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NOTE 5. Carl Menger: Founder of the Austrian School

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5. Carl Menger, Founder of the Austrian School

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Far removed from the metropolis Vienna, in the small, nondescript Galician town of Neussundes,

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today Norvysandr, Poland, Carl Menger was born on Friday, February 28, 1840, the third

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of ten children. His mother, Kaolin, came from a wealthy merchant family that had purchased

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and the surrounding Monovia State. His father, Anton, was the descendant of a family that

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had once hailed from Bohemia and held the aristocratic title of Edler von Wolfengrün.

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Carl was raised in a strict Catholic family. This must have been constricting to him and

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his two brothers, Max, 1838-1911, and Anton, 1841-1906, who would also gain great prominence

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as a German Liberal Member of Parliament and as a socialist university teacher, to the

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extent that all three of them later distanced themselves from the Church in a drastic way,

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with Anton even becoming an avowed atheist. There is no proof that the Menger brothers

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were of Jewish descent, and in light of the above, it is extremely unlikely.

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The scant biographical records passed down indicate a childhood overshadowed by extensive

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of Misfortune and Suffering. Carl lost four siblings. In 1848 he lost his father as well.

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Durth and hardship were the consequences. The fatherless child grew up partly in Biawa

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and partly on his grandparents' remote country estate in the Dunajec River Valley, an area

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flooded today by the Jezioro Ciorcienskiy Reservoir. It was there that he acquired his

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Carl's firm knowledge of the Polish language, which he would later need as a journalist

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in Lemberg.

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After changing school several times, Carl graduated from high school in Krakow and in

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the fall of 1859 began studying law in Vienna, often in poor health and in difficult financial

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circumstances. He completed further studies in the more tranquil Prague. Traces of his

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as economics teachers during that time, Leopold Hasner von Ata and Peter Mischler, 1824-1864,

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can be found now and again in his first work, the Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre,

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1871, Principles of Economics. Fundamentally, however, there was a great distance between

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Menger and Mischler with his insistent and antiquated piety. Even as a student, Carl

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Carl Menger displayed a trait that would be often evident later on. He had an assertive,

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sometimes aggressive character, and was not readily prepared to back away from authority.

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Two vehement arguments with professors from his time in Prague are well known. In the

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course of his habilitación, he did not shy away from causing a veritable scene when challenging

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In 1867 Menger obtained his doctorate of law at the University of Krakow. During the time

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After some of his study, he earned his living as a journalist in Nuremberg, as co-founder

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of the Wiener Tagblatt, as an editorial journalist of the Wiener Zeitung and as the author of

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a serialized novel. After obtaining his doctorate, he worked for a short time in an attorney's

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office and then once again as a freelance journalist for various newspapers in Vienna.

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In September of 1867, he began the preliminary work on what would later be his principles.

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Until 1875 he was a contributor at the press office of the Ministerratspräsidium, Ministerial

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Council's chair. Menger succeeded in obtaining his Habitierung for Political Economy at

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the University of Vienna in June of 1872 after his principles were published. Just a year

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later he received a non-tenured professorship. He declined subsequent offers from Karlsruhe,

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Basel and Zurich. In 1876 he was appointed teacher of Crown Prince Rudolf, 1858-1889,

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and accompanied him in 1877 and 1878 on his travels across Europe.

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Menger imparted the Crown Prince, who was as highly gifted as he was erratic, with a

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liberal appreciation of economics and a great sensitivity for social problems. In 1878 he

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He assisted Rudolph in writing an anonymous publication wherein the Austrian aristocracy

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was reprehended for being passive politically and inept economically. Menger eventually

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gave up his own aristocratic title which he had used in 1867 for book signing. The reason

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for this was possibly not only civic pride but because of the impossibility of proving

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Finding the origin of the title unequivocally, as is often the case with Galician aristocratic

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titles.

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After attaining his full professorship in 1879, Menger began training young academics,

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thereby creating personnel resources for the future Austrian school. He assisted with a

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total of thirteen habilitationen and was involved in five further habilitationen in related

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subject areas. Menger was considered an excellent, conscientious and stimulating teacher who possessed

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the didactic talent to combine simplicity and clarity with philosophical depth. He sought

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to emphasise the practical relevancy of his lectures with the help of the latest numerical

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data. If students showed interest, he readily made his private library available to them,

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debated with them patiently, ever so often invited them to Sunday outings, and made efforts

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to introduce younger students to former members of his seminar. He maintained lifelong friendships

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with many of them, to which the almost complete collection of their books and special editions

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in his library testifies. On committee's menger was neither a leader nor a follower.

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It seems he was able to make an impression with his generally complex and analytically

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astute contributions, but was by no means always able to persuade. He remained just

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He focused as much in the minority with his suggestions regarding university reform as

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he did on the Inquiry Commission on Currency for the preparation of a currency reform,

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in which he, as one of thirty-seven experts, delivered a well-heeded statement. In 1903

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he found himself in a minority position again when he, as a member of the Inquiry Commission

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on Housing Tax, voiced his scepticism about the State and criticised social affairs. Perhaps

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Perhaps this was one of the reasons why Menger, who from 1900 on was a member of the Herrenhaus,

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did not take part in the debates there. The Herrenhaus is the House of Lords of the Austrian

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Parliament. In the 1890s, after the re-publication of

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his principles had been postponed yet again, Menger began once more to pursue extensive

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studies in adjacent subject areas. He devoted himself to biology, physiology, mathematics

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and Ethnology, which resulted in his adding about 1,100 books on ethnology, anthropology

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and various research expeditions to his library. As he unexpectedly took an early retirement,

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the aim of these endeavours, his plan to publish a work on sociology, was never achieved. A

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fateful turn had led to a considerable change in Menger's life. His affair with the Galician-born

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German feature writer Hermine Andermann, 1869-1924, twenty-nine years his junior, had produced

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an illegitimate son, the future mathematician Carl Menger, 1902-1985. Social conventions

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forced him to go into early retirement in 1903 and subsequently to withdraw to a great

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extent from public life. Menger, now well advanced in years, remained committed to his

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and Marriage.

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He lived with his family at Fuchsthaler Gasse 12 in the 9th Municipal District of Vienna

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until his death on February 26, 1921.

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He was surrounded by his books, which in the end constituted a library of 25,000 volumes.

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His own publications were now only sporadic.

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He kept in frequent touch with his students well into old age, as if they wished to demonstrate

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With the esprit de corps of the school with this true Viennese secret, which everyone

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in Vienna knew but did not talk about in public, his students adhered adamantly to the version

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of his taking voluntary retirement for the sake of further studies.