Ludwig Heinrich von Mises (; ; September 29, 1881 – October 10, 1973) was an Austrian and American political economist and philosopher of the Austrian school. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the social contributions of classical liberalism and the central role of consumers in a market economy. He is best known for his work in praxeology, particularly for studies comparing communism and capitalism, as well as for being a defender of classical liberalismHayek, Friedrich A. "Introduction". In Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, by Ludwig von Mises. London: Jonathan Cape, 1936. in the face of rising illiberalism and authoritarianism throughout much of Europe during the 20th century.
Since the mid-20th century, both libertarian and classical liberal movements, as well as the field of economics as a whole, have been strongly influenced by Mises's writings.Cowen, Tyler. "Review of Human Action". Journal of Economic Literature 38, no. 4 (2000): 1127–1132. Economist Tyler Cowen lists his writings as "the most important works of the 20th century" and as "among the most important economics articles, ever". Entire schools of thought trace their origins to Mises's early work, including the development of anarcho-capitalist philosophy through Murray RothbardRothbard, Murray N. Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market. Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2004. See Rothbard's preface crediting Mises's foundational role. and the contemporary Austrian economics program led by scholars such as Peter Boettke at George Mason University.Boettke, Peter J. "Austrian School of Economics." In The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics, edited by Peter Boettke, Edward Elgar, 1994. Also see: Boettke, "Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School of Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1998.
Mises's most influential work, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (1949), laid out his comprehensive theory of praxeology—a deductive, a priori method for understanding human decision-making and economic behavior.Mises, Ludwig von. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. 3rd rev. ed. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1966. Rejecting empirical and mathematical modeling, Mises defended classical liberalism and market coordination as products of rational individual action. Beyond his published works, Mises shaped generations of economists through his longstanding private seminar in ViennaBeller, Steven (1989). Vienna and the Jews, 1867–1938: A Cultural History. Cambridge University Press. and later as a professor at New York University. His ideas deeply influenced students such as Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Israel Kirzner, all of whom helped inspire the rise of postwar libertarian institutions in the United States, including the Foundation for Economic Education and the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Mises received many honors throughout the course of his lifetime—honorary doctorates from Grove City College (1957), New York University (1963), and the University of Freiburg (1964) in Germany. His accomplishments were recognized in 1956 by his alma mater, the University of Vienna, when his doctorate was memorialized on its 50th anniversary and "renewed", a European tradition, and in 1962 by the Austrian government. He was also cited in 1969 as "Distinguished Fellow" by the American Economic Association.Greaves, Bettina Bien. "Preface to the Third Edition". In Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition, by Ludwig von Mises, 3rd ed., Liberty Fund, 1985.
Biography
Early life
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was born on September 29, 1881, into an Austrian-Jewish family in Lemberg, then the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and now part of Ukraine. A few months prior, his paternal great-grandfather Mayer Rachmiel Mises had been ennobled, receiving the honorific Edler (indicating a non-landed noble family) and the right to add the nobiliary particle von to his name; the Mises family had been involved in financing and constructing railroads. Mises's mother, Adele (), was a niece of Joachim Landau, a Liberal Party deputy to the Imperial Council of Austria. His father, Arthur von Mises (died 1903), was stationed in Lemberg as a construction engineer with the Czernowitz Railway Company. Mises had a younger brother, Richard, a mathematician,Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, "The Cultural Background of Ludwig von Mises", The Ludwig von Mises Institute, p. 1 probability theorist, and Vienna Circle member.
By the age of 12, Mises spoke fluent German, Polish, and French, read Latin, and could understand Ukrainian. From 1892 to 1900, he was educated at the Akademisches Gymnasium in Vienna. He then entered the University of Vienna to study law and the social sciences, initially in preparation for a career as a civil servant. There, Mises first encountered the works of Carl Menger, whose book Principles of Economics came to influence him significantly. In 1902, he published his doctoral thesis on the institutional and economic changes affecting the relations between landlords and peasants in Galicia from 1772 to the abolition of peasant serfdom in 1848, written under the guidance of the Austromarxist economist Carl Grünberg. In 1906, he was awarded his doctorate from the school of law. From 1913 to 1938, he was a professor at the university and mentored Friedrich Hayek.
Relationship with Poland and Galicia
Although Ludwig von Mises identified as Austrian, his upbringing in Lemberg (now Lviv), the capital of Austrian Galicia, deeply influenced his early intellectual development. The region was a cultural "melting pot" where the Polish landed gentry and intelligentsia held significant social influence. By the age of 12, Mises was fluent in Polish, which was the dominant language of the city's administration and high culture. Mises's first major scholarly work, published in 1902, was an economic history of the region titled The Development of the Relation between Lord and Peasant in Galicia (1772–1848) (Die Entwicklung des gutsherrlich-bäuerlichen Verhältnisses in Galizien). In it, he analyzed the transition from feudalism to a liberal land-tenure system, showing an early interest in the mechanics of legal and economic freedom.
Throughout his life, Mises expressed an affinity for the Polish tradition of "Golden Liberty." He viewed the historical Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as a precursor to modern classical liberalism due to its decentralized power and resistance to absolute monarchy. He specifically praised the Polish victory over the Bolsheviks in the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, characterizing it as a defense of Western civilization against Eastern despotism. Biographers have noted that the "freedom-loving spirit" of the Galician Polish nobility remained a permanent part of his character, even after his move to Vienna and later the United States.
Life in Europe
In the years from 1904 to 1914, Mises attended lectures given by Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk.Mises, Ludwig von, The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics, Arlington House, 1969, reprinted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1984, p. 10, Rothbard, Murray, The Essential Ludwig von Mises, 2nd printing, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1983, p. 30. He graduated in February 1906 (Juris Doctor) and started a career as a civil servant in Austria's financial administration.
After a few months, he left to take a trainee position in a Vienna law firm. During that time, Mises began lecturing on economics and in early 1909 joined the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, serving as economic advisor to the Austrian government until he left Austria in 1934.Rothbard, Murray, The Essential Ludwig von Mises, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1988, p. 25. During World War I, Mises served as a front officer in the Austro-Hungarian artillery and as an economic advisor to the War Department.Mises in Wartime, Mises Institute
Mises was chief economist for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and was an economic advisor of Engelbert Dollfuss, the austrofascist Austrian Chancellor. Later, Mises was economic advisor to Otto von Habsburg, the Christian democratic politician and claimant to the throne of Austria (which had been legally abolished in 1918 following the Great War).Mises, Margit von, My Years with Ludwig von Mises, Arlington House Publishers, 1976; 2nd enlarged ed., Cedar Falls, IA: Center for Futures Education, 1984. . In 1934, Mises left Austria for Geneva, Switzerland, where he was a professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies until 1940. Mises was invited to the Colloque Walter Lippmann, organized in Paris in 1938, and was a founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947.
While in Switzerland, Mises married Margit Herzfeld Serény, a former actress and widow of Ferdinand Serény. She was the mother of Gitta Sereny.Mises, Margit von. My Years with Ludwig von Mises. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House Publishers, 1976.
World War I During World War I, Ludwig von Mises was drafted by the Austrian government, despite being ideologically and morally opposed to the war. Like many who served in the front lines, he rarely spoke about his personal experiences, and even his Memoirs (1940) omits a detailed account of his time in the military. However, he briefly alluded to the harsh realities of war in his seminal work, Human Action (1949):Mises, Ludwig von (1966), Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, The Scholars edition. (Auburn, Alabama. Ludwig von Mises Institute), pp. 823.
In Memoirs (1940), the only thing he had to say about the war was how it affected his work:Mises, Ludwig von. (2009) Memoirs. Translated by Arlene Oost-Zinner. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, pp. 52.
The same chapter concludes with how he coped with his involuntary servitude fighting as the aggressor in a war he wanted nothing to do with, and includes a quote from Virgil that would go on to become the slogan of the Mises Institute in Alabama:Mises, Ludwig von. (2009) Memoirs. Translated by Arlene Oost-Zinner. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, pp. 55.
It was during this service that he observed the war economy of Austria-Hungary, which would serve as the basis for his essay Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (Die Wirtschaftsrechnung im sozialistischen Gemeinwesen), delivered first as a lecture to the Society for National Economy (Nationalökonomische Gesellschaft) in 1919 before being published in 1920.
Interwar period: founding the Austrian Institute and fleeing the Nazis In 1927 Ludwig von Mises alongside fellow economist Friedrich August von Hayek established the Austrian Institute for Business-Cycle Research. The institute was modeled after Ernst Wagemann's Berlin-based Institute for Business-Cycle Research. After the war, the institute was revived by Franz Nemschak as the Austrian Institute of Economic Research.
In 1934, Mises fled from Austria to Switzerland to escape the Nazis, and in 1940 he emigrated from Switzerland to the United States. On the day German forces entered Vienna during the Anschluss, they raided his apartment, confiscating his papers and library. These were believed to be lost or destroyed until rediscovered decades later in the Soviet archives in Moscow by Richard Ebeling and his wife Anna. At that time, Mises was living in Geneva, Switzerland. However, with the imminent Nazi occupation of France threatening to isolate Switzerland within Axis-controlled territory, he and his wife fled through France and reached the United States via Spain and Portugal.
Work in the United States