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

strong a Illedicine and too bitter a pill. But to arouse contradiction, to
force others to think out for themselves the ideas which have led him, is
the main function of the innovator. And though we might try to resist,
even strive hard to get the disquieting considerations out of our system,
we did not succeed. The logic of the argument was inexorable.
It was not easy. Professor M~ses' teaching seemed directed against all
we had been brought up to believe. It was a time when all the fashionable
intellectual arguments seemed to point to socialism and when nearly all
"good men" among the intellectuals were socialists. Though the immediate
influence of the book may not have been as great as one might have
wished, it is in some ways surprising that it had as great an influence as it
did. Because for the young idealist of the time it meant the dashing of all
his hopes; and since it was clear that the world was bent on the cause
whose destructive nature the work pointed out, it left us little but black
despair. And to those of us who knew Professor Mises personally, it
became, of course, soon clear that his own view about the future of
Europe and the world was one of' deep pessimism. How justified a pessimism
we were soon to learn.
Young people do not readily take to an argument which makes a pessimistic
view of the future inevitable. But when the force of Professor
Mises' logic did not suffice, another factor soon reinforced it-Professor
Mises' exasperating tendency of proving to h~ve been right. Perhaps the
dire consequences of the stupidity which he chastised did not always
manifest themselves as soon as he predicted. But come they inevitably
did, sooner or later.
Let me here insert a paragraph which is not in my manuscript. I cannot
help smiling when I hear Professor Mises described as a conservative..
Indeed, in this country and at this time, his views may appeal to people of
conservative minds. But when he began advocating them, there was no
conservative group which he could support. There couldn't have been
anything more revolutionary, more radical, than his appeal for reliance.
on freedom. To me Professor Mises is and remains above all, a great
radical, an intelligent and rational radical but, nonetheless, a radical on
the right lines.
I have spoken about Socialism at length because for our generation it
must remain the most memorable and decisive production of Professor
Mises' career. We did, of course, continue to learn and profit from the
series of books and papers in which during the next fifteen years he
elaborated and strengthened his position. I cannot mention them here
individually, though each and everyone of them would deserve detailed
discussion. I must turn t6 his third magnum opus, \vhich first appeared in
Switzerland in a German edition in 1940 and ten years later in a rewritten
English edition under the title Human Action. It covers a wider field than
even political economy, and it is still too early definitely to evaluate its
significance. We shall not know its full effects until the men whom it
struck in the same decisive phase of their intellectual revolution have in
turn reached their productive stage. I, for my person, have no doubt that
in the long run it will prove at least as important as Socialism has been.
Even before the first version of this work had appeared, great changes
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