The Viennese Students of Civilization

The Meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered

Erwin Dekker

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781107126404
• eBook ISBN:
  9781316540770
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

This book argues that the work of the Austrian economists, including Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, has been too narrowly interpreted. Through a study of Viennese politics and culture, it demonstrates that the project they were engaged in was much broader: the study and defense of a liberal civilization. Erwin Dekker shows the importance of the civilization in their work and how they conceptualized their own responsibilities toward that civilization, which was attacked left and right during the interwar period. Dekker argues that what differentiates their position is that they thought of themselves primarily as students of that civilization rather than as social scientists, or engineers. This unique focus and approach is related to the Viennese setting of the circles, which constitute the heart of Viennese intellectual life in the interwar period.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Series information
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Epigraph
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Cultivating economic knowledge: The student of civilization in Paradies
• 3 Trapped between ignorance, customs and social forces: The individual in the tradition of the Viennese students of civilization
• 4 The market: civilizing or disciplinary force? On the role of markets in the civilizing process
• 5 Instincts, civilization and communities: The conversation about the individual and civilization continued
• 6 Therapeutic nihilism or the humility of the student: On the limitations of the student of the civilization
• 7 The student as defender of civilization: Or Scipio’s tears and the fate of a civilization
• 8 The student of civilization and his culture: On the relationship between the scholar and his object of study
• 9 Meaning lost, meaning found: The migration and initial reception of the Viennese students of civilization in the United States
• 10 What it means to be a student of civilization: On modern economics and the study of civilization
• Bibliography
• Index
• Series list