Such a case is deficient in two respects:

(1) It ignores the extensive and well developed examples of market liberalism that existed before Carl Menger, let alone Ludwig von Mises, were born. People like Menger and Mises may have been the paradigms of liberalism in the German speaking world, but the English and French speaking world was aware of and intensively developing these ideas a hundred years prior to “the Austrians” having written anything.

(2) You fail to demonstrate that Human Action was itself THE paradigm of liberalism. In fact, it wasn’t. Von Mises’ Liberalism is a much better written and much more pointed volume on these topics which, although written earlier than Human Action, wasn’t translated into English until much later. In fact, Human Action represents not so much the best of market Economics, or even the best of Austrian Economics, but is a cut and paste summary of many views that were ideosyncratic to von Mises, some of which are not entirely correct.

So, while I concur in your high opinion of Mises, I dissent from the particulars of your praise. As is not unusual for admirers of a worthy and in many respects a great man you have over estimated your idol’s originality and thus unintentionally diminished his true worth.

Further, comparing Mises with the Chicago School icons is not justified. The merits of Friedman and Stigler were that they were more or less “free market” oriented, were original and creative guys, AND THEY HAD THE POSITIONS AND CREDENTIALS to strike at the collectivist establishment from the inside. Mises didn’t. Never had, even in Austria. Mises was a very bright guy with wide INDIRECT influences, but he was basically an outsider to both European and U.S. academics. He was the social/political equivalent of a Greenspan in pre WWII Austria, not the sort of position that a Keynes or, later, a Friedman had in the Anglo/American world. In the U.S., Mises was viewed as a marginal crank by both academics and bureaucrats – despite the injustice of such views, those were the facts. Friedman’s Capitalism And Freedom and Theory of the Consumption Function had much more of an impact on American thinking than Mises writings as a whole have ever had.

BK – In hindsight it is easy to see the folly of Friedman and Stigler but in the context of 40+ years of extensive government intervention (or closer to 80 years if you start with the extensive state intervention around the time of the civil war) and very little if any publicity about the Austrian school of economics there was not much to build upon. In the context of the day the publication was quite radical. Moreover, most people including businessmen were then and are today quite ignorant of economic theory especially Austrian economic theory. Leonard Read founded FEE precisely because there was so little information and theory being published. I have always thought Friedman took more of a practical tactic in moving people toward a market orient economy and much less of a pure theoretical approach – witness the success of his book and tv program. I know many people who thought Friedman was correct and were highly skeptical of the pure Austrian approach. As the Austrian theory begins to spread around the globe – having been in this movement for over 40 years I am amazed that Austrians are popping up all over the world in business as well as academia. The irony is that a government initiated communications network – the internet – may it part be responsible for assisting this phenomena. – JS

JS, thanks for your thoughts. As I say in the article, my point wasn’t to focus on anyone’s injudiciousness, but rather to note the difference between market liberalism before Human Action and after.

I find it interesting that the non-economists in the proto-libertarian movement (Ayn Rand, Rose Wilder Lane, Frank Chodorov, and Leonard Read himself) were generally much more free-market radical than the American economists were.

BK