I’ve decided I just don’t like Hulsmann’s chapter on Mises and money. The problem isn’t scholarship, there’s enormously impressive scholarship here. The problem for me is that there is a bit too much “cart before the horse” theoretical exposition, often at a very abstract level and somewhat disconnected from a narrative over time concerning Mises’ own research problems and evolving insights. The problem of scatter shot and abstraction can be hinted at by pointing to the introduction of Friedrich Wieser into Hulsmann’s story of Mises on money. Wieser gets introduced as a “representative of the Banking School” while Mises is characterized as having “developed the theory of the Currency School.” Hulsmann then immediately launches into a very abstract account of the “essential elements” of Wieser’s monetary economics. It isn’t until eight pages later the reader gets any hint of what the “Banking School” and the “Currency School” might be, or how they differ on matters of interest to Mises. This may be no distraction to an economist schooled in the history of monetary thought, but such folks are very rare even in economic departments these days.
More later.