Carl Menger after 1871: Quest for the Reality of ‘Economic Man’

Abstract

After nearly 20 years of retirement, Carl Menger died on 26 February 1921, leaving behind a considerable number of notes and manuscripts as well as over 20,000 books. In the turbulent and inflationary days after the war, the bereaved sold the main part of the library — one of the best collections of economic literature in the world — to a university in Japan. Some parts of Menger’s manuscripts were edited by his son for inclusion in the second edition of the Grundsatze der Volkswirtschaftslehre (Principles of Political Economy) which was published two years later in 1923. Between two publications nearly half a century passed, during which period the author devoted time to reflecting on the nature of economic theory, to whose renovation he had contributed with the first edition of the Grundsatze.