The Last Knight of Liberalism
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART I YOUNG LUDWIG
1. Roots
2. School Years
Vienna
Viennese Jews
Akademisches Gymnasium
Austria-Hungary
Socialisms, Austrian Style
Which Career?
3. Alma Mater Rudolphina
The Grünberg Seminar
Military Service and Death of His Father
In the Philippovich Seminar
Birth of an Economist
Years with a Master
PART II THE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL
4. Fin de siècle Economic Science
Carl Menger—Pioneer of “Empirical Theory”
Menger’s Work in the German Context
Methodenstreit
The Austrian School and the Gossen School
The Breakthrough of the Austrian School
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Friedrich von Wieser
Joseph A. Schumpeter
5. Early Professions
Difficult Start in Professional Life
The Parallel Life
Kammer
Storm Clouds
Vienna Meeting of the Verein für Socialpolitik
Breakthrough at the Kammer
Theory of Money
6. Treatise on Money
The Nature of Money
Integration of Value Theory and the Theory of Money
Wieser’s Theory of Money
Mises’s Theory of the Value of Money
Money is Not Neutral: Cantillon Effects
Exchange Rate Determination: Purchasing Power Theory
Fractional-Reserve Banking and Business Cycles
PART III OFFICER, GENTLEMAN, SCHOLAR
7. The Great War
First Year in Battle
The Home Front
Back to the Front
New Life
A Last Mission
8. Nation, State, and Economy
Migrations, Mixed Populations, and Modern Imperialism
The Utilitarian Method of Social Analysis
The Fallacies of German Socialism in War and Peace
Political Economy of Language Communities
9. 1919
New Battlefields
Postwar Socialism and the Specter of Anarchy
Pro-Government Emergencies
Toward Sound Money
Vienna Circles
10. A Copernican Shift
The Argument
The Intellectual Context
Triumph
The Incomplete Revolution
11. A Treatise on Socialism
Benefits Derived from the Means of Production under Capitalism
The Utilitarian Case for Democracy
Political Economy of the Family
Implications of the Calculation Problem
Moral Hazard—The Other Nemesis of Socialism
The Feeble and Compromising John Stuart Mill
The Law of Association
Monopoly Theory
Christian Ethics versus the Market?
Socialism = Destructionism
PART IV MISES IN HIS PRIME
12. Winds of War
Hayek and the Bureau for Claims Settlements
Fighting Inflation
Seminars
Wieser’s Long Shadow
The LSE Connection
Advent of the Gold-Exchange Standard
Hyperinflation, Currency Competition, and Monetary Reform
Theory of Money and Credit Reconsidered
German Economists Return to Classical Liberalism
Silver Linings on the Horizon
13. A System of Political Philosophy
First Outline of a Theory of Interventionism
Critique of the “Anti-Marxists”
Critique of the New Liberals
The Transformation of Economic Science
Liberalismus
14. Booms
1926 Journeys
Institute for Business Cycle Research
Austrian Politics at the Onset of the Gold-Exchange Standard
Free Trade, Monetary Stabilization, and Cyclical Policy
The New Theoreticians
The Theory of Value Reconsidered
Toward a New Epistemology of the Social Sciences
A Private Boom-Bust
15. Crises
The Causes of the Great Depression
A Lieutenant in London
Return to Foreign-Exchange Controls
Second Edition of Socialism
Dresden Meeting of the Verein fiir Sozialpolitik
Economic Theory Completed
Twilight in Vienna
PART V MISES IN GENEVA
16. The Geneva Years
Institut des Hautes Études Internationales
Academic Life
Alienation from Former Associates
Mises and the Neo-Liberals
Popular Fronts
Profound Transformations
The Walter Lippmann Colloquium
Plans for after the War
Escape from Europe
17. A Treatise on Economics
The System in an Overview
Anti-Psychologism
Capitalism and Liberalism are Rational
Equilibrium, Profit and Loss, and Entrepreneurship
Consumer Sovereignty and Interest
Business Cycle Theory Restated
Update of the Socialist-Calculation Debate
A Pure Cash Balance Approach
PART VI MISES IN AMERICA
18. Émigré in New York
Arrival in New York
National Bureau of Economic Research
Dark Hours and New Plans
Six Weeks in Mexico
The Austrian National Committee
New Friends
American Citizen
19. Birth of a Movement
Libertarian Seedbeds
The Long Visit at New York University
Leonard Read and the FEE
Frederick Nymeyer
Mises Debates American Libertarians
Planned Chaos
A Conference at Mont Pèlerin
Preparing the Counter-Revolution
A Neo-Liberal Coup in Germany
A New Yorker
20. Human Action and Its Consequences
First Reactions
Misesians
Speeches and Papers
The Freeman
The Nymeyer Connection
American Edition of Theory of Money and Credit
Grey Eminence and Itinerant Scholar
New York Circles
A Misesian Treatise
Sennholz at Grove City College
21. The Epistemological Case for Capitalism
The Argument in a Nutshell
Science and the Culture of Salutary Dissent
Heroic Elites in a Mass Democracy
The Study of History
The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality
Christianity Reconsidered
22. Fragmentation of the Movement
Conservative Movement and Libertarian Remnant
Demise of the Circle Bastiat
Against the Neo-Liberals
23. Last Years
Last Writings
Last Skirmishes with the Anarchists
Last Skirmishes with the Monetarists
Last Honors
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Subjects
