Friedrich von Wieser

Infobox_Economist
school_tradition = Austrian School
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name = Friedrich Freiherr von Wieser
birth = birth date|1851|7|10
death = Death date and age|1926|7|22|1851|7|10
nationality = Austrian
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influences =
opposed =
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Friedrich Freiherr von Wieser (July 10, 1851–July 22, 1926) was an early member of the Austrian School of economics.

Born in Vienna the son of a high official in the War Ministry (“Freiherr”, literally "Free Lord", is a "title", equivalent to "baron", not a personal name), he first trained in sociology and law. He was the brother-in-law of another prominent Austrian school economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. Wieser held posts at the universities of Vienna and Prague until succeeding Austrian-school founder Carl Menger in Vienna in 1903 where with Böhm-Bawerk he shaped the next generation of Austrian economists including Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Joseph Schumpeter in the late 1890s and early 1900s. He became Austrian Finance Minister in 1917.

Wieser is renowned for two main works, "Natural Value" (1889), which carefully details the alternative-cost doctrine and the theory of imputation, and his "Social Economics" (1914), which is an ambitious attempt to apply it to the real world.

The economic calculation debate started with his notion of the paramount importance of accurate calculation to economic efficiency. Prices to him represented, above all, information about market conditions, and are thus necessary for any sort of economic activity. A socialist economy, therefore, would require a price system in order to operate.

He also stressed the importance of the entrepreneur to economic change, which he saw as being brought about by “the heroic intervention of individual men who appear as leaders toward new economic shores”. This idea of leadership was later taken up by Joseph Schumpeter in his treatment of economic innovation.

Unlike almost all Austrian School economists he rejected classical liberalism, writing that “freedom has to be superseded by a system of order”.

See also

* List of Austrian scientists
* Austrian School of economics

External links

* [http://www.mises.org/hsofase/ch1sec4.asp Article on Wieser's political career]
* [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/wieser.htm Biography in the History of Economic Thought]
* [http://dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Economics/Schools_of_Thought/Austrian_School/People/Wieser,_Friedrich_von/ Open Directory Project - Friedrich von Wieser] directory category