New in the Ward and Massey Libraries, among 25,000 titles. Lord Robbins, Autobiography of an Economist (London: MacMillan, St. Martin’s Press, 1971). From pp. 107-108:
I cannot leave this theme [the non-viability of socialism] without expressing further indebtedness to von Mises, both for what I have learnt from his writings in other connections and for many days of pleasant and enter- taming companionship in Austria and Geneva. There are features of his intellectual position in regard to pure theory and also in regard to public policy with which I am not in agreement. But I should be sorry to let differences of this sort obscure recognition of the importance of his work.
Although excluded by sectarian animus from the position in the University of Vienna which on intellectual merits was his due — he was neither a Catholic nor a Social Democrat — he represented in his generation, with Schumpeter, the great traditions of Menger, Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser; and as a thinker in his own and as the teacher of such men as Haberler, Hayek, Machlup and Morgenstern, he is one of the significant figures in the history of economics in the first half of this century.
It is true that he has a sharp pen with departures from what he believes to be correct views — I myself have been a victim on one occasion. It is true also that he has adopted some positions which have shown, I think, an unwarranted degree of hostility to propositions which, whether right or wrong, deserved more sympathetic consideration. But I fail to comprehend how anyone not blinded by political prejudice can read his main contributions, his Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel, long stretches of Die Gemeinwirtschaft and the magisterial general treatise, Human Action, without experiencing at once a sense of rare quality and an intellectual stimulus of a high order, however much he may disagree either with the assumptions or the conclusions. And I think that the disparagement which so often accompanies reference to this distinguished man, particularly in some circles in the English-speaking world which pride themselves on being dispassionate and enlightened, is most discreditable and mean-spirited. It is a sad demonstration of the fact that, in our day, in such quarters, any deviation from good sense, however considerable, on the part of someone whose sympathies lie with the Left is entitled to the blind eye to the telescope, yet what are counted similar deviations on the part of anyone suspected of being at all right of centre are too often visited with academic ostracism and indiscriminating condemnation of anything he has to say.
