17. Ludwig von Mises, The Logician of Freedom
There is a photo in his wife's published memoirs showing Ludwig von Mises taking a
stroll through the Parter in Vienna. The Wiener Parter is a large public park in the second
district of Vienna, referred to simply as the Parter by locals. It is August of 1901.
You see a slim, young man of medium height in imperial uniform. He is carrying an impressive
His lips, which are adorned by a small moustache, form a whimsical smile. Mises was just twenty
years old. Looking at later photos, one gets the impression that he found it increasingly
difficult to smile. His face displays a melancholy, introverted expression, something austere and
For a long time, maybe too long, he lived with his mother.
At the age of 57 and shortly after his mother died, he ventured into a late marriage with
his long-standing girlfriend Margit Serenny-Herzfeld, whom hardly anyone had known about for over
a decade.
They married in Geneva.
The witnesses were Gottfried von Habeler and Hans Kirzen, a former school associate who
could hardly believe he was seeing his friend at the office of the county clerk.
Margit von Mises, who had two children from her previous marriage, describes her Lou as
tender and modest and in need of love, withdrawn and dejected, but sometimes also as irascible
and quick-tempered.
She neglected her own professional ambitions, she was an actress, dancer and translator,
in order to look after her husband and enable him to work undisturbed and in comfort.
The household remained small and modest, but this did not infringe upon the couple's
affectionate ways. The scholar had found his muse and she hers. She let him work as much
as he wanted. They usually went on lecture trips together, spent their vacations in the
mountains and remained devoted to each other into old age. Only once did his wife have
Ludwig von Mises, whose great-great-grandfather had been knighted by Emperor von Josef, came
from a family of assimilated Jews. He was born in Nenberg, Galicia, in 1881. A few years
after his birth, his father took over a senior position in the railway ministry in Vienna.
At the age of 10, Ludwig witnessed the serious illness and death of one of his younger brothers.
His relationship with his brother Richard, who later became a famous mathematician, remained
strained all of his life. Ludwig attended the Akademische Gymnasium, studied law, and
after a short term as a project supervisor in the civil service in 1909, began his career
at the Viennese Chamber of Commerce. As an ordinary civil servant of the chamber administration
for the next 35 years, where he received a lifetime tenure, making it impossible for
him to be dismissed under Austrian civil service law. He effectively became one of the country's
leading economists. In his role of economic adviser, he came into regular contact with
government members. In late-night discussions in the winter of 1918-1919, for example, he
was able to convince Otto Bauer, the leader of the Social Democrats, to thwart a Bolshevist
Experiment in Vienna During this time he met and became friends
with Max Weber, 1844-1919, who had begun to teach at the University of Vienna after the
war but died unexpectedly soon afterward. Influenced by Carl Menger and Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk,
Ludwig von Mises devoted himself to the ideas of the Austrian School even as a young man.
In 1912 he achieved his habitation with his Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel,
The broadly reaching economic subjects we dealt with subsequently were mostly problems for which he considered the prevailing opinion false.
Mises did little to conceal the fact that he felt nothing but contempt for quite a few of his fellow economists.
His opinions, in particular those concerning German tenured professors, were severe and ruthless.
In 1927, along with fellow campaigner Friedrich Hayek, and with the support of his employer,
Mises succeeded in founding the independent Österreichisches Institut für Konjunkturforschung,
The precursor of today's Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, WIFO.
His private seminar, which he held every second week in the Viennese Chamber of Commerce,
and from which between 1921 and 1934, the next generation of the Austrian School, including
economists, lawyers and sociologists like Gottfried Habeler, Felix Kaufmann, Fritz
Lachlub, Oskar Morgenstern, Paul N. Rosenstein-Rodan, Alfred Schütz, Richard Striegel and Eric
Erich Vögelin would emerge, helped to re-establish the Austrian School after the First World War.
His students valued Mises as a thoughtful and inspiring teacher. They met regularly
after these fortnightly sessions in a nearby bar, where the discussions continued. Despite
being without a doubt an academic outsider, Mises regarded himself as the economist of
The Land
Mises accepted the offer of a guest professorship in Geneva in the spring of 1934, after the
Nazis had gained power in Germany. As a civil servant of the Viennese Chamber of Commerce,
he took advantage of an early retirement, but until 1938 remained in contact with his
employer under whose mandate he advised the Austrian government and Central Bank. On the
evening of the annexation, Nazis broke into his apartment and seized his library and papers.
His writings were a thorn in the side of all manner of collectivists, socialists, communists,
national socialists, fascists and later also the advocates of the so-called welfare economy
in Europe and the United States. He would see neither his library nor his notes and
manuscripts again.
While in Geneva, aside from teaching, Mises dedicated himself primarily to the completion
of his magnum opus, Nationale Economie, Theorie des Handelns und Wirtschaftens, 1940, as a
As a result of the confusion caused by war, and the bankruptcy of his Swiss publisher however,
it remained largely unnoticed.
In the same year, he fled with his wife via impossible routes from Geneva via France,
for the Nazi henchmen on their tails, to Spain, Portugal and finally to New York.
In the United States, Mises, now almost 60 years old, had to make do with his savings
and small scholarships.
But international, political events and, if nothing else, being forced to leave his home
country were particularly hard to deal with. The couple had to pick up and move several
times within a short period. The fact that he had learned English only by reading also
created some problems for him at first. He considered it good fortune to accept, with
gratitude, the US citizenship that was conferred upon him a few years later.
In 1945, he secured a post as visiting professor at New York University, where he until 1969
schooled further Austrians such as Murray N. Rothbard, 1926-1995, and Israel Kirzner,
born 1930.
Once in New York, Ludwig von Mises resumed the task of publishing his work.
Omnipotent Government, 1944, Bureaucracy, 1944, and Planned Chaos, 1947, appeared in
speedy succession. Human Action, a treatise on economics, 1949, the revised English edition
of his magnum opus, Nationale Economie, gradually brought him the success he had longed for.
In these, as also in earlier and later works, the anti-capitalistic mentality, 1956, and
Theory and History, 1957, for example, Mises always proved to be an astute observer and
thinker who remained true to his principles. He anticipated some developments as logically
foreseeable consequences long before they actually happened, for example, the world
depression at the end of the 1920s, the economic failure of fascism, national socialism, and
in particular, Soviet communism. Because of his radical liberal stance, he rejected state
Intervention in the Economic Process and wrote emphatically against statist claims throughout
his lifetime. He distanced himself explicitly, however, from anarchism. Nevertheless, the
effect of his ideas over time was that libertarian and anarcho-capitalist movements in the United
States would choose Ludwig von Mises, the tenured civil servant from Austria, to be
one of their intellectual forefathers. Mises' opponents, who were always in the majority,
Categorized him as obstinate, intolerant and extreme. His students emphasized the intellectual
openness and broad-mindedness which prevailed in his private seminar. He remained convinced
that his theses reflected truth and that his work was meaningful, even though it brought
him neither wealth nor academic glory during his lifetime. His work exhibits a rare clarity
and straightforwardness, independent of political circumstances and fashions of the time. He
He finally retired from teaching at the University at the age of 87. He died in New York a few
years later, 1973, at the age of 92. He claimed to have, quite atypically for an Austrian,
attempted the impossible. I fought because there was nothing else I could do. And throughout
his life he remained loyal to the motto he had chosen early on.
Tu ne sei de malis, said contra audienzior Ito. Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever
Never More Boldly Against It, from Virgil's Inuit.