19. Other Members of the Younger Austrian School
This chapter introduces other members of the Young Austrian School who achieved their habilitation.
The order is determined by the year of their respective degrees. In addition, further students,
whose work was published, are presented in summarised form. The account will concentrate
Richard Reich, 1866-1938 Reich studied law in Vienna and Innsbruck,
and after his PhD in 1889, went into finance administration. In 1910 he was promoted to
head of department, later he became director of the Bodenkreditanstalt and subsequently
in 1906 Reisch received his Habitatsion in finance law and until 1928 taught accounting
at the University of Vienna.
In addition, he was co-publisher of the compilation edition Wirtschaftstheorie der Gegenwart, Economic
Theory of the Present, 1927-1932, and of the Zeitschrift für Nationale Ökonomie, Journal
of Economics, 1930-1937. He himself published several articles on questions of payment transactions
and monetary policy.
Hans Mayer, 1879-1955 Born and raised in Vienna, Mayer received
his Ph.D. in law in 1907 and worked in the Austrian Finance Administration until 1911.
This included a year of study in Heidelberg. Mayer never achieved his habilitation. His
personnel file contains the following short memo.
Prior to completing habilitation at the university, due to unpublished manuscripts, theory of
of Price Formation, appointed untenured professor at the University of Freiburg.
After leaving Freiburg, he went to the Deutsche Technische Hochschule in Prague. When the
war was over, he worked as director of the financial planning section in the Austrian
Army administration in Vienna. In 1921 he took up a position as professor in Graz and
in 1923 he was appointed successor to Friedrich von Wieser in Vienna.
Mayer was constantly involved in trench warfare with his opponent, Ottmar Spann. His relationship
with Mises was also strained, despite a small number of academic contributions. Mayer hardly
wrote more than a handful of essays and some articles in the fourth edition of the Handwörter
Buch der Staatswissenschaften, Concise Dictionary of Political Sciences. He was made Dean of
Friedrich Wieser was an influential mentor and developed a kind of father-son relationship
with him.
After Wieser's death, Meyer moved into the house left to him by Wieser in Vienna's
He remained a loner who kept a notable distance between himself and most other members of
the Austrian School. By and large, judgments about Meyer are unfavorable and not free of
personal resentments. From the émigré's point of view, Meyer's career embodied the
dark side of the country they had been forced to leave, the favoritism, the cautious commitment,
Richard von Striegel 1891-1942 Richard von Striegel, who came from a bohemian
family to which the civil service was not unknown, obtained the doctorate of law in
Vienna in 1914.
In 1922, during the course of his professional work in ancillary institutions of the Arbeitskammer
– Chamber of Workers – he achieved his habilitation with a methodological paper that
appeared in an expanded edition as Die Ökonomischen Kategorien und die Organisation der Wirtschaft
– 1923. Apart from lecturing at the University of Vienna, he also taught at the Hochschule
für Welthandel – College for World Trade, today University of Economics and Business.
As a long-time participant in the Mises seminar, and as one of the few students of the Austrian
School who had achieved the habilitation, Striegel was held in high esteem in the post-war
years as a person and professionally.
He refined the Austrian Money and Business Cycle Theory and Kapital und Produktion 1934,
Capital and Production, which described how changes in the value of money inevitably lead
to false allocations.
Like all of his writings, his textbook Einführung in die Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie, 1937,
Introduction to the Basics of Economics, is characterized by its factual, clear and
intelligible style. Educated in the classics, cultivated and originating from a family with
liberal traditions, Striegel remained in the country after the annexation and died
of a brain tumor in 1942.
Franz Xaver Weiss, born 1885, year of death unknown
This native-born Viennese with Jewish roots completed a doctoral degree in law in his
hometown in 1909. After writing an article entitled Die moderne Tendenz in der Lehre
vom Geld wird, 1910, Modern Trends in the Teaching of the Value of Money, he started
working in the Wiener Kaufmannschaft, Viennese Merchants Society, and in his spare time worked
on Boehm-Bawerk's Theory of Interest. Weiss wrote some articles for the third edition
of the Handwerterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, Concise Dictionary of Political Sciences,
was editor of the Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft und Sozialpolitik, Journal of Economics and
Social Policy, from 1921 to 1925, and published shorter writings of Boehm-Bawerk, whom he
admired, 1924 and 1926. In his Habilitation, he renewed and expanded to the critique of
of David Ricardo, which led to his being offered an appointment at the Deutsche Technische
Hochschule in Prague. In addition, he lectured at the Deutsche Universität in Prague. In
the 1920s and 1930s, he published several papers about the theory of value, ground rent,
and the problem of value. Weiss disputed the view held by Mises that liberalism and the
subjectivist theory of value naturally belonged together. It is not possible to determine
Alexander Maher, 1896-1972
From Poppitz-Niertz-Neim, in today's Moravia, Maher graduated in Vienna with a PhD in German,
Scandinavian studies and history in 1921. He took an additional doctoral degree in political
Sciences, becoming a Dr. R. E. R. Paul in 1925. He subsequently received a scholarship
from the Rockefeller Foundation and was able to achieve his habilitation shortly after his
return in 1930. But as a student of Meyer, critical of Boehm-Bawerk, as Mises and Hayek
pointed out when looking at his earlier work on price, interest and monetary theory and
foreign exchange policy, Meyer remained an outsider. He was one of the few representatives
of the Austrian School, who participated neither in the Mises Privatseminar nor in the Geistkreis.
Ma remained in Austria after 1938 and worked in the Central Office for Statistics until he took over
Meyer's chair in 1950. At the end of the war, Ma attempted as a genuine advocate of the fundamental
ideas of the Austrian or Viennese School to come to a compromise with mathematical economics
and the Keynesian Paradigm
Oskar Morgenstern, 1902-1977 Originating from Görlitz in Saxony, Morgenstern
studied political science in Vienna, where he became Mayer's assistant when only a student.
He took his doctoral degree in 1925. After several years of studying abroad, he worked
with Hayek in the Österreichische Institut für Konjunkturforschung and two years later
became his successor. With Wirtschaftsprognose, eine Untersuchung ihrer Voraussetzungen und
Möglichkeiten, economic forecasting, a study of its prerequisites and possibilities, he
achieved the Habilitation in 1929 and lectured in Vienna up until 1938.
Morgenstern soon belonged to the inner circle of the Austrian School by virtue of his intellectual
National Brilliance and Remarkable Energy. As university lecturer, director of the Institut
für Konjunkturforschung, editor of the Zeitschrift für Nationale Ökonomie, Journal of Economics,
board member of the Nationalökonomische Gesellschaft, advisor to the Österreichische Nationalbank,
the Central Bank of Austria and the Ministry of Trade, participant at the Mises Privatseminar
and initiator and author of regular columns on economic policy, he was active in almost
every field.
Morgenstern distanced himself from Mises when Mises began, from 1933 onward, to advocate
a priorism openly.
His turn toward mathematics further deepened the rift that separated him from Mises, but
the situation never escalated, most likely due to Mises' hastened move to Geneva.
Morgenstern lost his teaching license and was removed from office as director of the
The Institute in the course of the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938. He subsequently emigrated
to the United States, settled at Princeton University, and along with the mathematician
John von Neumann, 1903-1957, published the ground-breaking Theory of Games and Economic
Behaviour, 1944. Morgenstern soon ranked among the American elite of social scientists and
worked for renowned think tanks, the Atomic Energy Commission and the White House. In
In helping to found the Institut für höhere Studien, Institute for Advanced Studies in
Vienna in 1963, and taking on a scientific advisory office, he remained tied to his country
of origin until his death.
Gottfried Haberler, 1900-1995 The descendant of a minor aristocratic family
of civil servants, von Haberler von Porkersdorf near Vienna, Haberler gained his doctorates
in Law and Political Science, 1923 and 1925 respectively, were after he worked in the
Chamber of Commerce. In 1927 and 1928, he graduated from post-doctoral studies in London
and Harvard respectively. He achieved his habitation with der Sinn der Indexzahlen,
1927, the meaning of index numbers, after his return. In addition to his lectures at
at the University of Vienna, some of which were held jointly with Hayek and Morgenstern.
He participated regularly in the Mises Privatseminar and gave guest lectures at Harvard University
1931-1932 from time to time. He quickly gained international recognition for his research
on international trade. In 1934, Habeler received an offer to write a broad compilation of all
current business cycle theories that was later included in his main work, Prosperity and
and Depression, 1937, in which subsequently brought him into contact with most of the world's
well-known economists. He accepted an appointment at Harvard shortly after its publication.
Haberler was politically undesirable. He was stripped of his teaching certification during
his absence immediately after the annexation. In the years that followed, he used his excellent
contacts and his organizational talent to help emigrants and exiles in many ways. Haberler
Hitler gained an excellent reputation in the United States, became advisor to the Board
of Governors of the American Central Banking System, and was later elected to a series
of honorary offices, such as President of the American Economic Association in 1963.
He maintained ties with the Austrian School until his death.
Hans Bayer, 1903-1965 Bayer, the son of a Viennese Hofrat, a title
The German Chancellor, after being granted to civil servants for long standing commendable
services, gained his doctorate in political science in 1924 and became Meyer's assistant.
In 1929 he obtained a doctorate in law at the University of Innsbruck and in the same
year achieved his habitation in Vienna with a paper concerning the Lausanne Schule und
die österreichische Schule der nationalen Ökonomie, Lausanne School and the Austrian
School of Economics.
Thereafter he worked as an attorney in the Niederösterreichische Gewerbeverein, Lower
Austrian Trade Association, a secretary general of the Hoteliersvereinigung, Hoteliers Association,
and from 1934 a secretary of the Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte, Chamber of Workers
and Employees.
In 1937 he became untenured professor in Innsbruck, but immediately after the annexation was given
compulsory leave and transferred to the ministry.
After the war, he returned to Innsbruck as a professor, and in 1956 became director of
the Sozialakademie of the Dortmund University of Technology.
The Sozialakademie is the institute at the Dortmund University of Technology whose work
consists in training labour representatives.
Baier began distancing himself from the research agenda of the Austrian School in the early
1930s, worked on questions of economic and labour policy, and came to terms with the
corporate state.
Although he continued to show sympathy for the Austrian School, he kept his distance
on matters of content and followed the Keynesian mainstream.
Further Authors of the Younger Austrian School If everything had gone according to plan Fritz
Machlub, Machlub-Wolf, 1902-1983, would have been positioned in the above list of scholars
with habilitationen, the son of a Jewish businessman grew up in Wiener Neustadt.
In addition to working in his parents' cardboard factory, he studied political science in Vienna
where he gained his doctoral degree under Mises with Die Goldkernwehrung 1925, the gold
bullion standard. He participated in the Mises Privatseminar regularly, and in addition to
his business activity wrote reviews, essays, books and more than 150 newspaper articles.
Being an entrepreneur and workaholic, he was also active in the Austrian cardboard cartel,
from 1929 to 1933 taught at the Volkshochschule Ottakring. The Volkshochschule was an adult
education centre primarily attended by blue-collar workers. Ottakring, Vienna's 16th district,
was dominated by blue-collar workers with a strong socialist bent.
Machloub originally wanted to gain his habilitation with Börsenkredit, Industriekredit und Kapitalbildung
Boehm, 1931, The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation, a sound analysis of stock
market finance from the point of view of Austrian monetary theory, but Prof. Spann and Degenfeld
Schoenburg informed him that his application would not be considered on account of his
Jewish origin. Also, Maier was not prepared to support one of Mises's students. Macheloup
left the country in 1933 and was offered a guest professorship at Harvard University
in 1934. One year later, he sold the shares of his factory in the lower Austrian Ibs Valley
and emigrated permanently to the United States. During the war, he stood by many persecuted
Austrians and assisted them in leaving the country or escaping. In the US, Machloub carried
on with his academic career at various universities. He focused in particular on international
currency problems and questions regarding competition and market forms, and laid the
and Foundations for an Economic Theory of Knowledge. In 1966 he was elected President
of the American Economic Association. Fritz Machlup was always described as an extraordinary
personality. His agility, intellectual clarity, esprit and great didactic abilities were an
inspiration. One American student, obviously impressed by this ball of energy from Wiener
Lohrstadt, composed a rhyme in his honor which included the line Mach 1, Mach 2, Mach 3,
Mach Lup.
Like Mach Lup, Paul Nazi's Rosenstein-Rodan, 1902-1985, also from a Jewish family in Krakow,
did not receive his habilitation due to reasons involving race and faculty policy.
Rosenstein-Rodan gained his doctorate in law in Vienna and became Meyer's assistant.
At the age of 25, he wrote the much-acclaimed article on the notion of marginal utility.
For the fourth edition of the Handwerter Buch der Staatswissenschaften, Concise Dictionary
of Political Sciences, it was followed by an equally prominent contribution on the role
of time.
He triggered an international debate by showing that the role of time was not, as a rule,
taken properly into account in the economic concept of equilibrium.
In 1931 Rosenstein Rodin received an appointment to teach at University College in London,
where after he distinguished himself as a highly esteemed expert on developing countries.
His last position was that of associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
MIT.
Ewald Schammes, 1889-1949, studied in Graz, under Schumpeter, and worked in Vienna as
Sektionsrat, one of the highest ranking civil servants in the Ministry for Education. In
addition, he taught as an unsalaried lecturer at the Technische Hochschule, University of
Technology in Vienna, and was a regular participant in the Mises Privatseminar. Shums, who according
to Hayek had a reticent, upright appearance reminiscent of an officer, was an outstanding
expert of the Lausanne School of Lyon-Valras. He was accomplished in mathematics and worked
on questions of methodology and epistemology in particular. After the annexation he remained
in the country and adapted to the Nazi regime. This was also the reason why, at the war's
end, he was not able to return to the Technische Hochschule until 1947.
After studying in Freiburg in Breisgau in Germany, Martha Stephanie Brown, 1898-1990,
She became, in 1921, one of the first women to gain a doctorate in political science at
the University of Vienna. She worked thereafter as a freelance business journalist. As a participant
in a Mises Privatseminar, she continually wrote reviews and articles on banking and monetary
economics and questions concerning economic policy. In 1929, she published her Theorie
der staatlichen Wirtschaftspolitik, Theory of State-run Economic Policy, the first German
and Language Attempt at a Theoretical Rationale and Definition of Economic Policy. After
the annexation, she emigrated to the United States, where she anglicized her name to Martha
Steffi Brown and held, as her last position, a professorship at Brooklyn College.
Erich Schief, 1901-1992, was born in Vienna and proved in Kapitalbildung und Kapitalaufzehrung
im Konjunkturverlauf, 1933, Formation and Depletion of Capital in the course of the
and the business cycle, that depreciation of money undermines a company's calculation
assumptions and therefore inevitably leads to malinvestment.
After holding a post at the Institut für Konjunkturforschung in 1927-1928, he worked
as a newspaper editor and attended the Mises Privatseminar regularly.
On account of his Jewish origins, he fled to the United States in 1938, where he continued
to work in economics.
Carl Schlesinger, 1889-1939, was one of the most outstanding personalities from the wider
Austrian school circle, but is almost forgotten as an economist today. He fled from the Hungarian
Soviet Republic to Vienna, pursued a career in banking, and ended up working as deputy
director of the Angro-österreichische Bank and as chairman of the Bankvereinigung banking
federation. Although he was close to the Lausanne School and showed an interest in mathematical
As an expert on banking and currencies, he published papers on questions regarding monetary
theory, currency policies, and banking business, and studied mathematics under Abraham Wald
from 1933 to 1934. His essay über die Produktionsgleichungen der ökonomischer Wirtlehre, 1934, on the production
equations of the economic value theory, was to become a significant foundation of neoclassical
Equilibrium Analysis, Carl Schlesinger Committed Suicide on the Day of the Annexation, Leo
Ily, Schoenfeld, 1888-1952, originally called Schoenfeld, was a regular participant in the
Mises Privatseminar. While working as an accountant and auditor after the First World War, he
published articles on economics as well as the monograph, Grenznutzen und Wirtschaftsrechnung,
1924, Marginal Utility and National Accounting, with which he tried to revive the abandoned
discussion on marginal utility. He remained in Austria after the annexation, gained a
teaching certification after the war at the Universität für Bodenkultur, another at
the Hochschule für Welthandel, College of World Trade, and finally a habilitation at
the University of Vienna under Hans Mayr. His textbook Das Gesetz des Grenznutzens,
The Theory of Marginal Utility, published in 1948, was an easily comprehensible and condensed
version of The Theory of Marginal Utility. About one-third of the regular attendees of
the Mises Privatseminar or the Geistkreis published only sporadically. Victor Bloch,
for example, with his mathematically-oriented contributions on The Theory of Money Markets
and Interests, and Gertrude Lawarcy and Ludwig Betterheim-Gabillon, who wrote studies on
and Economic History. Articles by Erich Wirglin, 1901, 1985, Alfred Schutz, 1899, 1955, and
Felix Kaufmann, 1895, 1949, each in their respective subject areas, became part of economics'
discourse in one way or another. Historians Friedrich Engel-Jarnosi, 1893, 1978, and Alexander
Gershon-Gron, 1904, 1978, were predominantly attracted by the interdisciplinary make-up
of the two circles and wrote nothing pertinent to economics.
The following were also participants of the above-mentioned circles and did not publish.
Marianne von Herzfeld, Rudolf von Klein, Walter Fröhlich, Ilse Minz Schüller, Rudolf Löbl,
Robert Welder, Emanuel Winternitz, Eli Offenheimer-Spirow and Adolf Redlich-Redley.