Biographies

“The theory of capital lacks a simple dimension for the measurement of its subject matter.

Claude Frederic Bastiat was a French economist, legislator, and writer who championed private property, free markets, and limited government. Perhaps the main underlying theme of Bastiat's writings was that the free market was inherently a source of "economic harmony" among individuals, as long as government was restricted to the function of protecting the lives, liberties, and property of citizens from theft or aggression. To Bastiat, governmental coercion was only legitimate if it served "to guarantee security of person, liberty, and property rights, to cause justice to reign over all."

The 1920s and 1930s were a glorious era in the history of the Austrian School of economics.

The Frederick L. Maier Lecture, recorded at Mises University 2007.

Birth: By the late 1940s, Mises was recognized in libertarian centers, but overnight in 1949 he became a central intellectual figure by his publication of Human Action.

Arriving in New York in 1940, Mises found many friends from Geneva there, but no income or assets at the age of 59. Mises began writing in English. During this time, Leonard Read created FEE – the Foundation for Economic Education- which later on turned into a forum for Austrian economics.

This work of six years of labor appeared in 1940. It was the predecessor to Human Action published nine years later. Epistemology and value theory were the two central problems.

Mises was in his prime from 1920-1934 while he was 39-53 years old. Three main areas in these years were certain people, his intellectual contributions, and other work.

Mises left Vienna for six years in Geneva, 1934 – 1940, to write his treatise and leave behind the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party. In Geneva, Mises held the Chair for International Relations.

Mises was not surprised by WWI, 1914-1920.  He was posted on the Northern Front of the Austro-Hungarian towns as a Lieutenant in an artillery unit.