German and Austrian Classical Liberalism

[Updated: 1 June, 2023]

Recent Additions (Blog posts and Papers)

Blog posts:

  1. Hayek on Law, Legislation and Liberty (1973-79)” (8 Oct. 2021)
  2. Hayek and Spontaneous Order” (13 Sept. 2021)
  3. Hayek on a Liberal Utopia” (11 Sept. 2021)
  4. Mises on Economic Calculation under Socialism (30 September, 2020)

Some recent papers of mine:

  1. abc

 

Recent Additions - Books

  • an updated version of Ludwig von Mises, Liberalismus (1927). Also eBooks added to the collection.
  • eBook versions of Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden; Ein philosophischer Entwurf (Towards Perpetual Peace: A Philsophical Sketch) (1795): in standard HTML and various eBook formats in HTML, PDF, and ePub and the zipped collection
  • the complete 8 volumes of Franz Oppenheimer's massive System der Soziologie (4,500 pp,) which were published between 1922-1935. These are only in large facs. PDF except for vol. 2 "Der Staat" which is also in HTML:
    • Bd. 1. Allgemeine Soziologie (1922-23)
      1. Grundlegung [facs. PDF 40 MB]
      2. Der soziale Prozess [facs. PDF MB]
    • Bd. 2. Der Staat (1926) [standard HTML and facs. PDF 139 MB] and also as eBooks: HTML, PDF, and ePub, and the zipped collection). This large 800+ page works consists of the following parts:
      • Vorwort (pp. vii-x);
      • Erster Abschnitt: Begriff und Methode (pp. 1-23);
      • 2. Ab.: Die Klassenordnung (pp. 24-307);
      • 3. Ab. Der primitive Eroberungsstaat (pp. 308-366);
      • 4. Ab.: Der Seestaat (pp. 367-505);
      • 5. Ab.: Der Landstaat (pp. 506-644);
      • 6. Ab.: Der moderne Verfassungsstaat (pp. 645-725);
      • 7. Ab.: Die klassenlose Gesellschaft (pp. 726-811)
    • Bd. 3. Theorie der reinen und politischen ökonomie (1923-24)
      1. Grundlegung [facs. PDF 85 MB]
      2. Die Gesellschafts-wirtschaft [facs. PDF 132 MB]
  • several of the first generation of Austrian economists were also interested in the relationship between voluntary market arrangements and "power" or coercion (Macht, Zwang). One of these was Friedrich von Wieser (1851-1926) who, in addition to his purely "economic" writings, also wrote several works on "power"
    • there is a collection of six "lectures" Recht und Macht. Sechs Vorträge (1910) - facs. PDF only
  • a German sociologist much admired by Alfred J. Nock and Murray Rothbard was Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943) whose book on "De Staat" (The State) is an important one. He published it in a short and a long version ovber a 20 year period.
    • the first, short version (175 pp.), or what he called "meine kleine Skizze" (my short sketch) was published in 1907: Franz Oppenheimer, Der Staat (1907) - the standard HTML and facs. PDF ; and eBook fomats - HTML - PDF - ePub (and the zipped collection)
    • this was translated into English: Franz Oppenheimer, The State: Its History and Development viewed Sociologically (1914, 1922): the standard HTML and facs. PDF
    • the much longer version (859 pp.) appeared in 1926 as volume 2 of his 4 volume System der soziologie (System of Sociology) (1922-1935): facs. PDF [139 MB]
  • an interesting discussion by one of the founders of the Austrian school of economics on the relationship between political power (Gewalt) and economic laws: Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, “Macht oder Ökonomisches Gesetz?”, Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft, Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung (1914) [HTML and facs. PDF]; along with an English translation [HTML]
  • 100 years ago Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) demolished the very foundations upon which socialism rested. In 1920 he wrote an essay on the difficulties (or indeed impossibility) of rational "Economic Calculation" in a socialist economy [English and German] and in 1922 a large book on Socialism in which he broadened his critique of socialism into the most devastating one ever written. We are putting the later online (or rather the 2nd. edition of 1932) in German in HTML and facs. PDF
  • By the mid-1920s Mises had expanded his critique of Bolshevik central planning into a more general theory of "Interventionismus" or "interventionism" by which he meant any large-scale government intervention in the economy without the direct ownership by the state of all private property and the means of production (such as factories and farms). He began with an article on “Interventionismus” (1926) [HTML auf deutsch] which he expanded and developed over the years in a series of further articles and books. He had in mind (in chronological order) the policy of "Kriegssozialismus" (war socialism) pursued in Germany during WW1, the policy of economic "autarchy" (national self-sufficiency) pursued by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, and the policies of most western nations after WW2, namely Keynesian inspired interventionism concerning interest rates and the supply of money, as well as the interventionism and redistribution of wealth required to build the welfare state.
  • Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Gränzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen (1792, 1851)in HTML and facs. PDF. English trans. The Sphere and Duties of Government (1854) in HTML and facs. PDF.
  • another "provocative pairing", this time of visions of a socialist future: by a true believer the American socialist Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward. 2000-1887 (1888) [HTML] and a German classical liberal critic Eugen Richter in Pictures of the Socialistic Future (1891/1893) in German [facs. PDF and HTML] and English [facs. PDF and HTML]
  • The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) left his great work on Economics and Society unfinished at his death: Grundriss der Sozialökonomik: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1922) in HTML and facs. PDF.
  • Richard Ebeling [Mises Institute] reminds us that 2021 is the 150th anniversary of the publication by Carl Menger of one of the foundational works of the Austrian school of economics, Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftsliche (1871). Here is our collection of his works (all in German): 3 major works and 3 important articles (only auf deutsch for copyright reasons):
  • "A Parallel Edition of Ludwig von Mises on Economic Calculation under Socialism (1920)" with versions of the article in German (facs. PDF and HTML), the Adler English translation, and his expansion of his argument into the book Die Gemeinwirtschaft (Socialism) (1922) also in German and English.