[Rezension zu Paul Stiassny: Der österreichische Staatsbankerott von 1811]

Ludwig von Mises: Review of Paul Stiassny (1912)

Mises’s review of Der österreichische Staatsbankerott von 1811 measures Stiassny’s monograph against stricter standards of economic history. He criticizes its limited historical exposition and objects to its preliminary theory of the paper-money state without developing that objection. Documentary reproduction occupies the remainder:

Der restliche Teil des Buches wird durch den wörtlichen Abdruck einer Reihe von Patenten und Akten ausgefüllt.

English translation: The remaining part of the book is filled out with the verbatim reprinting of a series of patents and official documents.

Mises grants that the book offers interesting details, but treats these and its comparisons with contemporary conditions as insufficient. His rejection rests on a change in scholarly expectations:

Seither aber hat man gelernt, die Wirtschaftsgeschichte der letzten zwei Jahrhunderte wissenschaftlich zu behandeln; da muß denn auch die Kritik einen strengeren Maßstab anlegen und Arbeiten von der Art der vorliegenden ablehnen.

English translation: Since then, however, we have learned to treat the economic history of the last two centuries scientifically; criticism must therefore apply a stricter standard and reject works of the kind here before us.

The decisive requirement is historical groundwork. Mises endorses Stiassny’s acknowledgment that an exhaustive documentary account of the bankruptcy would require a source-based history of eighteenth-century Austrian finances. Despite its shortcomings and different purpose, Beer’s Finanzen Oesterreichs im XIX. Jahrhundert offers better orientation on the catastrophe of 1811. Mises consequently assigns Stiassny’s book the limited value of a centenary publication. The review distinguishes the accumulation of documents from an explanation grounded in the longer development of public finance.