Who does everybody here hold to be the Austrian economist that contributed the most to advancing liberty?
My own personal choice would be a tie between Menger and von Bawerk.
If you’re talking about simply advancing liberty rather than advancing the economic science then you’re a fool if you believe that Menger and Bawerk did the most to advance liberty. Both of them were pretty statist compared to what most modern Austrians advocate, and they were pretty moderate classical liberals all things considered.
If we’re talking about advancing liberty then Rothbard, no doubt. He’s probably the reason that you’re here, whoever you are and whether you realize it or not.
Okay, so let’s assume I’m a fool. If I’m not mistaken, Austrians like to look at things long-term, documented by Henry Hazlitt. Simply by forming and organizing the Austrian School, Menger and Bawerk built the entire foundation for which guys like Rothbard could implement their libertarian philosophies upon. Long-term, that makes Menger and Bawerk some very important people in libertarianism, I believe, whether they were libertarians or not.
By that logic Adam Smith is the most important libertarian for paving the way for economics
^
By that logic Socrates was the most important libertarian for helping to start important philosophical discourse which would eventually give birth to utilitarianism and economics
By that logic, Adam Smith’s mom.
Is this thread just going to explode into a series of “by that logic” posts? I get the picture. It’s all about where you value someone’s contributions, that’s what this thread was supposed to be about. And yes, looking back at my original post, I did use a poor choice of words to describe what I wanted to know, but I guess that the original inquiry is meaningless now.
LOL, and the true face of the Mises.org community is revealed to you.
I say something relatively simple and everyone practically explodes with contempt at their percieved realization of my lack of information.
Mises’, he was the most important, imo.
Skeptic,
What I said was not meant to imply contempt and perhaps my word choice was rather strong. If you want, then please reframe your question, but the fact is that you need to put some sort of real qualifiers on the matter. If we look at it then if we go from the founding members of the school, Bawerk and Menger, then it would still have been possible for the Austrian school to take a non-libertarian direction depending upon how the available “tools” in the Austrian “toolbox” were utilized, and indeed we saw some of that in Schumpeter’s work and a few of the early Austrians. It was only because of the work of Mises and Hayek that we saw the Austrian school take a distinctly libertarian and individualistic direction which will be difficult to ever reverse. Therefore I don’t see their work as strictly libertarian, or directly responsible for the way that the Austrian school has evolved.
Rothbard in particular was very influential in actually molding this into a more politically active ideology and dialogue. In a very real way Rothbard is the father of libertarianism.
It’s really not that important. My original question was meant to gather who believes made the greatest advancements in the Austrian School. I don’t even know. I think I’ll delete this thread anyway, the matter isn’t that critical to the point where it requires a thread.
If I can figure out how to delete it, that is.
Isnt Mises the acknowledged ‘leader’ and Menger the acknowledged ‘founder’?
Don’t delete it. All the replies are simply inane and are using ridiculous arguments. Menger and Bohm-Bawerk did contribute to advancing liberty since they discovered new aspects of economic science that advanced the arguments for liberty vs. statism, and constantly owned their statist opponents in debates.
Adam Smith contributed nothing that was both original and true. He did not pave the way for economics at all. That’s even more ridiculous than saying that Einstein paved the way for physics. But at least Einstein might have made some original, valuable contributions.
Aristippus,
Whether or not we like it as Austrians, the fact is that Smith made the economic science what it was. Whether or not you think that he started up good discussion, he did start up economic discussion as “its own thing”.
Bawerk and Menger were generally pro-market, but they were nonetheless not extremely libertarian, nor did their ideas necessarily lead to libertarianism as they eventually did.
I think you would have gotten to me a lot more effectively if you wouldn’t have been so…aggresive in the manner of your post.
Are you kidding me? What about Cantillon, Quesnay, Turgot, Condillac, Hume?
Marginal utility theory is extremely important as a foundation of economic arguments for libertarianism. Not only that but Menger showed the fallacies of the historicists and contributed to spontaneous order theory, while Bohm-Bawerk took on the Marxists.
“Are you kidding me? What about Cantillon, Quesnay, Turgot, Condillac, Hume?”
None of their work, however important or superior to Smith’s, started up economics as a real social science, or had the influence that smith had. Smith was indisputably the founder of of classical economics, and it was ultimately from Smith’s works that the work of the classicals originated.
“Marginal utility theory is extremely important as a foundation of economic arguments for libertarianism.”
Keynesians accept marginal utility theory, as to all neo-classical economists.
“Not only that but Menger showed the fallacies of the historicists and contributed to spontaneous order theory, while Bohm-Bawerk took on the Marxists.”
Neither of these imply a great deal of libertarian, both are important classical liberal works, but they aren’t nearly as radical as we would like, nor did they necessarily set AE on individualist libertarian grounds like either Hayek or Mises did
EDIT
Skeptic,
I’m sorry, I did not intend to come off that way
Oh and check out my sig. That scores Menger a point in my book.