For being against statuses nobility of any kind, why do so many here say ‘von’ Mises? What is that but a title of nobility granted by a now defunct state. Do you say it because it just has a nice zing to it? Or is Ludwig Mises really a special case of truly being legally set aside from the rest of humanity? Not to mention that the crest featured prominently on this site was also bestowed upon the Mises family as a state gift. I know there are many Hapsburg sympathizers around, but really?
All this is very much trivial and silly, but it sounds slightly hypocritical to call yourself an anarchist whilst touting the vons around.
First things first: not everyone who frequents Mises.org is an anarchist. Mises himself was definitively not an anarchist.
Of course at one point in time, the prefix “von” did signify nobility, but the fact of the matter is that for the last 100 years, the prefix “von” is just an ordinary part of a German name, no longer signifying any privilege or status.
With that out of the way, this “criticism” really seems petty, it’s deliberate trolling.
Von is just German for ‘of’ so the translation is Ludwig of Mises. Kind of like X of Riveria or X of Paris. The last name is usually a location from which the family is from or the family name and the ‘of Mises’ signifies that he the descendant of the Mises family.
Well, because it would be incorrect. His family earned the title, and thus last name was no longer simply Mises. Not to mention the LvMI is friendly with the von Habsburg family.
Agreed. If the State was still embodied by titled nobles, then I see a case for opposing said titles. But they really don’t matter anymore; the personal feudal landlord has been replaced by impersonal bureaucrats and crony capitalists.
Being from Michigan, where many people of Dutch ancestry reside, I will be sure to remind my friends that they should remove “van” out of their last names. After all, that was a title of nobility by a now defunct state.
The ‘anarchist’ movement will reach its zenith with calls to strike a blow for the movement by taking a piss on the great man’s tombstone. And Rothbard’s. And Rockwell’s and Hoppe’s, may God grant them many years.
Not kidding.
Fortunately by then, events will have far outpaced them.
Care to back that up? In Holland it’s very normal to have ‘of’ names, and I doubt millions of people here are of nobility.
Suppose it’s true that his family took the name von Mises when it was Mises before. If I read wikipedia correctly, they took that name before he was born. So he just inherited their name. Seems like a rather normal custom don’t you think? To take over the name of your parents? Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with statism.
And even if it were ‘classist’ of him to take that name, so what? He called himself Ludwig von Mises and the Institute is in his name. That doesn’t mean the people in this institute can’t disagree with him. Isn’t the whole point of science to further knowledge along as time goes by? Maybe that’s why the Institute is in his name, because he wouldn’t accept the theory of the times and moved beyond it. Maybe it’s in that spirit that his name carries on.
The Dutch “van” doesn’t indicate nobility like the German “von.” Ludwig von Mises was quite proud of his title and name and kept the “von” as opposed to Hayek, who dropped it.
“of” names are common in a lot of germanic language countries today. There are many reasons for this, the most pronounced reason being that after people left serfdom behind and became land lords and merchants, they took names to distinguish themselves, usually by land and/or occupation. For example, though my family no longer carries the name (my grandfather changed it to an English name to avoid discrimination as a Jewish attorney) the family name of my paternal line was von Zuker. My family was not noble, they were Jewish sugar merchants and Zuker=Sugar. The family name was adopted to distinguish my family as sugar merchants in the Prussian Empire.
Also, after the fall of serfdom (and later, the nobility), people began incorporating “von” simply because it means “of”, whether ot not that was originally part of the family name.
The low countries have another interesting feature in their names. During the French occupations (begining under Louis XIV, and especially after Napoleon’s annexation of the area after he was angered by the policies of his Dutch vassal state.) The people of the area made up names to confuse the French census and tax collectors. This is why many family names from the area translate to silly things.
