My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

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Dear Colleague, -As you probably know, the Austrian universities customarily honor their doctors who made significant contributions to scientific progress or public life. Fifty years after their commencement they are honored through renewal of their doctorate. In your case the necessary qualifications for this honor are signally met, for you belong to those scholars who through their outstanding achievements have helped to enhance the prestige of Austrian scholarship, especially abroad. Your publications in the field of economic epistemology, monetary theory and policy have made your name universally known in international science. You furthermore will always be remembered for your successful activity with the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, which you served in a leading position for several decades. Therefore, the faculty of law and political science has instructed me to forward to you the renewal diploma of your doctorate with their best wishes for your personal well-being and for your future scientific work. The renewal of Lu's doctorate presented a fitting opportlinity for Lu's many friends to honor him, not only with a Festschrift titled On Freedom and Free Enterprise, edited by Mary Sennholz, with contributions from nineteen of his mo"st famous colleagues and friends, but also with a banquet, arranged by Leonard Read in the University Club. It was a grand evening in March, 1956, with remarkable speeches by Read, Machlup, and Hayek. Hayek had received advance information about the planned honoring of Lu by the University of Vienna and considered the party a good occasion to tell Lu and his guests. (See Appendix Two.) On June 8, 1957, Grove City College granted Lu an honorary doctor of law degree (L.O.D.) at its seventy-seventh commencement. The college, founded and sustained by Howard Pew, had arranged with the help of Mary and Hans Sennholz an exceptional celebration in honor of Lu, and w:e spent a few remarkable days in Grove City, surrounded by friends and well-wishers. In 1961, when Lu turned eighty, the Wall Street Journal honored him with an extraordinary editorial by William Henry Chamberlin: Austrian-born Ludwig von Mises, long a resident of the United States, received a variety of tributes marking his 80th birthday.... In these tributes there was something more than appreciation of a highly erudite economist and a teacher of remarkable brilliance and charm. For von Mises has been an evangel, a banner, a rallying point for all who believe in the superiority of the free market economy over state interventionism and collectivist planning.... . . . in an age when collectivism has pounded so many breaches in 163
the walls of economic principle, there is something inspiring in the spectacle of a man who, on the basis of an almost unsurpassed knowledge of economic history and theory, puts his foot down and says: "No. To quit the sure automatic judgment of the free market, the free play of prices against a background of sound currency, is to leave a sure road for a morass. For every problem that state interference with the free market may seem to solve two or three others, probably more serious, will come up." Here is the octogenarian economist, amazingly young and fresh in his attitude towards work and life, speaking for himself, in excerpts from his addresses and books: "The alternative is not plan or no plan. The question is: Whose plan? Should each member of society plan for himself or should a benevolent government alone plan for them all?" "Laissez-faire means let each individual choose how he individually wants to cooperate in the social division of labor. Let the consumer determine what the entrepreneurs should produce." "If control of production is shifted from the hands of the entrepreneursdaily reelected by a plebiscite of the consumers, into the hands of the supreme commander of the industrial armies (Marx and Engels) or in those of the 'armed workers' (Lenin), neither representative government nor individual rights can survive. Wall Street, against which the self-styled idealists are battling, is merely a symbol. But the walls of the Soviet prisons, within which all dissenters disappear forever, are a hard fact." Von Mises has been a very persuasive evangel of his cause, which would have been called liberalism in the Nineteenth Century and might be more clearly described as conservatism in the Twentieth. He is one -of the most influential members of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international association of economists, political scientists, historians and journalists set up in 1947 on principles emphasizing the integral nature of freedom, the inseparable connection between a free economy, a free society and a free way of life. Wilhelm Roepke, the noted German economist, now a resident of Switzerland, author of many books about the basis of a free economy and now president of the Mont Pelerin Society, said, in congratulating von Mises on his eightieth birthday: "I would like to stress, on this occasion, how immense is my debt to Ludwig von Mises for having rendered me immune, at a very early date, from the virus of socialism with which most of us came back from World War I." Austrian-born Professor Gottfried Haberler, of Harvard, describes the rare stimulation which he and other then-young scholars derived from the seminar which von Mises held in Vienna before the war. First there would be hours of serious discussion. Then the participants would adjourn to a well-known Italian restaurant. There would be a final session in a famous Vienna cafe, lasting until 1 A.M. And the next· day, fresh and fit, von Mises would appear at his office punctually at 9.... 164
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~T~ -with ~"chrig VO~~C~
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Copyright © 1976 by Margit von Mis
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THIS BOOK will hardly answer any qu
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~T~ Jritb ~"dwig voq,~ecJ
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I did not know my maternal grandfat
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mann was interested. He used to cal
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were Fritz Kortner (King Philip), w
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again with Moissi as a guest. But o
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CHAPTER II IT WAS in autumn 1925, w
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him with great affection, even thou
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did many good things. She was presi
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tried their best to get his attenti
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succeeded in laying the groundwork
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One day Lu told me he had been offe
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International Studies) in Geneva, S
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When the Germans marched into Vienn
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often beaten to death. Schuschnigg
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apartment was small, just large eno
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face almost emotionless. I wore a r
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crossword puzzle that one cannot so
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order into France to shop for their
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ight where you are." In this case,
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the top of Mount Saleve, the so-cal
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sation. Friends met at private hous
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where they took X rays and confirme
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other American universities. I trus
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today? We tried-and were sent back.
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house where I lived, when suddenly
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good friends from the institute in
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interest in getting Lu established
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versity of Buffalo, also came to se
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steady flow of visitors from out of
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Germany at the time of the installa
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a store for postcards and knick-kna
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CHAPTER VI ~o~ont~ bt~exico IN NEW
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was told, by the lack of silver nit
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time we were wrong. We arrived at 2
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uilt completely of stone. The dinin
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e~ghty men sitting at long tables.
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His manual dexterity was zero. But
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unimportant. More important was .th
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ian Paul Mantoux, was the most dist
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called, for dinner at the Plaza. Th
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States. We are today practically a
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impression Lu had on this trip was
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It was a touch of genius combined w
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especially tense while driving. As
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CHAPTER'VIII I SHOULD know Human Ac
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Davidson wrote to Lu: "Both George
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In regard to your request about von
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Human Action. We are delighted that
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graphs are transposed. On page 615
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Page 118 and 119: Doing military service in Vienna, A
Page 120 and 121: Lu without his books! Lu at the whe
Page 122 and 123: At the home of Sylvester Petro: Pro
Page 124 and 125: Fritz Machlup and Lu at the celebra
Page 126 and 127: Henry Hazlitt and Lu during one of
Page 128 and 129: My daughter, Gitta, myself, and Lu
Page 130 and 131: Fall 1964. PHOTO BY DAVID L. JARRET
Page 132 and 133: Our last picture together, December
Page 134 and 135: CHAPTER IX ~"~~O~ ~enJbutr Lv's SEM
Page 136 and 137: He himself was completely absorbed.
Page 138 and 139: Percy Greaves first came to the sem
Page 140 and 141: He was working with the Air Force o
Page 142: years, when the seminar was held at
Page 145 and 146: I finally had to ask the help of hi
Page 147 and 148: don't want you to talk to him," he
Page 149 and 150: published in.the Financial and Comm
Page 151 and 152: morning with the view of the Austri
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Page 155 and 156: ever mentioned, in dealing with the
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Page 159 and 160: Action, I read every other book of
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Page 167 and 168: How much this award reveals about t
Page 170 and 171: CHAPTER XI Our~a§t ~al78Toget4er O
Page 172 and 173: his vacation. But when he did, I wo
Page 174 and 175: paper last, and it gave Lu an oppor
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Page 180 and 181: he said to me: "The only goodthing
Page 182: of the National Federation of Indep
Page 185 and 186: Central-European currencies know ho
Page 188 and 189: Tribute to Ludwig von Mises byF. A.
Page 190 and 191: war and his being called up for act
Page 192: had occurred in Professor Mises' li
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