11 Things I learned from The Marginal Revolutionaries
The Marginal Revolutionaries: A Fascinating History
I read Janek Wasserman’s 2019 book The Marginal Revolutionaries earlier this year. The 292-page book covers the Austrian School from the 1870s through the present. It doesn’t really make an argument; instead, it is a detailed history with few obvious value judgments.
11 Interesting Things I Learned1
The rise of Austrianism is often tied to Carl Menger’s “Principles of Economics” in 1871. Wasserman argues the book was relatively unimportant at the time, and that the school truly emerged in the 1880s.
Ludwig Von Mises struggled early in his career to gain recognition from the Austrian elders, while Joseph Schumpeter quickly became a superstar in Austrian circles.
Friedrich von Wieser was F.A. Hayek’s mentor before Mises.
From the mid-1920s until the mid-1930s, Mises held a seminar every other Friday at 7 p.m. Afterward, the group went to The Green Anchor for dinner and then Cafe Kunstler for drinks. While the early portions of the night included women, the later portions did not.
John Maynard Keynes helped Hayek find a room when the London School of Economics relocated to Cambridge during the Battle of Britain, and the two served together in the same nighttime patrol.
Oskar Morgenstern, one of the founders of game theory, was an Austrian economist. He believed game theory was an advancement of marginalism.
Hayek spent a year at the University of Arkansas to take advantage of the state’s lax divorce laws.
Fritz Machlup, a student of Mises, helped push the US from the gold standard to a floating exchange rate. In response, Mises broke off their friendship for several years.
Mises had two 80th birthday parties-- one for the old-school Austrians and another for his newer students.
Fritz Machlup described Austrians, un-Austrian Austrians, and non-Austrian Austrians. Austrians were Austrian-born and raised scholars who contributed to the school. Un-Austrian Austrians were Austrian-born and raised scholars who “absorbed so many other influences. Non-Austrian Austrians were non-Austrian-born and raised scholars who contributed to the school.
“The name Austrian economics has been lost as a focal point for a tradition of economic scholarship, and is now a focal point for something else. We have to let it go.” -Pete Boettke in 2010
This is not a critical review. I am taking what I read at face value.