Update of the Socialist-Calculation Debate
Update of the Socialist-Calculation Debate
Mises did not believe that the argument in favor of socialist calculation had made any progress. But the new pro-socialist arguments provided an opportunity for further elaboration from his side. He distinguished four types of proposed solutions to the problem he had pointed out in 1920.
A Pure Cash Balance Approach
A Pure Cash Balance Approach
Nationalökonomie and Human Action completed the project Mises had started in 1912 with his treatise on money. In certain crucial respects, he decisively improved upon his earlier exposition of monetary theory. The author of Nationalökonomie is a better monetary theorist than the author of the Theory of Money and Credit. In his biographical recollections Mises is somewhat diffident on this point.
P ART VI M ISES IN A MERICA
Mises in America
18. Émigré in New York
Arrival in New York
Arrival in New York
On August 3, 1940 the ship docked in New York City. Mises had not been there since 1931 when he had attended a conference of the International Chamber of Commerce in the midst of the Great Depression. In that year, he had come as a distinguished representative. Now he arrived almost empty-handed. Fifty-eight years old, he had to start his life anew. The worst year of his life lay ahead.
National Bureau of Economic Research
National Bureau of Economic Research
The New School for Social Research had absorbed many social scientists from Central Europe, and even some of Mises’s associates such as Richard Schüller. Mises never received an offer. Hayek received one in August 1940, but declined out of loyalty to his colleagues at LSE.25
Dark Hours and New Plans
Dark Hours and New Plans
The money from the Rockefeller Foundation was not enough to live on, and in 1941 it was almost all the income they had. He had never known such destitution. His family had not been wealthy but they had always been comfortable, had always had help in the household. But now they could barely pay for a restaurant or for tickets to the theater or opera. Margit started training as a secretary.
Six Weeks in Mexico
Six Weeks in Mexico
The trip to Mexico (late January to March 1942) by far surpassed their expectations. They were treated with the highest respect—hotel reservations had been made at the local Ritz—and Mises found an audience prepared for and receptive to his message. He started lecturing on January 14 and finished his program by February 20.
The Austrian National Committee
The Austrian National Committee
Ludwig and Margit returned to New York in March. A letter from Machlup had arrived, informing them of another unsuccessful attempt to secure a suitable job for Mises, this time at Rochester. The chairman of the department had told Machlup that he “should be ashamed to approach so distinguished an economist as Professor Mises with the small salaries at our disposal.”61
New Friends
New Friends
The honorarium for the Mexican lectures supplemented their income and things looked far rosier in 1942 than they had in their first year in the new country. But the financial situation was still bleak, with no permanent source of income and Ludwig’s retirement fund frozen in Austria. On December 18, 1942 he reported on the activities of the year and applied for another extension of his research grant. He also tried to convince NBER to finance a large-scale research project to elucidate the origins of modern totalitarianism.
