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NOTE 17. Ludwig von Mises: The Logician of Freedom

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17. Ludwig von Mises, The Logician of Freedom

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There is a photo in his wife's published memoirs showing Ludwig von Mises taking a

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stroll through the Parter in Vienna. The Wiener Parter is a large public park in the second

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district of Vienna, referred to simply as the Parter by locals. It is August of 1901.

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You see a slim, young man of medium height in imperial uniform. He is carrying an impressive

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His lips, which are adorned by a small moustache, form a whimsical smile. Mises was just twenty

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years old. Looking at later photos, one gets the impression that he found it increasingly

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difficult to smile. His face displays a melancholy, introverted expression, something austere and

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For a long time, maybe too long, he lived with his mother.

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At the age of 57 and shortly after his mother died, he ventured into a late marriage with

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his long-standing girlfriend Margit Serenny-Herzfeld, whom hardly anyone had known about for over

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a decade.

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They married in Geneva.

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The witnesses were Gottfried von Habeler and Hans Kirzen, a former school associate who

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could hardly believe he was seeing his friend at the office of the county clerk.

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Margit von Mises, who had two children from her previous marriage, describes her Lou as

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tender and modest and in need of love, withdrawn and dejected, but sometimes also as irascible

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and quick-tempered.

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She neglected her own professional ambitions, she was an actress, dancer and translator,

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in order to look after her husband and enable him to work undisturbed and in comfort.

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The household remained small and modest, but this did not infringe upon the couple's

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affectionate ways. The scholar had found his muse and she hers. She let him work as much

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as he wanted. They usually went on lecture trips together, spent their vacations in the

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mountains and remained devoted to each other into old age. Only once did his wife have

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Ludwig von Mises, whose great-great-grandfather had been knighted by Emperor von Josef, came

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from a family of assimilated Jews. He was born in Nenberg, Galicia, in 1881. A few years

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after his birth, his father took over a senior position in the railway ministry in Vienna.

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At the age of 10, Ludwig witnessed the serious illness and death of one of his younger brothers.

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His relationship with his brother Richard, who later became a famous mathematician, remained

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strained all of his life. Ludwig attended the Akademische Gymnasium, studied law, and

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after a short term as a project supervisor in the civil service in 1909, began his career

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at the Viennese Chamber of Commerce. As an ordinary civil servant of the chamber administration

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for the next 35 years, where he received a lifetime tenure, making it impossible for

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him to be dismissed under Austrian civil service law. He effectively became one of the country's

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leading economists. In his role of economic adviser, he came into regular contact with

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government members. In late-night discussions in the winter of 1918-1919, for example, he

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was able to convince Otto Bauer, the leader of the Social Democrats, to thwart a Bolshevist

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Experiment in Vienna During this time he met and became friends

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with Max Weber, 1844-1919, who had begun to teach at the University of Vienna after the

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war but died unexpectedly soon afterward. Influenced by Carl Menger and Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk,

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Ludwig von Mises devoted himself to the ideas of the Austrian School even as a young man.

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In 1912 he achieved his habitation with his Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel,

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The broadly reaching economic subjects we dealt with subsequently were mostly problems for which he considered the prevailing opinion false.

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Mises did little to conceal the fact that he felt nothing but contempt for quite a few of his fellow economists.

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His opinions, in particular those concerning German tenured professors, were severe and ruthless.

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In 1927, along with fellow campaigner Friedrich Hayek, and with the support of his employer,

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Mises succeeded in founding the independent Österreichisches Institut für Konjunkturforschung,

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The precursor of today's Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, WIFO.

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His private seminar, which he held every second week in the Viennese Chamber of Commerce,

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and from which between 1921 and 1934, the next generation of the Austrian School, including

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economists, lawyers and sociologists like Gottfried Habeler, Felix Kaufmann, Fritz

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Lachlub, Oskar Morgenstern, Paul N. Rosenstein-Rodan, Alfred Schütz, Richard Striegel and Eric

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Erich Vögelin would emerge, helped to re-establish the Austrian School after the First World War.

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His students valued Mises as a thoughtful and inspiring teacher. They met regularly

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after these fortnightly sessions in a nearby bar, where the discussions continued. Despite

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being without a doubt an academic outsider, Mises regarded himself as the economist of

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The Land

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Mises accepted the offer of a guest professorship in Geneva in the spring of 1934, after the

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Nazis had gained power in Germany. As a civil servant of the Viennese Chamber of Commerce,

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he took advantage of an early retirement, but until 1938 remained in contact with his

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employer under whose mandate he advised the Austrian government and Central Bank. On the

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evening of the annexation, Nazis broke into his apartment and seized his library and papers.

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His writings were a thorn in the side of all manner of collectivists, socialists, communists,

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national socialists, fascists and later also the advocates of the so-called welfare economy

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in Europe and the United States. He would see neither his library nor his notes and

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manuscripts again.

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While in Geneva, aside from teaching, Mises dedicated himself primarily to the completion

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of his magnum opus, Nationale Economie, Theorie des Handelns und Wirtschaftens, 1940, as a

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As a result of the confusion caused by war, and the bankruptcy of his Swiss publisher however,

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it remained largely unnoticed.

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In the same year, he fled with his wife via impossible routes from Geneva via France,

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for the Nazi henchmen on their tails, to Spain, Portugal and finally to New York.

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In the United States, Mises, now almost 60 years old, had to make do with his savings

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and small scholarships.

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But international, political events and, if nothing else, being forced to leave his home

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country were particularly hard to deal with. The couple had to pick up and move several

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times within a short period. The fact that he had learned English only by reading also

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created some problems for him at first. He considered it good fortune to accept, with

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gratitude, the US citizenship that was conferred upon him a few years later.

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In 1945, he secured a post as visiting professor at New York University, where he until 1969

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schooled further Austrians such as Murray N. Rothbard, 1926-1995, and Israel Kirzner,

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born 1930.

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Once in New York, Ludwig von Mises resumed the task of publishing his work.

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Omnipotent Government, 1944, Bureaucracy, 1944, and Planned Chaos, 1947, appeared in

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speedy succession. Human Action, a treatise on economics, 1949, the revised English edition

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of his magnum opus, Nationale Economie, gradually brought him the success he had longed for.

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In these, as also in earlier and later works, the anti-capitalistic mentality, 1956, and

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Theory and History, 1957, for example, Mises always proved to be an astute observer and

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thinker who remained true to his principles. He anticipated some developments as logically

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foreseeable consequences long before they actually happened, for example, the world

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depression at the end of the 1920s, the economic failure of fascism, national socialism, and

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in particular, Soviet communism. Because of his radical liberal stance, he rejected state

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Intervention in the Economic Process and wrote emphatically against statist claims throughout

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his lifetime. He distanced himself explicitly, however, from anarchism. Nevertheless, the

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effect of his ideas over time was that libertarian and anarcho-capitalist movements in the United

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States would choose Ludwig von Mises, the tenured civil servant from Austria, to be

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one of their intellectual forefathers. Mises' opponents, who were always in the majority,

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Categorized him as obstinate, intolerant and extreme. His students emphasized the intellectual

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openness and broad-mindedness which prevailed in his private seminar. He remained convinced

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that his theses reflected truth and that his work was meaningful, even though it brought

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him neither wealth nor academic glory during his lifetime. His work exhibits a rare clarity

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and straightforwardness, independent of political circumstances and fashions of the time. He

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He finally retired from teaching at the University at the age of 87. He died in New York a few

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years later, 1973, at the age of 92. He claimed to have, quite atypically for an Austrian,

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attempted the impossible. I fought because there was nothing else I could do. And throughout

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his life he remained loyal to the motto he had chosen early on.

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Tu ne sei de malis, said contra audienzior Ito. Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever

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Never More Boldly Against It, from Virgil's Inuit.