Richard Whately (1787 - 1863): English logician, theologian, and economist. Educated at Oxford, he was appointed professor of political economy in 1829, succeeding Nassau William Senior. His career as an economist was cut short by his appointment as Archbishop (Anglican) of Dublin in 1831. Most of his life was spent agitating for better official treatment of Irish Catholics. Mises mentions him as the author who first used the term catallactics to refer to the market economy.
Frederick List (1789 - 1846): German political economist and follower of Adam Smith. He was charged with sedition and fled Germany for the United States in 1824. An advocate of restrictionism (i.e., protectionism) for new industries, his major work, National System of Political Economy, was published in Germany in 1841 and strongly influenced subsequent economic policies in that country. Mises mentions List in connection with the criticism that Karl Marx and members of the Historical School leveled at British free trade policy.
Franz Grillparzer (1791 - 1872): Austrian poet and tragedian. The scion of an unhappy family (his father died when Franz was only 18, and his mother committed suicide ten years later), Grillparzer spent most of his life writing tragedies for the Viennese stage. Though he agonized over several love affairs, he never married. Trained as a lawyer, he had a day job with the Austrian government. But his true passion was writing Germanic verse for the stage. Recognition of his theatrical and poetical works came slowly, but by his 80th birthday his fame had spread throughout Austria, and the government proclaimed a national day of celebration in his honor. Mises cites Grillparzer as an example of the creative genius who is driven by an internal force totally different from the motive that sparks prosaic labor in everyday life. Mises also refers to Ludwig von Beethoven and to Friedrich Nietzsche in this connection.
Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881): Scottish author and historian. As a student he excelled in mathematics. His family's hopes for him as a Presbyterian minister were quickly dashed; by 1818 he had moved to Edinburgh where he soon lost interest in his first job as a math teacher and began his lengthy love affair with Teutonic literature. He read Goethe and Schiller extensively, and spent many years producing English translations of German masterpieces. (Interestingly, his younger brother John in 1840 released a translation of Dante's Inferno.) He married Miss Jane Welsh in 1826. In 1834, encouraged by his early literary success, he moved his household to London, where he was to reside for the rest of his life. In 1837 came his French Revolution, which firmly established his reputation as a literary genius. Many of his subsequent works were historical, and tended to glorify the "strong, just man."
As he aged, Carlyle became less tolerant of foolish democracy, and longed for a return to the feudal system. His beloved wife passed away suddenly in 1866, and Carlyle thereafter found himself unable to produce much that was new. Modern critics have identified Carlyle's adulation of strong leadership as an early impetus in the movement that eventually led to Fascism and Nazism, although opinion on that head is less than unanimous. Mises mentions Carlyle's characterization of economics as "the dismal science," and identifies him, along with Ruskin, Nietzsche, Sorel, and Spengler, as intellectual forebears of the policies instituted by Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler.
August Comte (1798 - 1857): French mystic, sociologist, and philosopher. Generally recognized as the founder of positivism, and as the first sociologist, Comte argued that science has progressed from the simplest (mathematics, astronomy, physics) through the more complex (chemistry, biology, and sociology), arriving finally at the ultimate science of ethics. He also claimed that human knowledge in every field passes through three stages -- from the theological through the metaphysical to the positive. Mises discusses him in connection with the philosophy of positivism, which rejects the validity of any synthetic a priori knowledge.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1798 - 1860): German philosopher. His entire philosophy is succinctly summarized in the title of his most famous book, The World as Will and Idea, first published in 1819. In his nihilistic philosophy, the entire universe is just a dream -- a mere phantasm of my fevered imagination. The only central reality is my will. It is my will, alone, that determines the course of my dream. Arthur was a pessimist; he had a bad dream. His philosophy drew on the worst of the Buddhist tradition -- he named his dog Atma, Sanskrit for "world soul." His infamous hatred of women is notable. As the following quotation from his Essay on Women illustrates, he thought very little of them.
It is only a man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that could give the name of the fair sex to that under-sized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged race ... The most distinguished intellects among the whole sex have never managed to produce a single achievement in the fine arts that is really genuine and original; or given to the world any work of permanent value in any sphere.
Schopenhauer's conception of the will exercised a profound influence on Friedrich Nietzsche and also, to a lesser extent, on Henri Bergson. Mises speaks of Schopenhauer as one of those philosophers who "look upon life as an absolute evil full of pain, suffering, and anguish ..." In Mises' view, Schopenhauer's nihilism is totally incompatible with praxeology.
Frederic Bastiat (1801 - 1850): French gentleman farmer, scholar, economist, and legislator. A champion of free trade and equal rights for all men, Bastiat's books include Economic Sophisms, Economic Harmonies, and The Law, an excellent introduction to the libertarian philosophy of government. Mises regarded Bastiat as one of the classical economists. The von Mises Institute has published an interesting biographical sketch here.
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (1804 - 1873): German philosopher, moralist, and theologian. Not to be confused with his father, Paul, an eminent jurist who liberalized the Germany penal code, L. Feuerbach studied philosophy under Hegel at Berlin. He rebelled against traditional conceptions of the Deity, claiming that God is nothing more than a projection of the human spirit upon external reality -- that man worships himself. An early humanist, Feuerbach's ideas had a decided influence on Karl Marx, who in 1845 penned an essay critical of Feuerbach's concept of materialism. Mises mentions him in connection with man's instinct for happiness, and alludes to his influence on early Marxism.
John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873): English philosopher and economist. A child prodigy, JSM was taught by his father and by Jeremy Bentham, who wished to demonstrate the efficacy of a utilitarian approach to the child's education. His notable books include Principles of Political Economy, Utilitarianism, and On Liberty. Mises mentions him as one of the classical economists, and as a principal exponent of utilitarianism. Click here to read more about J.S. Mill.
Max Stirner (1806 - 1856): German idealist and egoistic philosopher. He wrote one notable book (Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum, translated into English as The Ego and Its Own) which exercised considerable influence on his contemporaries Ludwig von Feuerbach and Karl Marx. Briefly, Stirner argued that there is an inherent conflict between realism and idealism, and that the Hegelian synthesis of these opposed tendencies is egoism. The future belongs to the ego. Mises mentions him, somewhat misleadingly, as an example of a socialist who held that the individual is more important than society. Today Stirner is generally regarded as an individual anarchist and not as a socialist -- click here for more information.
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882): English naturalist who is generally credited with originating the theory of natural selection, or evolution. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and at Christ's College, Cambridge. He was an inattentive student, but eventually obtained a degree. In 1831 he embarked on a voyage with the HMS Beagle. The voyage took him to South America, Australia, and South Africa. He made many geological observations, and collected a wide variety of specimens of indigenous flora and fauna. The voyage lasted five years, returning to England in December, 1836. Darwin subsequently (1859) published On the Origin of Species, in which he propounded his theory of natural selection. The book was immmediately successful and wildly popular: within just a few years, "survival of the fittest" was part of the popular lexicon. Mises mentions Darwin in connection with the misguided claims of the "social Darwinists", that cooperation among men is not part of the natural order of things, because the struggle for the means to survive is perpetual. Mises points out that peaceful cooperation, limited competition, and the division of labor are the means best suited to ensuring man's survival, and that acting man will naturally seek to employ the best means available.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809 - 1865): French communist, politician, philosopher, and economist. Proudhon's father was a brewer, so Pierre grew up in a tavern. His family could not afford to send him to school, but his mother taught him to read while he was srill very young. As a teenager he gained admittance to the city college of Besançon; an acquaintance helped pay his tuition. In 1827 he took an apprenticeship in a print shop. Most of the books he worked with were ecclesiastical. As a result of this exposure, Proudhon rejected traditional forms of Christianity. About 1830 he met Charles Fourier, whose socialist ideas profoundly influenced the younger man's thinking. Proudhon gradually turned his attention to politics. After his printing business failed in 1838, Proudhon obtained a scholarship that allowed him to study at the Academy in Besançon. Over the next few years he published several books, among them Qu'est-ce que la propriété? (What is Property?): this book contains his most famous assertion -- Property is theft! Proudhon called himself an anarchist, and is widely regarded as the father of anarchic socialism. Although he encountered Karl Marx, the two never got along very well. Mises mentions Proudhon as one of a host of "reformers" who hope to solve the problem of scarcity by printing more money.
Hermann Heinrich Gossen (1810 - 1858): German civil servant and economist. Gossen was born in Düren, occupied by the French at the time. He studied law at the University of Bonn, receiving a degree in 1834. He disliked his bureaucratic duties, and in 1841 decided to leave the civil service. His father objected: Gossen remained in the civil service until his father died in 1847. After a failed attempt to start an insurance company, he retired to Cologne, where he composed his magnum opus, Entwickelung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs, und der daraus fließenden Regeln für menschliches Handeln (Development of the Laws of Human Intercourse and the Consequent Rules of Human Action) was published in 1854. The book was a flop; the dominant German Historical School was not interested in the logical study of economic phenomena. Disillusioned by this rejection, Gossen ordered all copies of his book destroyed before his death.
Fortunately, the publisher did not destroy the books. Eventually Gossen received credit for being an early precursor of the "marginal revolution" sparked by Menger, Jevons, and Walras. Mises says that Gossen's version of the law of decreasing marginal utility is incomplete and inaccurate, but acknowledges that Gossen made solid contributions to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the determination of prices in a free market.
Claude Bernard (1813 - 1878): French physiologist. After failing in an attempted literary career, he took up medicine and in 1855 was appointed Professor of Experimental Physiology at the Collège de France. He is credited with elucidating the roles of the pancreas and the liver in regulating blood chemistry. In writing about the philosophy of science, he said that no merely biochemical knowledge can explain the phenomenon of life itself. Mises quotes him in reference to animal instinct.
Karl Marx (1818 - 1883): German revolutionist and self-styled economist. Together with Engels he wrote Manifest der komunistischen Partei (1848; "The Communist Manifesto"), which proclaimed the eventual victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. In 1867 came the first volume of Das Kapital, his critique of capitalistic economic systems. Though Marx was a powerful writer who evoked strong emotions among his readers, his primary analytical technique of dialectical materialism is logically defective and does not qualify as a valid mode of scientific inquiry. Yet his ideas have been enthusiastically embraced by millions of people, many of whom are still unaware of the source of the doctrines they implicitly believe. Mises speaks of Marx and Marxism all through Human Action, and characterizes the Marxian style of argument as a variety of polylogism.
Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895): German revolutionist and author. The son of a wealthy industrialist, Engels did not succeed at school, but by dividing his time between business and private pursuits, he became an expert swimmer, fencer, equestrian, and linguist. By 1842 he had moved to Manchester, England, where he eventually made his home, and his living as a partner in a textile mill. His early enthusiasm for the Hegelian dialectic led to his lifelong association with Karl Marx. Engels earned the money that kept his partner alive, and generally served as editor and publicist for his more famous friend. Mises mentions his association with Marx, and his connection with communist dogmas.
John Elliott Cairnes (1823 - 1875): Irish economist trained as a barrister who taught political economy at the University of Dublin, and later at Queens College Galway. He is regarded as the last of the classical British economists (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill). Cairnes made a significant contribution to the theory of value by pointing out that the profitablity of an enterprise depends not only on the cost of production, but also on the price consumers are willing to pay for that product.
Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910): Russian novelist and short story writer. Tolstoy's parents both died while he was still a child. In 1844 he enrolled in Kazan University, but left without earning a degree. He movedto Moscow, and began wrting. He served in the Crimean War; his experiences colored his later writing, and led him to become a pacifist and an anarchist. In 1862 he married Sophia Andreevna Behrs; They had 13 children. She served as his secretary / editor, preparing the manuscripts for both Anna Karenina and War and Peace. As he aged, Tolstoy grew more radical in his beliefs about Christianity and asceticism. He was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. Mises mentions Tolstoy as an example of a wealthy aristocrat who renounced his weath and embraced ascetisism.
Léon Walras (1834 - 1910): French economist who taught twenty years at Lausanne. With his successor Pareto he established the so-called Lausanne School of economic theory. His early career was unsuccessful -- he twice failed the entrance exam at the École Polytechnique in Paris for lack of adequate preparation in mathematics, and a coöperative bank he founded went bust. But his book Éléments d'économie politique pure (1877) is now recognized as one of the first mathematical analyses of general economic equilibrium, and he is credited, independently of Menger and Jevons, with inventing the marginal utility theory of value. It is in this latter connection that Mises mentions his name.
William Stanley Jevons (1835 - 1882): English economist and logician. As a Unitarian, Jevons could not attend Oxford or Cambridge, so he studied chemistry at Bentham's University College in London. After a brief career as assayer for the Mint in Australia, he returned to England to study logic and economics. His Theory of Political Economy, published in 1871, advanced the law of decreasing marginal utility as part of a new theory of value. He shortly became aware of Walras' enunciation of the same theory; although the two corresponded and each traveled to the other's country, they never met. Jevons was an avid swimmer. His career was unfortunately cut short when he drowned off the Devonshire coast. Mises mentions him as one of the three originators of marginal utility theory. Read more about Jevons here.
Gustav von Schmoller (1838 - 1917): German economist and late supporter of the Historical School. In carrying out the actual program advocated by Knies, Schmoller literally undermined the original aims of the Historical School by claiming that there are universal economic laws, and that the only way to identify them is through the careful study of economic history. He became embroiled in a controversy with Menger (the Methodenstreit) over the proper methodological approach to economic study about 1880. Mises mentions von Schmoller in connection with the Methodenstreit, and asserts that the teachings of the Historical School paved the way for Nazism in Germany.