Time, uncertainty and knowledge: the foundations and the modernity of Carl Menger’s contribution

Abstract

This contribution is dedicated to the originality and the modernity of Carl Menger’s contribution today. The focus here is not, however, on defining this originality relative to economists of the past, that is either the so-called “founders” of the “Neo-classical School” (such as Léon Walras or Vilfredo Pareto), or Menger’s followers (such as Friedrich von Wieser or Friedrich Hayek). Instead, this contribution focuses the originality and the modernity of Menger’s work in relation to the various forms of contemporary economics with a view to investigate the remaining and persistent relevance of Menger’s approach for modern economics. Specifically, this paper focuses on three main concepts that express the modernity and originality of Menger’s works: time, uncertainty and knowledge. It finally stresses the relation between Menger and modern complexity economics.

Keywords:

• History of economic thought
• methodology and heterodox approaches
• relations of economics to other disciplines
• Austrian economics
• complexity economics
• Carl Menger

JEL CODES:

• B19
• B25
• B31
• B53

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sandye Gloria and Ludovic Ragni for their excellent organisation of the International Conference Carl Menger: One Century Later Originalities and Modernities on the 24th to the 26th November 2021, and the EJHET editors and referees, specifically Sandye Gloria for her encouragement and helpful discussions writing this contribution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).