In a review of Guido Huelsmann’s great biography, Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, which his come to my attention but has not yet been published, its author makes an odd claim. He says that Huelsmann displays a “hagiographical” attitude toward Mises. This claim cannot survive a careful reading of the book.
Though Huelsmann does not disguise his great admiration for Mises, he is by no means uncritical. Here are a few examples: “It was not the only time Mises would justify and implement emergency monetary policies that are difficult to reconcile with classical liberal principles.” (p.345, referring to Mises’s advocacy of using the monetary printing press in Vienna in 1919.)”But not only the Christian faithful will wonder if he had a proper understanding of political Christianity.” (p.441, referring to remarks about Christianity in the first edition of Socialism) “His years with Margit brought about a profound positive transformation of Mises’s personality. He was still obstinate in his opinions and formal in his demeanor, but in interacting with other people he became much less buttoned-down.”(p.731) “Mises had been convinced that the new war [World War II] would start just as the last war had ended—in the trenches. He was convinced that France and its allies would withstand any German attack. . . He had not realized that conditions had once again changed profoundly.”(pp.750-51) “Mises seems to have fallen back into what in more sober moments he called the dictatorship complex. He blithely assumed that the institutions entrusted with the ‘new order’ [after World War II] would use their enormous power only for those purposes of which he, Mises, approved.”(p.810) “Mises’s definition of freedom was essentially compatible with the views of the anarchists, who would merely add that the government must play by the same rules, and therefore cannot obtain its revenue through the violation of property rights. Mises never brought himself to analyze this proposal in detail.” (p.1024) “The quote [on secession in the U.S. Civil War] shows how uneasy Mises was at discussing this problem. He just could not reach a clear conclusion.”(p.1028) This does not sound like hagiography to me.
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It will be interesting to see this review when it was published. If I had to guess, I would say that the reviewer was dismayed by Huelsmann’s failure to criticize Mises’ views on the gold standard. Nothing seems to irk non-Austrians more than the suggestion that a commodity standard may be preferable to a managed fiat currency.
Adherence to one’s principles and admiration to individuals who achieve this is considered “hagiography” in an intellectual world filled with hypocrites, snakeoil salesmen and crooks. It must embarrass them to be so utterly inferior.
admiration of*
Please install an edit function…
This is tangential but the use of the term hagiography isn’t even quite right, if it is supposed to indicate unqualified praise. The Lives of the Saints volumes in history–if they are not children’s books–revel in the details of sins and errors of their subjects. The saints are only saints in Heaven.
The point about “hagiography” had occurred to me, but I didn’t mention it because doing so would require a response to the objection that my examples don’t disprove the claim that the book is hagiographical. The word needs to be understood in this context in the way that the reviewer I criticized misused it.
Yes, a better and more precise term might be hyper-filiopietistic. This book is not hyper-filiopietistic.
What’s wrong with being hagiographic? People should admire truth and good and those who uphold them. What does the reviewer want, a stale collection of facts? That’s how Rothbard says not to write history in today’s article.
I haven’t read the book, although I probably will some time. But isn’t a “hagiography” precisely what Mises deserves?
It is precisely what befits a man of his stature. Non-Austrian economists frequently aver that we worship Mises; have they never entertained the possibility that the admiration is not unfounded, and that the man did indeed contribute greatly to economics? Perhaps they’re envious…
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