Preface: Friedrich von Wieser in the History of Economic Thought

Friedrich von Wieser was one of the outstanding practitioners of the discipline of economics. He is not, however, among the recognized giants in the history of economic thought: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall, and John Maynard Keynes. He is, paradoxically, one of those recognized outstanding economists still unfortunately neglected. The fault for this arguably lies not so much with Wieser and his work but with the discipline of economics. The reason for this predicament is that Wieser’s work has not always been interpreted in its entirety and also because of the narrow focus of the main interests of the discipline. An intellectual discipline creates his own self-perception from its history and its history from its self-perception. Accordingly Wieser is honoured for some of what he did but the rest is neglected if not widely forgotten. Ironically, Wieser was himself partially responsible for this predicament. I shall attempt in this chapter to place Wieser in the history of economic thought and to explain the partial recognition and acclaim accorded to him accompanied by the partial failure of collective remembrance of his work.