Israel M. Kirzner The Economic Calculation Debate: Lessons for Austrians Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Paper Capture Plug-in

Ludwig von Mises’s contributions to the development of the technical methods and apparatus of monetary theory continue to be neglected today, despite the fact that Mises succeeded exactly eight decades ago, while barely out of his twenties, in a task that still admittedly defies the best efforts of the most eminent of modern monetary theorists, viz., integrating monetary and value theory.

For roughly the first three quarters of the nineteenth century, the “liberal school” thoroughly dominated economic thinking and teaching in France.1 Adherents of the school were also to be found in the United States and Italy, and liberal doctrines exercised a profound influence on prominent German and British economists.

From The Review of Austrian Economics Vol. 6, No. 1, 1992.

Introduction to A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II by Murray N. Rothbard (Auburn: Mises Institute, 2002), pp. 7-44. Available as PDF document.

The original version of this paper was delivered at the Fourth Libertarian Scholars Conference, October 1976, New York City.

“What in a communistic society is done upon a decision of the supreme economic council is in our individualistic society brought about by the collective but independent action of the individuals and carried out by the price mechanism.”

“All things are subject to the law of cause and effect. This great principle knows no exception.”

Hans Sennholz (February 3, 1922 - 23 June 2007), professor at Grove City College, was one of a handful of men in intellectual history who were able to perform both of these functions with notable distinction. J. B. Say, Frederic Bastiat, Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Edwin Cannan, the early Lionel Robbins, Henry Hazlitt, William Hutt, Murray Rothbard and Mises himself—these were all men who were blessed with that exceedingly rare combination of abilities needed to conceive new economic truth and to effectively propagate it among the general public.

Published in the Cato Journal Vol. 19, No. 2, 1999.