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Abstract
Carl Menger is remembered less for his analysis of entrepreneurship (which in the following analysis refers to his fundamental notions related to the nature of business practice) than for his views on matters like money, individualism or the nature of institutions (there are exceptions to this subdued interest, such as Kirzner 1978). However, these issues are related and a long-debated notion among Austrians, namely time, relates investment, entrepreneurship, uncertainty and Menger’s tentative quasi-anthropology (kept in his notes). This paper conscientiously investigates those issues through Menger’s views on the notion of time.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks for their kind support the organizers of the 2021 Conference at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis that commemorated Menger's death 100 years ago, as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of his Principles of Economics. The author acknowledges helpful remarks by two anonymous referees.
Notes
1 Contents of Box 2 within the large set of papers and personal items by Carl Menger and Karl Menger, father and son, transmitted by Menger’s granddaughter to Professor Roy Weintraub.
2 That was arguably still much the case in Menger’s time, as he observed when annotating the volume Zur Theorie des Preises by Auspitz and Lieben (Citation1887), noting that the concepts were not defined properly, while the equations soon covered that fact for the untrained reader (for instance, the use of the ceteris paribus clause was absolutely not justified by the authors; that point is stressed in notes on the 1887 copy owned by Menger, 2–5).
3 This is in turn related to the Aristotelian principle that each being tends to survive; for more on Aristotelian philosophical underpinnings, see, besides a rich literature, the revived debate between (Crespo Citation2022) and (Campagnolo Citation2022).
4 In his notebooks (especially in boxes 1–3 and 14 for notebooks falling in the 1910s now located as indicated at Duke University) Menger tended to refute Wundt (a file is labelled “Gegen Wundt” Against Wundt). Notes show that Menger thought of revising some passages from his own Investigations while thinking over Wundt’s results.
5 In the Principles, the word “time” often appears directly in subtitles, for instance Chapter 1, § 4 is entitled “Time and Error” and Chapter 2, §1, section C is the “Time limits within which human needs are felt” (wording here by the volume’s English translators, John Dingwall and Bert Hoselitz).
6 Menger, C., Principles, op. cit. Chap. 2, § 1.b. In the translation by Dingwall and Hoselitz (Citation1871/1950, 84).
7 As Bert Hoselitz recalled (Citation1951), the term “entrepreneur” was used in French and in English long before the German Unternehmer. He retraced this in Chapter 1: “The concept of Entrepreneur in France before Cantillon”, and Chapter 2 “English Concepts designating Entrepreneurial Activity before Adam Smith”. More recent literature is abundant. We refer the reader to it while we investigate the origins of the Mengerian tradition.
8 Menger, C., Principles, op. cit. Chap. 1, § 4. In the translation by Dingwall and Hoselitz (Citation1871/1950, 67).
9 Menger, C., Principles, op. cit. Chap. 3, § 3.c. Dingwall and Hoselitz (Citation1871/1950, 160).
10 Menger, C., Principles, op. cit. Chap. 2, § 1.c. Dingwall and Hoselitz (Citation1871/1950, 87–88).
11 Incidentally, this points to a notion explored later, within the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl or Henri Bergson’s energetic notion of life. Those authors are not mentioned in Menger’s notes in the Principles, whereas Menger was still actively working on his revised edition. Probably, the interval between the moment Menger formed his thought and later developments, as well as the gap between disciplines (as Menger was busy fighting German Historicists) explains this fact, even though he was highlighting some similar fundamental notions regarding human behavior.
12 Indeed, chance (together with cleverness) is at work in the innovation process when Smith depicts a “smart young boy” in the first paragraphs of his Wealth of Nations, who works out a better system for the forge bellows at the needle factory.
13 Menger, C., Principles, op. cit. Chap. 3, § 3.c. Dingwall and Hoselitz (Citation1871/1950, 160).
14 “Si vous pouviez suivre à travers les mille vicissitudes du marché, les parties contractantes, en analyser rigoureusement la position, en peser pour ainsi dire les besoins, vous auriez la solution vraie du problème” (Rossi Citation1852, also quoted in Campagnolo Citation2009). Manuscript note facing page 108 in Menger’s copy of the Principles: Menger quoted in French, we translate into English. Count Rossi had succeeded Jean-Baptiste Say as the Chair of Political Economy at the Collège de France. Menger annotated Rossi’s economics textbook, which was then widespread.
15 See Jean Magnan de Bornier (Citation2008).
16 Menger, C., Principles, op. cit. Chap. 3, § 3.c. Dingwall and Hoselitz (Citation1871/1950, 160).
17 This is consistent with the same observation made when comparing their views on capital (Magnan de Bornier Citation2008).
18 That example is the one Menger used to comment the famous triangular table where he explains the marginal reasoning: p. 93 of the original edition of the 1871 Principles.
19 The same point is mentioned passim in manuscript notes, but it is worth pointing out that while Menger seldom indicted classical texts directly in the main text of the published Principles, he put abundant references both in published pages and in (later) handwritten notes or appendixes.
20 “Men are providing themselves with tools in all strata of the development of their civilization” This que comes from the Principles… Appendix 4 in notes on Chapter 1 with regard to the volume by Gustav Klemm, commented upon at length by Menger (see Campagnolo Citation2020, 319–322): Werkzeuge und Waffen (Tools and Weapons) (Klemm Citation1858). Author’s translation.
21 Discoveries made since then about tool use among certain animals can be treated as exceptions. It also seems that one could, in the future (or perhaps even now?) add the same about robots and artificial intelligence.
22 Principles… (Campagnolo Citation2020, 321). Such remarks surfaced when conversing with Bastien Massé, a current PhD candidate on the theory of innovation and investment who extensively used Menger’s Principles.
23 This position is shared by the editors of the French edition of Polanyi’s essays (Cangiani and Maucourant Citation2008) and Maucourant, a specialist on Polanyi, recently published more texts on how he related to Menger (Abdelkader, Maucourant and Plociniczak Citation2020). See Becchio (Citation2011) and Pinault (Citation2020) as well.
24 In fact, the debate was mostly between Polanyi and Hayek’s “older brother”, Ludwig von Mises (see Pinault Citation2020).
25 For partly opposite, partly complementary views on the respective roles of the Mengers, father and son, regarding the 1923 edition, see Scheall and Schumacher (Citation2018), Campagnolo (Citation2020, 212–226) and Scheall (Citation2020).
26 This had been stressed early on, for instance, by Becchio (Citation2011), as put forth in Campagnolo (2008, 2011: Editor’s Note).
27 On the political economy of mankind and Kultur in the German realm, see Campagnolo (Citation2010, Chap. 4).