"A true masterpiece!" Bettina Bien Greaves

"This masterpiece on the life of Mises is a great achievement! Its contents and scope surpass all economic biographies." Jesus Huerta de Soto

Here is a magisterial book for today and the ages, one that inspires awe for both the subject and the author who accomplished the seemingly impossible: a sweeping intellectual biography, constructed from original sources, of the 20th century's most astonishing dissident intellectual. It has the apparatus of a great scholarly work but the drama of a classic novel.

Ludwig von Mises’s colleagues in Europe called him the “last knight of liberalism” because he was the champion of an ideal of liberty they consider dead and gone in an age of central planning and socialism of all varieties. During his lifetime, they were largely correct. And thus the subtitle of this book.

But he was not deterred in any respect: not in his scientific work, not in his writing or publishing, and not in his relentless fight against every form of statism. Born in 1881, he taught in Europe and the Americas during his century, and died in 1973 before the dawn of a new epoch that would validate his life and ideals in the minds of millions of people around the world. The last knight of liberalism triumphed.

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Hardcover: 1143 pages
Author: Jorg Guido Hulsmann
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute; 1st edition (September 4, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 193355018X
ISBN-13: 978-1933550183

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
PARTI YOUNG LUDWIG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. School Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Vienna. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Viennese Jews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Akademisches Gymnasium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Austria-Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Socialisms, Austrian Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Which Career?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3. Alma Mater Rudolphina. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
The Grünberg Seminar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Military Service and Death of His Father . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
In the Philippovich Seminar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Birth of an Economist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Years with a Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
PART II THE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4. Fin de siècle Economic Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Carl Menger—Pioneer of “Empirical Theory” . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Menger’s Work in the German Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Methodenstreit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
The Austrian School and the Gossen School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
The Breakthrough of the Austrian School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Friedrich von Wieser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Joseph A. Schumpeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
5. Early Professions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Difficult Start in Professional Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
The Parallel Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Kammer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Storm Clouds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Vienna Meeting of the Verein für Socialpolitik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Breakthrough at the Kammer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Theory of Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
6. Treatise on Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
The Nature of Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Integration of Value Theory and the Theory of Money . . . . . 223
Wieser’s Theory of Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Mises’s Theory of the Value of Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Money is Not Neutral: Cantillon Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Exchange Rate Determination: Purchasing
Power Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Fractional-Reserve Banking and Business Cycles . . . . . . . . . . 249
PART III OFFICER, GENTLEMAN, SCHOLAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
7. The Great War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
First Year in Battle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
The Home Front. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Back to the Front. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
New Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
A Last Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
8. Nation, State, and Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Migrations, Mixed Populations, and Modern Imperialism . . . 301
The Utilitarian Method of Social Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
The Fallacies of German Socialism in War and Peace . . . . . . 310
Political Economy of Language Communities. . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
9. 1919 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
New Battlefields. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Postwar Socialism and the Specter of Anarchy . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Pro-Government Emergencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Toward Sound Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Vienna Circles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
10. A Copernican Shift. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
The Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
The Intellectual Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Triumph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
The Incomplete Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
11. A Treatise on Socialism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Benefits Derived from the Means of Production
under Capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
The Utilitarian Case for Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Political Economy of the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Implications of the Calculation Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
Moral Hazard—The Other Nemesis of Socialism . . . . . . . . 422
The Feeble and Compromising John Stuart Mill . . . . . . . . . 424
The Law of Association. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
Monopoly Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Christian Ethics versus the Market?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Socialism = Destructionism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
PART IV MISES IN HIS PRIME. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
12. Winds of War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Hayek and the Bureau for Claims Settlements . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Fighting Inflation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Seminars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
Wieser’s Long Shadow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
The LSE Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Advent of the Gold-Exchange Standard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Hyperinflation, Currency Competition, and Monetary
Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Theory of Money and Credit Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
German Economists Return to Classical Liberalism . . . . . . . 508
Silver Linings on the Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
13. A System of Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
First Outline of a Theory of Interventionism . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
Critique of the “Anti-Marxists” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
Critique of the New Liberals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
The Transformation of Economic Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
Liberalismus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
14. Booms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
1926 Journeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Institute for Business Cycle Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Austrian Politics at the Onset of the Gold-Exchange
Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Free Trade, Monetary Stabilization, and Cyclical Policy . . . 581
The New Theoreticians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585
The Theory of Value Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
Toward a New Epistemology of the Social Sciences . . . . . . . 599
A Private Boom-Bust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606
15. Crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
The Causes of the Great Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
A Lieutenant in London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
Return to Foreign-Exchange Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
Second Edition of Socialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652
Dresden Meeting of the Verein für Sozialpolitik . . . . . . . . . . . 657
Economic Theory Completed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
Twilight in Vienna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674
PARTV MISES IN GENEVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
16. The Geneva Years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
Institut des Hautes études Internationales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Academic Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689
Alienation from Former Associates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698
Mises and the Neo-Liberals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708
Popular Fronts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Profound Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
The Walter Lippmann Colloquium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734
Plans for after the War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740
Escape from Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746
17. A Treatise on Economics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
The System in an Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 761
Anti-Psychologism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765
Capitalism and Liberalism are Rational . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767
Equilibrium, Profit and Loss, and Entrepreneurship . . . . . . 770
Consumer Sovereignty and Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 773
Business Cycle Theory Restated. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
Update of the Socialist-Calculation Debate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781
A Pure Cash Balance Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 785
PART VI MISES IN AMERICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787
18. émigré in New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 789
Arrival in New York. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790
National Bureau of Economic Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 798
Dark Hours and New Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800
Six Weeks in Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 812
The Austrian National Committee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 816
New Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 821
American Citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 832
19. Birth of a Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837
Libertarian Seedbeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839
The Long Visit at New York University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845
Leonard Read and the FEE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849
Frederick Nymeyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 853
Mises Debates American Libertarians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857
Planned Chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862
A Conference at Mont Pèlerin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 864
Preparing the Counter-Revolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872
A Neo-Liberal Coup in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 874
A New Yorker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 881
20. Human Action and Its Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 883
First Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 885
Misesians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893
Speeches and Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 897
The Freeman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901
The Nymeyer Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914
American Edition of Theory of Money and Credit . . . . . . . . . . 919
Grey Eminence and Itinerant Scholar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 923
New York Circles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 927
A Misesian Treatise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935
Sennholz at Grove City College. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942
21. The Epistemological Case for Capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 947
The Argument in a Nutshell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951
Science and the Culture of Salutary Dissent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 957
Heroic Elites in a Mass Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 963
The Study of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 971
The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 980
Christianity Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 982
22. Fragmentation of the Movement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 987
Conservative Movement and Libertarian Remnant. . . . . . . . 991
Demise of the Circle Bastiat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996
Against the Neo-Liberals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003
23. Last Years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013
Last Writings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1016
Last Skirmishes with the Anarchists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1023
Last Skirmishes with the Monetarists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1030
Last Honors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034

About the Author
Jorg Guido Hulsmann, professor of economics at the University of Paris (Angers), tells the full story of his dramatic and inspiring life and contributions – and in the course of it, provides not only a reconstruction of the history of the Austrian School of economics of which Mises was the leading expositor, and not only of the entire history of economic thought on the Continent and the United States, but also of the political and intellectual history of the 20th century.

Virtually everything in this book is new, a result of ten years of combing archives in five countries but of an unprecedented access to the voluminous Mises’s papers and to those of Mises’s colleagues, written by an author who himself is a master of the discipline and all the  languages involved (German, English, and French). And though the book is huge (1,200 pages) it reads like a great novel, with a fast pace and high drama.

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Working in the intellectual tradition of Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), with a vast array of publications, programs, and fellowships, the Mises Institute, with offices in Auburn, Alabama, seeks a radical shift in the intellectual climate as the foundation for a renewal of the free and prosperous commonwealth.

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