This volume might be called the Mises Reader, for it contains a wide sampling of his academic essays on money, trade, and economic systems. Some of them, like Observations on the Cooperative Movement, have not been published previously. Others, like The Idea of Liberty Is Western, have already made their mark on intellectual history.
Brought together by Mrs. Mises after her husband's death, and edited with an introduction by Richard Ebeling, this volume fills an important gap in providing an overview of Ludwig von Mises's best academic work. For that reason, this book is already widely used in graduate courses and seminars on the resurgence of the Austrian School.
hen my husband died in 1973 I had to go through his W papers. Some of them were still in manuscript form and had never before been published. I selected several of these, plus a number of other articles that had appeared in periodicals but were no longer in print. This book is the result. At my request Richard Ebeling wrote an introduction which he has done in great detail. The depth of Ebeling's understanding of my husband's work is certainly apparent in his writing. I am pleased to have the Ludwig von Mises Institute present this volume to the public. Margit von Mises New York City September 1989 vii Introduction I I n the 1920s and the 1930s, Ludwig von Mises was recognized as one of the leading economic theorists on the European Conti? nent. I F. A. Hayek has said that Mises's critique of the possibilities for economic calculation under socialism had the most profound impression on my generation . . . . To none of us ' who read [his] book [Socialism] when it appeared was the world ever the same again. ,,2 Lord Lionel Robbins, in introducing the Austrian School literature on money and the trade cycle to English-speaking readers in 1931, emphasized the marvelous renaissance the School of Vienna had experienced under the leadership of . . . Professor Mises.Method.l#”