Chapter 10. Further Students of Menger and Other Supporters
With only a few exceptions, the old Austrian school was made up of members who had studied
under Carl Menger directly. Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk and Friedrich von Wiese received their habilitation
from Menger, although they had not studied under him. Hermann von Schulen zu Schadenhofen
studied under Boehm-Bawerk and received his habilitation from him. Having independently
After he arrived at an understanding of value theory and methodology similar to Menger's,
Emil Sachs was the only one already to have had teaching qualifications.
In his retirement application to the Ministry for Education in 1903, Menger listed all the
postdoctoral students he had supervised.
The only one missing was Gustav Gross.
Robert Meyer, 1855-1914, Habitación in 1884.
After studying law in Vienna and Berlin, the native Viennese pursued an exemplary career
as a civil servant in finance administration, where he reached the position of sektionschef,
that is head of directorate, the highest civil service rank within an Austrian ministry.
In 1910 he was made president of the Staatische Zentralkommission, Central Commission for
Statistics, and for a short time finance minister. After that he went into retirement. The year
Later he was again asked to be president of the Statische Zentrale Kommission and retained
this office until his death.
As an expert on finance, whose teaching qualification was extended in 1887 to include political
economy, Robert Mayer lectured at the University of Vienna and at other Viennese educational
institutions.
In his Habilitation Treatise, the subjectivist value theoretician justified progressive taxation,
which he as a senior civil servant and along with Boehm-Bawerk was actually able to implement
during the reform of direct personal taxation.
From 1911 onward he served as co-publisher of the journal Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft,
Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung, Journal of Economics, Social Policy and Administration.
He was a champion of full-blown statism on social and economic policy matters.
Gustav Gross, 1856-1935, Habilitation 1884
Originally from Reichenberg to the Liberec, Czech Republic, Gustav Gross was the son of
a railway director. After studying law in Vienna and Berlin and working at the governorship
of Lower Austria, he received his Habilitation with a thesis on economist Johann Heinrich
Ludwig von Thunen, 1783-1850, Gross, who published a treatise on business profits and
the first academic biography of Karl Marx, among other things, devoted himself primarily
in later years to social and taxation questions. From 1889 onward, he was a representative
of the Deutsche Fortschrittspartei, literally German Progressive Party. Gross, who considered
The State, which considered himself part of a tradition established by Albert Friedrich Eberhard Schäffle and Adolf Wagner, was not mentioned in the list of habilitation students Menger compiled when he became a professor emeritus.
In what he called the public sector, Gemeinwirtschaft, of the state economy, Gross saw laws at work that differed fundamentally from those in the private sector, and he supported Wagner's thesis concerning the steady expansion of the state's functions,
which were, in his view, limited only by the family in the long term.
What Richard S. Howey otherwise wrongly said of the less well-known Austrians, namely that
they hardly wrote anything or nothing at all about the theory of marginal utility, applies
to Grosz. Grosz taught as an unsalaried lecturer at the University of Vienna until 1897, and
finally as an untenured professor. He was elected the last president of the monarchy's
House of Representatives, when the war economy had fully expanded into central bureaucratic
planning to at the end of the First World War.
Eugen Filipowicz von Philipsberg, 1858-1917, Abeditation 1884.
The descendant of an Austro-Bosnian family of officers, Filipowicz grew up with only
one parent still living, graduated from the Theresianium Academy and studied law in Vienna.
After periods of study in Berlin and London, he received his habilitation for research
on the Bank of England. After a non-tenured and later a tenured professorship at the University
of Freiburg, Filipowicz, who was only 35 years old at the time, was offered a position in
Vienna. He was aligned to the historical ethical school on economic policy, having already
strongly oriented himself toward Menger's ideas on methodological and value theoretical
In 1896, as a member of the Viennese Fabian Society, a circle of those advocating ambitious
social policy aims, he became a co-founder of the Sozialpolitische Partei, socio-political
party. He served for one term as one of its four representatives in the Niederösterreichische
Landtag, the regional parliament of Lower Austria, of which the city of Vienna was a
In 1905, Filipowicz became president of the University of Vienna. In 1909, he became a
member of the Herrenhaus, the House of Lords of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Correspondingly
important was his role as promoter of the Austrian School, which he actively advanced
with his successful textbook Grundriss der politischen Ökonomie, 1893, Compendium of
Political Economy.
For many years he acted as chairman of the Gesellschaft der Österreichischen Volkswirte
and from 1904 to 1917 he was co-publisher of the Journal Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft,
Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung, Journal of Economics, Social Policy and Administration.
Victor Mataya, 1857-1934, Habilitation 1884. After a commercial apprenticeship and law
studies in Vienna, Mataya, who was working for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce at the time,
received the Habilitation for a thesis on ground rent and business profits. Among his
diverse publications, one work in particular stands out, his trailblazing Recht des Schadenersatzes
von Standpunkt der Nationalökonomie, 1889, Indemnity Rights from the Viewpoint of Economics,
which prepared the way for the modern economic analysis of law on the basis of the theory
of marginal utility. In 1890, Mataya became an untenured and two years later as Boehm-Bawerk's
successor a tenured professor at the University of Innsbruck. Later that same year, however,
He returned to Vienna to establish a department for trade statistics and labour statistics
in the Ministry for Trade.
In later years he was one of the first in the German-speaking world to deal with the
nature of advertising, and with Die Reklame, 1910-1926, advertising created the seminal
document of the modern science of advertising, to at the end of his life he published a textbook
for Economic Policy, Lehrbuch für Volkswirtschaftspolitik, 1931, Textbook of Economic Policy, which included
some of his own contributions.
Mattia was a bureaucrat through and through.
He was first a head of directorate, twice a minister of trade, 1909 and 1911, and finally
President of the Statische Zentrale Kommission from 1914 to 1917 and from 1919 to 1922.
By the end of the war, he had served in turn as Minister of Trade, Minister without Portfolio
and Minister for Social Welfare, the first in an industrialised European nation. His
statistical work made this versatile and original thinker a valued partner for representatives
of Employers and Employees, the Third Camp appreciated his German-Austrian Centralism.
Of all things, it was thus that the representative of the Austrian School created the core of
what would later become industrial relations.
Matthias' career enriched us with the remarkable insight that welfare and warfare can easily
derive from the same doctrine of the State.
Robert Zuckerkandl, 1856-1926, Habilitation 1886
The son of a Jewish family from Gyr, Raab, Hungary, Robert Zuckerkandl received his Habilitation
from Carl Menger after finishing his law degree. Prior to his accreditation as Hof- und Gerichtsadvokat
in Vienna, he published Zu Theorie des Preises, 1889, on The Theory of Price, his only monograph
A Hof- und Gerichtsadvokat is a trained lawyer who is admitted to the bar as well as legitimated
to act for his clients with the governmental authorities and the imperial court.
In 1894 he became Emil Sachs' successor as an untenured professor alongside Friedrich
von Mises at the Deutsche Universität Prag and received his tenured professorship in
1896.
In 1826, Zuckerkandl's teachings, his main work, and other published articles contributed
significantly to the dissemination of Austrian school ideas.
Johann von Komorzinski, 1843-1911, Habilitation 1890
At the age of 26, Johann von Komorzinski was reputedly only unable to accept an appointment
at the University of Vienna because of external circumstances. After working successfully
as a Hof- und Gerichtsadvokat for over 20 years. Komorzinski became the founder and
president of the Wiener Advokatenklub, Viennese Lawyers Club. He received his Habilitation
for a paper on value theory linking it to an earlier effort on the same subject. In
his later works, he resolutely opposed von Thunen's wage theory and Marx in particular,
The Nationale Ökonomische Lehre vom Gredit, 1903, The Doctrine of Credit in Political Economy,
which he published in the last decade of his life, was rejected by the Austrian School,
as it was incompatible with Wieser's imputation theory and Boehm-Bawerk's theory of interest.
Hermann von Schuhlern zu Schrattenhofen, 1861-1931, Habilitation 1889, 1892-1895
In 1889, after having practiced law, Hermann von Schuhlen zu Schadenhofen, a born Tyroles,
received the Venial Agendae to teach economics at Innsbruck.
A successful habilitation requires that the candidate be officially given the Venial Agendae,
Latin for permission for lecturing, or the EU's Dortgendi, right of teaching, a specific
academic subject at universities for a lifetime.
In 1892, this permission was carried over to the University of Vienna, where in 1895
it was extended to the teaching of all aspects of political economy.
He subsequently worked in the Statische Zentralkommission, Central Commission for Statistics in Vienna,
and in 1899 held professorships for economics at the Technische Hochschule, University of
Technology, the Hochschule für Bodenkultur, today University of Natural Resources and
and Life Sciences and from 1915 on at the University of Innsbruck.
From 1903 to 1905 he held the office of president at the Hochschule für Bodenkultur in Vienna
and from 1922 to 1925 that of president at the University of Innsbruck.
In later years Schullen zu Schattenhofen, who in his youth had still vehemently advocated
The Theory of Marginal Utility turned to agricultural policy and history. His easy-to-read economics
textbook Grundzüge der Volkswirtschaftslehre, 1911, Main Features of Economics, is founded
on the subjectivist theory of value.
Julius Landesberger, 1865-1920, Habilitation 1895
He completed his law studies at the University of Vienna in 1889 with a doctorate for which
Subaus Species Imperatoris
After being bestowed with the title von Antburg in 1906, he was appointed to the General Council
of the Anglo-Österreichische Bank, where he rose to the position of President. At the
German Juristentag, a convention of lawyers of 1902, borrowing the English word concern,
he coined the term Konzern, which in German is used to this day.
Eugen Peter Schwedland 1863-1936, hab. 1895
Schwedland came from a scholarly Protestant family in Budapest and studied law in Vienna.
After some years of having worked as a lawyer, he taught economics and economic policy at
the Technologisches Gewerbemuseum from 1890 on and eventually received his hab. from the
The University of Vienna, the Technologisches Gewerbemuseum, was a well-known school for
higher education, college, focused on the promotion of science and industry.
In 1902 he was made an untenured professor at the University and in 1904 a tenured professor
at the Technische Hochschule.
From 1908 to 1921 he functioned as a high-ranking advisor in the Ministry of Public Works and
in the General Commission for War Economy and Transition Economy.
In his easily readable textbooks, he described the subjectivist value theory as the psychological
foundation of the economy.
He kept his distance from Menger, both personally and intellectually.
After the First World War, Switzerland shifted to its romantic organic economics.
Siegmund Feidelborgen, 1858-1928, Habilitation 1895
The son of a Moravian rabbi family, Siegmund Feidelborgen completed his law degree in Vienna
and in the early 1890s made a name for himself with several works on Adam Smith, Jacques
Turgot and David Hume.
In 1895 he received his Habilitation from the University of Vienna and subsequently
Founded in 1898 in order to provide professional training to future businessmen, in the import
and export business in particular, it became today's Vienna University of Economics
and Business, the largest university focusing on business and economics in Europe in terms
of enrolment. Initially, Feilbogen also supported the Zionist movement.
A peculiar story ended his career abruptly. On April 9, 1908, Feilborgen, along with
his wife and sister-in-law, attended an Easter Mass celebrated by Pope Pius X in Rome. Witnesses
apparently observed Feilborgen disposing of the consecrated host in a handkerchief. This
incident became widely known. Feilborgen's assurances and avowals of respect for the
The Catholic Church fell on deaf ears in a Vienna turned noticeably anti-Semitic. He
was subsequently dismissed from his position as teacher at the Export Academy. Isolated
and virtually ostracised, he continued to teach to the smallest of audiences at the
University of Vienna.
Rudolf Sieghart, 1866, 1934, Habilitation 1900
A rabbi's son from Tropau, present-day Opava, Czech Republic, Rudolf Sieghart, with only
one parent living, had to pay to study law in Vienna himself. In 1895 he converted to
Catholicism, married the daughter of Karl Samuel Grünhut, 1844-1929, a professor for
of Trade Law at the University of Vienna and joined the Finance Ministry. With his treatise
on public gambling, the Öffentlichen Glücksspieler 1899, Sieghard earned his Habilitation and
subsequently went into politics. As the closest associate of Prime Minister Kerber 1850-1919,
he played a powerful and sometimes controversial role, particularly in regard to personnel
decisions concerning top-level positions in the bureaucracy.
In 1912 he became a member of the Herrenhaus and, as governor of the Bodenkreditanstalt
with its associated industrial concerns and newspapers, remained an influential leader
in the business world well on into the First Austrian Republic.
Richard Schiller, 1870-1972, Habilitation 1903
Carl Menger's favourite pupil and last post-doctoral student Richard Schiller came from a Jewish
with Schutzzoll und Freihandel, 1905, protective tariff and free trade, he had last received
his habilitation and was thus the first of the Austrian School to venture into the terrain
of foreign trade policy.
As an untenured professor he published two noteworthy contributions on workforce demand
and on the employment market.
After Menger's death he supported the publication of the second edition of The Principles with
a very personal foreword.
Schiller made his career in the Ministry of Trade.
and the Zeitschrift für Nationale Ökonomie, Journal of Economics. Nevertheless, he distanced
himself noticeably from the Austrian School. Schüller was forced to emigrate to the USA
in 1940, where he continued teaching until 1952.
Statisticians and Economists of Public Finance Menger routinely assisted with Habitierungen
in areas related to his field of expertise, as with the commercial law specialist Carl
Adler 1865-1924, Habilitation in 1893, The Public Finance Economist Gustav Seidler 1858-1933,
Habilitation in 1883, and The Statisticians and Public Finance Economists Isidor Singer 1857-1927,
Habilitation in 1885, Ernst Mischler 1857-1912, Habilitation 1885 in Prague, 1887 in Vienna,
and Injatz Goldberg, 1842-1919, Habitatsion in 1893. These practitioners and university
lecturers had no direct influence on the teaching body of the Austrian School, but they shaped
the intellectual milieu of the Austrian School inasmuch as they reinforced proximity to the
state bureaucracy. Since each of his postdoctoral students was required to spend some years in
actual administration, Menger himself had promoted institutional closeness between
Between Political Economy and State Bureaucracy
Students of Menger as Contributors to Professional Journals
In the 1880s and 1890s, Carl Menger also brought people into his seminar who had graduated and were already employed and interested in economics.
Many of them later played a part in disseminating the teachings of the Austrian School by publishing articles in professional journals.
One of the most outstanding of these students was the Hungarian-born Julius Friedrich Gans von Ludassey, 1858-1922, who, as editor of various papers, regularly reviewed economics books and himself wrote an impressive, methodological work of over 1,000 pages called Die wirtschaftliche Energie, 1893, The Economic Energy.
Noteworthy are his early criticisms of the mechanical image of homo economicus, and his conclusion that economics is the science of action.
Ludwig von Mises, without ever referring to Ludacie explicitly, would further develop this action-oriented approach five decades later.
Another professional editor from the milieu of Menger's circle was the native-born Czech Franz Kuhl 1862-1914, who, like Ludacie, is largely forgotten today.
The lawyer and Royal Imperial Government councillor in Vienna constructed one of the first mechanical
calculators and published an extensive work on needs in which he defined 29 categories
of needs, with altogether 73 further sub-categories.
In his biography of Menger, Friedrich A. von Hayek identified a further group of Menger
students.
Only the following, however, as publishers of professional journals are mentioned here,
Lloyd Stoop, 1865-1928, who from 1891 was the editor for economics at the Neue Freie
Presse, Richard Reich, 1866-1938, a finance lawyer with Habilitation, who in the first
Austrian Republic was the president of the Austrian National Bank, Markus Ettinger, attorney
for cartel, competition and economic administration law, and the first to predict the failure
of any centrally planned economy on grounds that only the market price is a reliable regulator.
Wilhelm Rosenberg, 1869-1923, lawyer and expert on banking and finance who was credited
with stabilizing the currency after the First World War, Hermann Schwarzwald, 1871-1939,
highest ranking civil servant in the Ministry of Finance and author of several articles
on Currency and Economic Policy, and Ernst Zeidler, 1862-1931, who applied the principle
of marginal utility to the sentencing of criminals in a ground-breaking paper. As professor for
public law, he tutored the heir to the throne, Carl, and in 1917 became minister and subsequently
prime minister, or rather the last chairman of the monarch's cabinet. Others mentioned
by Hayek either never published anything of significance, were no longer grounded in the
Austrian School, or were successful as scientists in other areas, such as Christian Richard
Thurnwald, 1869-1954, who devoted himself to ethnology permanently.