Seminars

If Mises was waging a campaign against the dangers of economic ignorance, the classroom remained campaign headquarters. The winter semester of 1920–1921 concentrated on business-cycle theory, featuring sessions on the problem of economic crises, on what are “normal” or “good” or “bad” economic conditions, on the historical crises of 1900–1902, 1907, 1873, and on the permanent effects of the business cycle.²³

In the winter semester of 1921–1922, his university seminar focused on some larger issues of monetary theory. It was a memorable semester because for the first time the participants included several who would become his star students: Hayek, Haberler, Machlup, and Schütz.²⁴

While the pedagogical effort made in the “seminars on theoretical economics” was related to the pressing issues of Austria's monetary policy, the subjects discussed in Mises's private seminar were less directly connected to current political events.²⁵

In the next few years, the private seminar continued the discussion of basic conceptual problems of economics, but increasingly turned to the discussion of fundamentally different approaches in the social sciences.²⁶,²⁷

Hayek sometimes found these debates grueling and felt relieved when he left Vienna to spend a year in New York:

On the whole I felt somewhat tired of the subjects which had chiefly occupied me in Vienna during the preceding year or so, such as the theory of subjective value or the problem of economic calculation under socialism.²⁸

And comparing the way things were discussed in the United States with what he knew from home, he praised the greater focus of the American way:

Insofar as theoretical discussions take place here at all, they have one great advantage: there is a certain stock of generally recognized doctrine, which corresponds essentially to that of the Marshallian School and which is unquestionably accepted, to the point that, when a problem is discussed, the discussion concerns only this problem and not the entire “foundations” of economics.²⁹

By the time Hayek returned to Vienna in May, 1924, the seminar had an eminently interdisciplinary character. Fewer than a third of the members—Strigl, Haberler, Hayek, Machlup, Morgenstern, Lieser, and Braun—were trained economists, thus the discussions must have been much more “philosophical” than typical present-day debates. The meetings took place on Friday nights on a fortnightly basis. The twenty-some participants assembled in Mises's office at the Kammer around 7 p.m. One member gave a short introductory talk, which was followed by long discussions until 10:30, at which point the “official” part of the evening ended and the assembly moved to a restaurant—usually an Italian restaurant called Ancora Verde—where the “unofficial” debate continued. The most ardent debaters, Mises usually among them, finally went on to the Café Künstler and stayed until 2 or 3 a.m. Mises later insisted that in this circle he was not a teacher and director, but only the first among equals.

Student roster for the Privatseminar in 1927

All who belonged to the circle came voluntarily, only imbued by the drive to gain more knowledge. They came as disciples, but in the course of the years they turned into friends. Later, some people of my own age joined the circle too. Scholars from abroad, who paid a visit to Vienna, were welcome guests and took part in the meetings.

The private seminar... was and always remained the circle of my—much younger—friends. Outsiders knew nothing of our meetings; they only saw the works published by individual members.

We formed no school, no community, and no sect. We supported one another more through dissent than through assent. We were agreed and united only in one thing: in striving to build up the sciences of human action. Each one went the way that his own law pointed out to him. We have never organized or undertaken anything else that would have resembled the abject “doing research” of the “scientists” of imperial and post-imperial Germany. We have never pondered the thought of publishing a journal or a collective volume. Each one has worked by himself, as it befits the thinker. But each single one of us has contributed to the circle and looked for no other compensation than the recognition—not the applause—of his friends.

There was greatness in this unpretentious exchange of ideas; we all found happiness and satisfaction in it.³⁰