144th birthday would be celebrated present Ludwig von MisesThe top economist in history. It is worth mentioning on this occasion, in particular, that all the features of his achievements and worldview which the critic might consider to be ideological inconsistencies or personality contradictions, were in fact perfectly complementing elements of his intellectual and moral orientation.
Well... Ludwig von Mises He was at the same time an uncompromising liberal in a classical kind and a steadfast aristocracy of the spirit, well understood that freedom can only be a permanent accomplishment in the society of individuals aspiring to characteristic excellence.
He was besides an uncompromising supporter of free competition and advocate of timeless, nonsubjective cultural standards, full knowing that actual civilizational quality can only be active in the masses if the masses get to its voluntary choice and show the will to cultivate it conscientiously.
He was at the same time a proponent of material and technological advancement and a consistent teacher of truth, that to that advancement there are no shortcuts – or truth, that his endurance must be occupied in all generation with virtues of prudence, industriousness and abstinence (and thus all that is included in the concept of "low temporal preference") and marked by a deep knowing of iron economical laws describing both natural possible and indelible limitations contained in the logic of human action.
In conclusion, Ludwig von Mises was a model expressionist of awareness that liberalism had nothing to do with slogans of the genre "dot what it wants", and order and order had nothing to do with bureaucratic swarms of "economic plans", "historical policies" or "national educational programmes". In another words, he was a model spokesperson for these key truths, which already in his time have adopted very few, and which present even more fewer are able to comprehend at least on a meaningful level.
Hence the commemoration of the birth of this unique thinker is increasingly desirable with each subsequent year – for example, to emphasize that authentic intellectual greatness grows solely on the basis of moral uncompromisingness, which is included in the Vergilius phrase chosen by the mentioned character for his life's motto: "don't quit evil, but act against it more and more courageously."
Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
