did in speaking of you on page 15 of my book.
And he concluded, to construct such an ideology of states, including various linguistic groups,
is one of the great tasks left to coming generations.
He probably owed the idea that nations result from the construction of ideologies to his
friend Louis Auger, who had argued that there are no objective or scientific criteria to
delimit nations from one another.
The true foundation of a nation is a specific political myth. But this conclusion begged
a question. Self-determination is relevant only if there are disagreements between individuals
and groups on ideological questions. How should secessionist movements be handled at a time
when no great overarching ideology exists? The only solution available for classical
liberals relied on the principle of self-determination. But when Mises applied this principle to
It is of no avail for the discussion of our problem whether or not we qualify Lincoln's
attitude as liberal. In denying to the Southerners the right to secede, the very right on which
the existence of the United States was morally founded, he certainly did not behave as a
liberal. But there was another problem in the case – slavery. One could argue the
The real issue is not self-determination but slavery. In fact, most of the contemporary
European liberals argued this way and sympathised with the Unionists.
The quote shows how uneasy Mises was at discussing this problem. He just could not reach a clear
conclusion. Ten years later he wrote, When every territory can, by majority vote, determine
whether it should form an independent state or a part of a larger state, there will no
The Liberals have always maintained that it does not matter for the people as a whole,
and for individual citizens, whether their own state sovereignty stretches over a larger
Mises ended their 1952-1953 correspondence rather abruptly, saying that the Madriagas
point of view was the most anti-liberal proposition I have ever heard.
He put an equally abrupt end to his 1962 correspondence with Hoyles, when the latter expressed his
Mises regret to see Mises advocate any form of socialism or any form of tyranny.
Two similar cases might be mentioned in which Mises did not pursue correspondence touching
on the necessity of coercion, and Mr. Kuhlmann, who favoured an increase in inheritance taxes
in order to decrease income taxes, reminded him, and remember you say taxes are necessary,
and Mrs. Powell Moffat complained about his endorsement of conscription in the second
Edition of Human Action. But this did not prevent his continued association with other
members of the anarchist camp. In January 1964 he taught a course on money at Robert
Lefevre's Freedom School. This was the same Lefevre who had praised Hoyer's succinct
statement of the case for anarchism. Mises even served on the advisory board of the Freedom
School and eventually also on the Council of Advisors for F. A. Baldry-Harper's Institute
for Humane Studies, IHS in California. Baldi Harper had founded IHS in 1963, after leaving
FEE, yet for some time worked for the Volcker Fund and then lectured at Wabash College.
A champion of formal manners, Mises was close enough to Harper to address him as Baldi.
In another letter he wrote that he could only stay for three days because he had to return
for his NYU seminar. He also mentioned that his health was not very good. He also continued
and his affiliation with Frank Chodorov's Intercollegiate Society of Individualists,
which he had supported from the very beginning in 1952. Moreover, he praised the new individualist
review that graduate student Ralph Reiko had established at the University of Chicago on
behalf of a local chapter of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists. He wrote for it
a review of Rothbard's Man, Economy and State, and seemed to rate it higher than the Freeman
or any other journal. He also praised the work in correspondence with one of the thinkers
Mises also followed Rothbard's subsequent writings and activities, often to his chagrin.
A 1968 letter that Furtick wrote to Mises probably conveys Mises's own feelings as
well.
Among the things which are really disturbing is the case of Murray Rothbard. I enclosed
the current issue of National Review. Now he's allied with the New Left. Imagine that!
Just a short while ago he was on the committee that favoured Castro and Cuba. It's sad to
see a brilliant mind like his go to pot that way.
Last skirmishes were the monetarists. Rothbard's apparent decline was not the main worry for
of the Aging Mises. He followed with great concern how the American monetary system, and
the global monetary system built on it, unraveled all through the 1960s. In the middle of the
decade, the alarm bells were ringing at the headquarters of the US monetary authorities.
Foreign central banks and individuals were following the lead of France in redeeming
dollars in gold. The United States government's stock of gold shrank on a daily basis and
at an Accelerating Rate. The new economists were quick to repeat their endless lamentation.
Not all of this was the consequence of the unfavourable balance of payments, and they
demanded measures against greedy businessmen driving up prices in the States. Some were
even calling for controls of foreign exchange. Philip Courtney wrote to Mises, inquiring
why he had not published anything on the present calamity. Mises replied that in his books
The Theory of Money and Credit
What a catastrophe if this happens to be a considerable part of the nation. The supporters
of this doctrine are inconsistent as they think that this calamity can only occur in
the mutual transactions of the inhabitants of sovereign nations and not also in the business
relations of the administrative subdivisions. There prevails in the world the opinion that
the inflationary policy of the American government will continue that sooner or later the gold
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.
This explains the drain upon the American government's gold holdings.
If our civilization will not in the next years or decades completely collapse, the gold standard will be restored.
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.
This must have come as a shock for Mises. In the fall of the same year, he met Machloupp
at the Mont-Balarin Society meeting in Strasa, only to witness him reiterating his new views.
He got very upset and told Margit not to talk to Machloupp any more. Here's Machloupp's
Philip Courtney made his customary plea for an immediate return to the gold standard with a substantial increase in the official price of gold.
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.
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,
The break in friendly relations lasted for several years.
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.
Another year later, Mises sensed a seismic shift in the quality of the developing crisis. He wrote,
What not so long ago could be called a monetary crisis is more and more, at least for the US,
developing into a most serious political crisis. The Federal Government, as well as the states
and the municipalities, have since 1960 wasted fabulous sums of money for more or less unnecessary
expenditures and are now facing tremendous deficits. There cannot be any question of a
serious monetary reform, because the ruling party, for many years probably leftists, thinks
Mises planned to take part in an April 1968 conference on international monetary problems,
Organised by the Graduate Institute of International Studies, the invitation came from Jacques Freymont,
who then headed the institute, but had been extended at the behest of Philip Courtney.
Mises was looking forward to the event, but then Courtney explained that the agenda and the
conclusions were already set, and that academic discussion was to be kept to a strict minimum.
For your guidance, we do not recommend putting an end to the IMF. Mises immediately declined
Participation.
Last Honours On October 20, 1962, Mises received the Austrian
Medal of Honour, Ian Seichen, at the Austrian Embassy in Washington.
He had the embassy invite Otto Kalier for the luncheon.
They also asked some of his other former students, probably those residing in Washington.
In June 1963, he obtained an honorary doctorate from NYU.
In 1964, an honorary doctorate in political science from University of Heiburg, Hayek
was there during those years. In March 1969, probably in anticipation of his retirement,
he was elected a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association. His election
may have been an attempt to influence the Nobel Committee, which in the fall of the
same year would grant the first Nobel Prize in Economics. The prize went instead to Ragnar
Marfrisch and Jan Tinbergen, economists who are all but forgotten today.
Mises would never receive the Nobel Prize, but one year after his death, Hayek won it
for his elaboration of the Misesian business cycle theory.
These official acknowledgments were gratifying, of course, but Mises did not pride himself
too much on this type of recognition.
Throughout his life, he remained dedicated more to his ideas than to the applause of
of His Contemporaries. Thus he must have been even more pleased with the continued success
of his books. Nymeyer had reprinted Planning for Freedom in 4000 copies by September 1965.
Jonathan Cape republished Socialism in 1969 and FEE ordered 1000 copies. At the same time
Yale University Press ceded its rights to bureaucracy, omnipotent government and theory
History and History, which were now republished by Arlington House. A young Arlington House
senior editor by the name of Llewelyn H. Rockwell Jr. was in charge of these projects.
He had been a subscriber to the Freeman as a high school student, and in 1968 had moved
to New York City, where he took part in FEE seminars and got in touch with George Roche.
Rockwell followed Roche in 1971 to Hillsdale College to run its ideological and publications
programs, which included a Mises Lecture Series, the newsletter Impromise, and Hillsdale College
Press, and a few years later joined the staff of Congressman Ron Paul, a serious student of Mises,
and a lifelong opponent of central banking. Rockwell only met Mises once, but he eagerly
absorbed and digested his ideas. In 1982, he would establish the now-famous Ludwig von Mises
Institute. A very different kind of recognition that he was happy to experience at the end of
of His Life was the virtual vindication of his theory of economic calculation by the
practitioners, the economists of the East Bloc. In the fall of 1967, a group of young
economists in communist-rule Czechoslovakia had started reviving the socialist calculation
debate of the 1920s and 1930s in light of post-war experiences with centrally planned
economies. One of them, Dr. Karl Kuba, entitled his study Plan and Market in Socialism. This
Mises was circulated for internal use of the Czechoslovak Academy of the Sciences. He studied
Mises's original paper from 1920 and Hayek's later modification of the argument, as well
as Oskar Lange's Scheme for Market Socialism, about which he wrote, Based on today's experiences,
one can say that this is a purely theoretical demonstration. A colleague of Kubis, Aldrich
Another Czechoslovakian economist, confided to Fritz Machlup, we have now learned that
Mises and Hayek were right, and that Oskar Lange was an idealist. A few months later
this intellectual rebellion ushered in the short-lived Prague Spring of 1968, almost
Most eight months of political and economic liberalisation crushed by Soviet tanks.
Most of all, Mises must have enjoyed the sort of recognition that comes from the concrete
actions of people he had inspired.
In April 1967, a man from Hollywood bound for the Vietnam War made FEE his life insurance
beneficiary.
In the event of my death, I would want this money, fifteen thousand dollars, to be used
and only to place copies of Human Action by Ludwig von Mises in any libraries which will
accept them.
On a lighter note, after a libertarian conference in Orange County, California with Mises among
the participants, local lefties carried around pictures of Marcuse, Mao and others at a May
Day demonstration on the UC Irvine campus. Mises' host wrote and asked Mises for photos
to use in an under attack.
And on his 90th birthday, the CBS television show Spectrum featured a birthday special
on Ludwig von Mises.
The speaker, Jeffrey St. John, called Mises the de Tocqueville of modern economics and
observed that he had explained long ago that Nixon-style price controls are economic dictatorship
and have in the past produced communism, Nazism and fascism.
On the same occasion, Harper's IHS had sponsored a two-volume festschrift, six copies of which
were sent to Mises at the end of October. He was touched and commented to Market,
The only good thing about being a non-agenarian is that you are able to read your obituaries
while you are still alive. However, there were a few magnificent obituaries that Mises
would not be able to read. The following obituaries were compiled by Petina Bean Graves
and Robert W. McGee in Mises' Annotated Bibliography. American Economic Review
In Memoriam, Ludwig von Mises, 1881, 1973, Volume 64, No. 3, June 1974. Drafted, but unsigned,
by Fritz Machlup. Mises was certainly not a popular economist, by his blunt criticism of popular views
and Policies, by his unrelenting attacks on inflationism, interventionism and socialism,
and by his uncompromising steadfastness in arguing the case for private enterprise and
free markets, he acquired as many intellectual enemies and detractors as any of the renowned
economists of the 20th century. At the same time, Mises was a beloved teacher and friend
of a host of students who came to appreciate the integrity and profundity of his teachings
in Courses and Seminars, but particularly in his private seminar.
Robert James Bidonado, Von Mises, The Final Salute, Unbound, Boston, Individuals for a
Rational Society 2, No. 1, September-October 1973.
Our age may well be labelled by future historians as the age of mediocrity.
Nothing is so characteristic of this century as the ever-shrinking stature of men, yet
But if these times are to be vindicated, it will be solely by the grace of a few lonely
giants who stood tall and strode far, guided down unexplored paths by unflinching courage
and unwavering vision.
On October 10th, 1973, one of those giants fell.
Dr. Ludwig von Mises is dead at the age of 92, and it is difficult to conceive of any
Any person in our time who has given the world so much, yet been rewarded so little in return.
John Chamberlain, Unsung Economist Who Was Profit, Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1973
Genuine innovators such as von Mises have to wait for death to gain their rightful recognition.
It is all very unfair, but the truth does eventually catch up with the showmen, relegating
With the death of Professor Ludwig von Mises yesterday, aged 92, the world's liberal
Liberal economists lose their most prolific pen and Austria loses the last lingering reminder
of the intellectual preeminence of Vienna at the turn of the century.
As an authoritative exponent of liberal economics, he has enjoyed a popularity never foreseen
in the Asian liberal economies of Japan, Hong Kong and Formosa, and respect never foreseen
in the communist countries for his exposition of the impossibility of calculation in a full
The Gentle, witty, but tenaciously logical teaching of von Mises in Europe and America
earned him a loyal army of auxiliary writers and pamphleteers.
Henry Hazlitt, Remarks at Mises' Memorial Service, October 16, 1973
His outstanding moral quality was moral courage, the ability to stand alone, and an almost
International Herald Tribute
Economist Ludwig von Mises Advanced Libertarian Theory, October 12, 1973
Mr von Mises was recognised as a brilliant contributor to economic thought not only by
his disciples but also by many who disagreed radically with his political and social philosophy.
Israel M. Kirzner, Tribute in National Review 25, No. 45, November 9, 1973
To those who knew him, Ludwig Mises was, in the face of shocking neglect by so many of
of his contemporaries, a living exemplar of incorruptible intellectual integrity, a model
of passionate, relentless scholarship and dedication, it will not be easy to forget
these stern lessons which he so courageously personified.
John McFaul's Investment Advisor, The Passing of Ludwig von Mises, Broadcast Memorial to
Ludwig von Mises, October 14-16, 1973, During Value Action Radio Programs.
Mises was a master of synthesis. He brought wholeness out of the fractured field of economics.
He was a scholar of great patience and integrity, who believed that the movement toward collectivism
and state intervention posed a grave threat to Western civilization.
Monatsblätter für freiheitliche Wirtschaftspolitik, der letzte Liberale, The Last Liberal, 11
November 1973, with the passing of the last liberal, a liberal of the old school who occasionally
said liberalism, that is what I am. The last survivor of the epic-making Viennese school
of economics is gone at 92 years of age. Now honoured by a diminishing band of followers,
he has almost become a legend, on the one hand in the field of money and business cycle
Theory, and on the other hand, and above all, in the world of economic and political
theory.
Translated from the German.
William H. Peterson, Ludwig von Mises, in memoriam, The Wall Street Journal, October
12, 1973.
Mr. von Mises believed in choice.
He believed that choosing among options determines all human decisions, and hence the entire
sphere of human action.
While man could destroy himself and civilization, he could also ascend in a free society, that
is, a free economy to undreamed of cultural, intellectual and technological heights.
In any event, thought would be decisive.
Mr. von Mises believed in the free market of not only goods and services, but of ideas
as well, in the potential of human intellect.
He held that a free society and a free market are inseparable. He gloried in the potential
of reason and man. In some, he stood for principle in the finest tradition of Western civilization.
La Prensa, Buenos Aires. Ludwig von Mises murió en Nueva York. Ludwig von Mises died
in New York, October 18th, 1973. Mises's life, his works and his conferences were all
all dedicated to rounding out the thesis that men are not automatons. They act rationally,
and the ideas that motivate them are the original cause of the course of history. His concepts
make clear that government intervention leads inevitably not only to conflicts within a
country, but also to international conflicts.
Leonard Reed, Remarks at Memorial Service, October 16, 1973
Ludwig Mises is truly, and I use this term in the present tense, a teacher. More than
two generations have studied under him, and countless thousands of others have learned
from his books. Books and students are the enduring monuments of a teacher, and these
monuments are his. This generation of students will pass away, but the ideas set in motion
by his writings will be a fountain source for new students for countless generations to come.
Readers of Mises' majestic, formidable and uncompromising works
must have often been surprised to meet him in person. Perhaps they had formed the image
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.
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.
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.
inserted by Philip M. Crane in Congressional Record, October 23, 1973.
Murray Rothbard later added,
When Mises died and I was preparing an obituary,
Professor Reiko kindly sent me a deeply moving passage from Adonais, Shelley's great Eulogy to Keats,
that as usual for Reiko struck just a right note in a final assessment of Mises.
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.