Professor Mises and the Theory of Capital

WRITING a review of this volume has proved to be a difficult assignment. In 750 large and well-packed pages, Professor Mises, a respected veteran of economic warfare and the author of notable works, which have long been widely read, in various divisions of the wide field of economics, now presents a treatise upon it as a whole. He discusses at length the major problems of theory, as now recognised after generations of voluminous controversy. His book itself is -highly controversial in substance, and in tone, though the argument is directed toward positions, with very little debate or Auseinandersetzung with named authors. In some relation to its controversial character, the content is largely methodological , in the broad sense. This is both natural and, in my opinion, proper; for the practical as well as the theoretical issues in economics come down to methodological questions having to do with assumptions, axioms, or facts . It is a field in which it is largely the facts, and the meaning of the notion of fact, which are ultimately in dispute; this makes argumentation difficult and inconclusive. The impression, it must be said, is not very encouraging as to the state of economics and the prospect of agreement among its leaders on fundamentals of pure science or theory, or on the relations of these to intelligent social economic policy. This impression of the book on the reviewer will tend to be reflected in a more accentuated form in the review itself. It is one of a somewhat weary, slightly impatient and dogmatic rehash of issues already worn threadbare with argument pro and con, argument which hardly seems to tend toward any result or end. In part this impression is connected with the present situation in the world of action. The course of events threatens to take out of the hands of peaceful discussion issues on which the supposedly competent and impartial specialists seem rather pitifully unable to get beyond the constant rethreshing of old straw. This situation tends to make even a participant in the discussion sympathetic with the attitude of the plain man and the practitioner. Such philosophic argumentation has something of the air of futility. Either it must somehow be out of relation to the realities, or else those who engage in it lack something essential, or they would at least know where and why they disagree. 1 National6konomie: Theorie des Handeins und Wirtschafitens. By Ludwig von Mi.ses. Geneva, Editions Union, I94Q0 xvi, 756 pp

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