Carl Menger (1840-1921) was the founder of the Austrian School of economics. Principles, first published in 1871, is the book that provided a new basis for the understanding value, utility, money, and the market process.

Despite the many illustrious forerunners in its six-hundred year prehistory, Carl Menger (1840-1921) was the true and sole founder of the Austrian school of economics proper. He merits this title if for no other reason than that he created the system of value and price theory that constitutes the core of Austrian economic theory. But Menger did more than this: he also originated and consistently applied the correct, praxeological method for pursuing theoretical research in economics. Thus in its method and core theory, Austrian economics always was and will forever remain Mengerian economics.

Menger's position as the originator of the fundamental doctrines of Austrian economics has been recognized and hailed by all eminent authorities on the history of Austrian economics. In his eulogy of Menger written upon the latter's death in 1921, Joseph Schumpeter averred that "Menger is nobody's pupil and what he created stands . . . . Menger's theory of value, price, and distribution is the best we have up to now." Ludwig von Mises wrote that "What is known as the Austrian School of Economics started in 1871 when Carl Menger published a slender volume under the title Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre [Principles of Economics].... Until the end of the Seventies there was no `Austrian School.' There was only Carl Menger." For F. A. Hayek (1992, p. 62), the Austrian school's "fundamental ideas belong fully and wholly to Carl Menger. . . . [W]hat is common to the members of the Austrian school, what constitutes their peculiarity and provided the foundations for their later contributions, is their acceptance of the teaching of Carl Menger."

From Mises.org 

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