Carl Menger, Die österreichischen Finanzen (1875)

Carl Menger’s review of Count Mülinen’s Les finances de l’Autriche presents the book as a timely account of Austrian fiscal recovery for readers abroad. Its argument moves from a history of financial controversy to an assessment of Mülinen’s statistical method and intended audience. Menger’s central claim is that more rational fiscal administration and growing public wealth have substantially improved Austria’s finances, while foreign perceptions have failed to keep pace.

The review begins with an ironic suggestion: a state’s finances, like the women praised in an old proverb, may be healthiest when least discussed. Menger then traces how Austrian financial literature flourished during periods of uncertainty over public credit, from Tegoborski and his patriotic respondent Wiesner through the controversies surrounding 1848 to Czörnig and Adolf Wagner near the beginning of constitutional government.

Seit der zweiten Hälfte der sechziger Jahre ist dieselbe verstummt oder hat sich in die Diatribe der politischen Blätter verflüchtiget.

English translation: Since the second half of the sixties it has fallen silent or has evaporated into the diatribes of the political newspapers.

This contrast between substantial financial inquiry and newspaper polemic establishes Mülinen’s significance. Earlier works responded to fiscal distress; the new book documents recovery. Its principal subject is 1868–1871, when the dualist settlement had separated Austria’s budget from Hungary’s and fiscal administration was undergoing progressive consolidation.

Nicht ein Warnungsruf für die öffentliche Meinung, gleich manchen früheren Schriften dieser Art, ist Mülinens Werk, es soll vielmehr dem unbefangenen Leser den allmäligen, aber erfreulichen Gang der Entwicklung vor die Augen führen, welchen die Finanzen Oesterreichs seit der dualistischen Gestaltung der Monarchie genommen haben, eine Entwicklung, deren Fortgang durch die Krise des Jahres 1873 und ihre Nachwirkungen wohl gehemmt, aber nicht beseitigt worden ist.

English translation: Mülinen's work is not a cry of warning to public opinion, like many earlier writings of this kind; it is rather intended to set before the eyes of the unprejudiced reader the gradual but gratifying course of development which the finances of Austria have taken since the dualistic constitution of the monarchy, a development whose progress has indeed been checked by the crisis of the year 1873 and its after-effects, but not done away with.

Menger thus distinguishes an interruption in improvement from the destruction of its foundations. The commercial crisis of 1873 qualifies his favorable judgment without overturning it. Recovery rests on the interaction of sounder financial management and expanding productive wealth: together they enable the state to bear liabilities inherited from earlier misgovernment. The review places Austria within a broader history of modern states overcoming the fiscal consequences of internal conflict and irrational budgeting.

Mülinen’s evidentiary method is central to Menger’s approval. Conscientiously assembled official statistics on revenue, expenditure, and productive resources accomplish more, he argues, than discursive exposition alone could do. Historical and administrative explanations supplement the tables where clarification is needed. Statistical presentation becomes a means of correcting public judgment, linking the state’s obligations to the resources available to sustain them.

The final movement distinguishes domestic confidence from foreign uncertainty. Menger treats Austrians’ investment choices as evidence that confidence in fiscal administration has already returned:

Spricht doch die Art und Weise, wie die Ersparnisse des Volkes seit einigen Jahren mit Vorliebe die Anlage in österreichischen Staatspapieren suchen, deutlich genug für das wiedergekehrte Vertrauen zu der Finanzverwaltung Oesterreichs.

English translation: For the manner in which the savings of the people have for some years past preferentially sought investment in Austrian government securities speaks clearly enough for the returned confidence in the financial administration of Austria.

Foreign readers, by contrast, lack a reliable account of recent developments. Menger therefore endorses publication in French as a deliberate response to an international information gap, while welcoming a prospective German edition for the German capital market and less closely informed Austrian readers. The review’s relevance lies in this connection between fiscal reform, statistical knowledge, and public credit. Its concluding praise makes the patriotic purpose explicit: a clear and trustworthy presentation of improved finances can correct foreign prejudice and strengthen Austria’s standing abroad.