Bureaucracy: The Economist

Ludwig von Mises

Nov. 2016 · The Economist Buch 22 · VM eBooks

Über dieses E-Book

The terms bureaucrat, bureaucratic, and bureaucracy are clearly invectives. Nobody calls himself a bureaucrat or his own methods of management bureaucratic. These words are always applied with an opprobrious connotation. They always imply a disparaging criticism of persons, institutions, or procedures. Nobody doubts that bureaucracy is thoroughly bad and that it should not exist in a perfect world.

The abusive implication of the terms in question is not limited to America and other democratic countries. It is a universal phenomenon. Even in Prussia, the paragon of authoritarian government, nobody wanted to be called a bureaucrat. The Prussian king’s wirklicher geheimer Ober-Regierungsrat* was proud of his dignity and of the power that it bestowed. His conceit delighted in the reverence of his subordinates and of the populace. He was imbued with the idea of his own importance and infallibility. But he would have deemed it an impudent insult if somebody had the effrontery to call him a bureaucrat. He was, in his own opinion, not a bureaucrat but a civil servant, his Majesty’s mandatory, a functionary of the State unswervingly attending day and night to the welfare of the nation.

Autoren-Profil

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (29 September 1881 – 10 October 1973) was a theoretical Austrian School economist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on behalf of classical liberalism. He is best known for his work on praxeology, a study of human choice and action.

Mises emigrated from Austria to the United States in 1940. Since the mid-20th century, the libertarian movement in the United States has been strongly influenced by Mises's writings.[citation needed] Mises's great student, F.A. Hayek, viewed Mises as one of the major figures in the revival of liberalism in the post-war era. Hayek's 1951 work, "The Transmission of the Ideals of Freedom" pays high tribute to Mises influence in the twentieth century liberal movement.

Mises's Austrian School was a leading group of economists. Many of its alumni, including Friedrich von Hayek and Oskar Morgenstern, emigrated from Austria to the United States and Great Britain. Mises has been described having approximately seventy close students in Austria, and the Austrians as the insiders of Chicago School of economics. The Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded in the United States to continue his teachings.