This previous summer time I joined my son in Vienna. He was there on a fellowship from his senior yr at Carleton School to review structure, specifically the work of Otto Wagner, the Secession motion, and so forth. I had solely been there as soon as earlier than, when backpacking throughout regulation college. I accompanied him on his explorations and we feasted on Viennese delicacies at locations beneficial by native pals.
I instructed that we take time to go to the College of Vienna, in order that I might see the monuments to well-known Austrian economists who had taught there. The foyer highlights Nobel prize winners, together with Friedrich von Hayek; and within the “Colonnade,” or “arcade courtyard” (Arkadenhof, additionally regionally known as the aula), there are dozens of monuments—busts, bas-relief plaques—devoted to famous intellectuals, alumni, and professors from the College. Of specific curiosity to devotees of Austrian economics, there are monuments to Carl Menger and his two college students Friedrich von Wieser and Eugen von Böhm-Bahwerk, all positioned close to one another within the Arcade Courtyard.
The method to have a monument permitted and funded could be very bureaucratic and might take years. It originates from a request from the faculty the place the professor taught (such because the College of Regulation and Political Science) and is then permitted by the Tutorial Senate, and apparently is normally privately funded. Wieser’s monument took 21 years, for instance, from approval to completion. Menger’s was permitted in 1927 and accomplished and unveiled simply two years later. It seems to have been fast-tracked and a few guidelines waived because of Menger’s standing:
In 1927, the Tutorial Senate, following a request from the College of Regulation and Political Science, determined to erect a monument to Carl Menger within the arcades. This resolution was made simply six years after the loss of life of the person to be honored. The ready interval, which had solely just lately been elevated from 5 to 10 years, was exceptionally not noticed in view of Menger’s extraordinary achievements.
The method culminates in a proper unveiling ceremony, which includes
a speech in regards to the individual being honored and their companies to science in one of many ceremonial halls, musical accompaniment by the educational choir and the following unveiling of the monument within the arcade courtyard. The monument was usually embellished with flowers.
Hayek has no monument within the Arcade however does have one within the foyer, subsequent to different Nobel Prize successful alumni and professors of the College:
(The writer with the Hayek Nobel Prize monument.)
So the College of Vienna (UV) prominently and proudly options 4 of the nice early Austrian economists. Conspicuously absent, in fact, is Ludwig von Mises, arguably the best Austrian economist of all time, who was additionally a professor at UV. His absence is conspicuous, provided that the College boasts about Mises on its web site, together with the opposite 4: Menger, Wieser, Böhm-Bawerk, and Hayek.
I requested my buddy Guido Hülsmann, Mises’s biographer, why Mises can be omitted. He surmised that Mises was too intransigent and never socialist sufficient. That is much like the rationale given by some Misesians as to why the Nobel Prize committee waited till Mises had died, in 1973, earlier than awarding the Nobel Prize in Economics for Mises’s work on enterprise cycle principle to his extra politically acceptable scholar, Hayek.
Nonetheless, I puzzled, possibly sufficient time has handed that the hostility to Mises has waned; in any case UV promotes him on its web site and acknowledges he was discriminated in opposition to for being Jewish—for “racist reasons.” I used to be conscious of the Mises bust that had been commissioned by Doug French and Jeff Tucker when Doug was President of the Mises Institute:
I’ve one on my bookshelf. (My new personalized Texas license plate reads: MISES.) However I puzzled what it will take to have a flatter, “bas-relief“ version created, similar to those of Menger, Wieser, and Böhm-Bawerk. One that be mounted on a wall instead requiring a pedestal and more space.
After some searching I happened across the work of sculptor Zenos Frudakis, famous for his “Freedom Sculpture“ in Philadelphia:
He also featured a bust of Mises that I had never heard of before, commissioned in 2023 for a private collector:
Intrigued, I sent a message inquiring into the cost and feasibility of having Frudakis prepare a bas-relief bust of Mises for ultimate presentation to the University of Vienna. To my surprise, his wife wrote me back expressing his interest in this project. As Frudakis is a world-famous sculptor, it would not be cheap, of course.
I brought this idea to the attention of Guido Hülsmann and Hans Hoppe and a few other trusted colleagues, who were intrigued about the possibility of having a Mises bust prepared and presented to UV. Even if the project would take some years, we envisioned a ceremony at the university, attended by hundreds of Mises fans and scholars from all over the world, seeing Mises finally get his rightful due and recognition at his alma mater.
In addition, it appeared that there was a strong possibility of some donors willing to fund the project, and Frudakis was also on board. We had two of the world’s leading Mises scholars on board, including his biographer. The only thing standing in the way appeared to be the bureaucracy at the university. We asked our colleague, the noted scholar Rahim Taghizadegan, from Vienna, to inquire into the feasibility of this project.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the university will not accept a Mises bust. Apparently there was an effort last year by a noted Gödel scholar to have a monument dedicated to the famous mathematician Kurt Gödel placed in the Arcade, as UV was his alma mater; he published his famous “Incompleteness Theorem” as a part of his doctoral research there, which he printed in 1931, shortly after his disseration in 1929. Nonetheless, over a yr of conferences amongst vice-rectors, the college senate, after which the formation of a “joint working group,” UV lastly determined to reject the Gödel monument—or every other new monuments, ever. The Arcade has apparently now turn out to be an ossified museum.
The article doesn’t specify the explanations for this resolution—for rejecting a monument for one essentially the most well-known thinkers of the 20th century and certainly one of the crucial notable of all of UV’s college students and professors. Our inquiries led us to conclude that the rationale for UV’s rejection of the Gödel monument, and for closing the Arcade to future monuments, resembling one for Mises, is that UV is now too “woke” to allow extra monuments to useless, white males. Regardless that Mises was Jewish and, as UV acknowledges, was discriminated in opposition to in his profession for for “racist reasons,” and he’s the one certainly one of their 5 main UV Austrian economics professors/alumni to not have a monument (and the one Jew), that is nonetheless not sufficient. He’s a white male. So, like Gödel: no monument for Mises.
We will in all probability anticipate the brand new Arcade “museum” to start out that includes warnings and indicators condemning previous sexism and racism. Perhaps some monuments shall be eliminated, because the Nazis eliminated Menger’s since he was “classified as ‘Jewish’ according to Nazi criteria.” Who is aware of. Or possibly they are going to begin to enable monuments finally, however solely to girls and minorities. As Hans Hoppe identified to me, it’s notable that “the rather insignificant hard-core socialist woman Marie Jahoda received every conceivable honor from the university and the city of Vienna” as nicely as a monument from UV in 2016. She, together with another girls, obtained monuments, earlier than UV closed the Arcade Courtyard to additional monuments after the Gödel controversy final yr.
Oh nicely. It was price a shot. Mises must be within the UV Arcade, subsequent to Menger and the others. Or possibly the College of Vienna doesn’t deserve him. Fortuitously, nobody wants the permission of the College of Vienna to study and revenue from certainly one of its brightest stars. It’s their loss.
