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Call for Papers

Austrian economics and political-cultural contexts of bold ideas: The Mises Vienna Private Archive and Interwar Vienna

Workshop 17-18 February - University of Graz

After Mises moved to Geneva in 1934, a stock of documents was kept in a room of Mises' apartment in Vienna. These holdings were confiscated by the Nazis in 1938 and taken from Vienna to Berlin. In 1943, holdings including the Mises collection were moved to locations mainly in Upper Silesia. In the spring of 1945, the Mises documents, like many other items that had met a similar fate, were tracked down by the Red Army, salvaged and taken to Moscow. On the basis of bilateral negotiations in the early 2000s, Russia restituted those documents that clearly showed Austrian provenance (including Mises’ holdings in Fund 623) and are now in the Austrian State Archive in Vienna and have been digitized as part of an ongoing project at the Graz Schumpeter Centre funded by the Research Fund of the Austrian Central Bank.

Ludwig von Mises is one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. Given the discrepancy between his factual influence and his modest professional academic achievements, he is truly unique. Mainly due to the impressive history of the American reception and impact of his work, there is a vast secondary literature, complemented by works with a biographical format. However, Mises remains on the research agenda not only due to the availability of archival material, but also due to the fact that exploring Mises is a complex task, requiring the combination of considerations belonging to at least three clusters of disciplines/approaches: 1. History of economic thought and of social theory, including in particular foundational epistemological and methodological questions, 2. historical sociology of science/knowledge, and 3. economic and political history. As a “student of civilization”[1], Mises heroically envisaged tackling secular political problems (saving the capitalist civilization!) with pure economics: in contrast to other “students of civilization” envisaging Victorian values or Bourgeois virtues, the moralizing dimension plays a lesser role in his capitalist rationalism. This specific approach makes a study of his work all the more interesting.

While at the workshop first results of our screening of the Mises Vienna Archive will be presented, we welcome contributions on the pertinent development of Mises’ thought and its multifaceted contexts, including his development as an economist, social theorist, homo politicus, and “student of civilization”.

Proposals for papers (between 350 and 500 words) should be submitted by email to Mises2025EJHET(at)gmail.com no later than 28 Nov 2024. Authors whose proposal is accepted will be invited to send a full paper by 12 February 2025. A selection of papers will be discussed during a workshop in Graz (Austria) on 17-18 February 2025. We are planning a Special Issue or Symposium on Mises in EJHET. Submission deadlines will be announced shortly after the workshop. Of course, submitted papers will then be reviewed by anonymous referees in line with the regular procedures of the journal. For further information, please contact Lukas Starchl under mises2025ejhet(at)gmail.com.

The Scientific Committee

Alexander Linsbichler (Linz/Vienna), Stefan Karner (Graz) Hansjörg Klausinger (Vienna), Richard Sturn (Graz)

[1] Erwin Dekker, The Viennese Students of civilization. The Meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered (New York, 2016).