The Österreichische Mediathek, an Austrian archive for sound recordings and videos on cultural and contemporary history, has published a very short clip titled “Vienna Economics” featuring the voice of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. The 26-second clip, dated 1905, is in German, but it allows listeners the rare treat of listening to one of the greatest economists of the twentieth century.
A translation of the page offers this description of the clip:
Unfortunately, the great economist, Professor Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (1851 to 1914), does not speak about his subject in this sound recording, which was recorded in the Vienna Phonogram Archive on December 20, 1905, but rather mentally talks about the then quite new recording machine, the phonograph. - Böhm-Bawerk, who was also twice Minister of Finance (in the Gautsch and Koerber cabinets), along with Carl Menger, Eugen von Philippovich and Friedrich von Wieser, is one of the main representatives of the Viennese School of Economics, which extends well beyond Austria and beyond.
Transcript: I don’t know what future ages would like to learn from us. I would know what I would like to learn from future ages. Unfortunately, the phonogram post, to which I could entrust my curious questions, does not provide a response.
As Guido Hülsmann notes in the magnificent Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, 1905 was the year Böhm-Bawerk was the year he obtained a full chair as a professor at the University of Vienna, a victory of profound importance for the history of the Austrian school.
[Carl] Menger was successful not only in developing the continental tradition of economic science, but also in establishing a network of like-minded young thinkers within the confines of Austria-Hungary. He only failed to get Böhm-Bawerk a chair at the University of Vienna. His favorite disciple applied twice,in 1887 and 1889, but each time the Ministry of Education chose a different candidate. They argued that Böhm-Bawerk represented the same abstract and purely theoretical school as the other chairholder (Menger) and that it was necessary to also have a representative of the new historical school fromGermany. Even this did not prove to be a decisive obstacle. In the fall of 1889, Böhm-Bawerk went to Vienna to join the Ministry of Finance and became an adjunct professor at the University of Vienna; in 1905 he obtained a full chair. Hence, in distinct contrast to all other modern (marginalist) schools of economic thought, the Austrian School quickly reached a position of power, protected by intellectual tradition and political patronage. Under the leadership of the next generation, it would obtain a position of unparalleled influence.
Böhm-Bawerk would end up being publishing important works advancing the Austrian theory of capital and interest, as well one of the most potent takedowns of Karl Marx ever written. His students at the University of Vienna included Ludwig von Mises and Joseph Schumpeter.
In a 2002 Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics article, George Reisman, a student of Mises himself, noted that it’s “entirely conceivable to me that Mises might have described Böhm Bawerk as the most important Austrian economist.”
For readers who are excited to find this neat historical gem, consider checking out the Ludwig von Mises (Audio) Archives available here on the site.
