Menger, Carl (1840–1921)

Carl Menger was a professor of economics at the University of Vienna and the founder of the Austrian School of economic thought. Among economists, he ranks as the 19th century's greatest contributor to the theory of spontaneous order—the social-scientific tradition supporting the libertarian view that a free society can generate beneficial and sophisticated institutions without state involvement. Menger's highly original approach to the formation of market prices and institutions marked an important advance over the classical economics of Adam Smith and laid the foundation for later contributions by the Austrian economists Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich A. Hayek.

Menger's revolutionary book on economic theory, Grundsätze der Volkswirthschaflslehre [Principles of Economics], was published in 1871. Menger traveled with the Austrian prince Rudolf in 1876–1878 ...