Ludwig von Mises: Review of Andreas Walther’s Geldwert in der Geschichte (1912)

Ludwig von Mises’s short methodological review praises Walther’s account of historical price research while challenging its attempt to establish monetary equivalences across periods. Its argument moves from appreciation of Walther’s learning and use of the budget method, especially Wieser’s refinements, to a criticism of the standardized comparisons that compromise his historical approach.

Mises endorses Walther’s aim of making historical prices intelligible through their social meaning. Understanding a sum recorded in a historical document requires familiarity with the economic stratification of its time, not simply conversion into present-day currency. He reports Walther’s guiding principle:

Nur um eine Darstellung in Anschauung könne es sich dabei handeln.

English translation: It could here be a matter only of a presentation in intuitive form (Anschauung).

The point is to develop a concrete historical understanding. An experienced specialist’s figures already carry meaning acquired through sustained immersion in the period. Walther’s analogy with language therefore matters: translating prices into familiar monetary units is a beginner’s aid, whereas the ultimate goal is to understand a historical economic world on its own terms.

Mises locates the methodological inconsistency precisely where Walther turns this contextual understanding into comparative scales:

Diesem schönen Programm wird der Verfasser freilich untreu, wenn er Skalen ökonomischer und sozialer Schichtung aufzustellen versucht, wenn er nach »Normalbudgets« fahndet und wenn er schließlich selbst seine Haupt- und Hilfsskalen zu kombinieren versucht.

English translation: The author becomes untrue to this fine programme, to be sure, when he attempts to set up scales of economic and social stratification, when he goes in search of "normal budgets", and when he finally even attempts to combine his principal and auxiliary scales.

For Mises, the category of the “normal” is inapplicable to the historian and price statistician. Asking which past sum corresponds to 12,000 contemporary marks is no more meaningful than asking whether a Carolingian count equates to one or another rank of Prussian administrative official. The analogy exposes the problem shared by monetary and institutional comparison: apparently comparable units can conceal historically different social meanings.

Mises attributes Walther’s inconsistency to excessive concessions to prevailing historical practice. Yet his conclusion remains warmly favorable. He expects Walther’s announced work in comparative administrative history to reveal his underlying intentions more clearly and recommends the study to historians and statisticians. The review’s significance lies in this distinction between understanding historical purchasing and social circumstances and manufacturing standardized equivalences: Mises values price history as contextual interpretation while resisting its reduction to a conversion procedure.