Remembrances of Fritz Machlup

By Richard Ebeling


Years ago -- in an earlier century! -- I knew Machlup at NYU when I was a graduate student.

He was a master of the spoken word. He would sometimes begin a public lecture by saying that someone had asked him before the talk that they were looking forward to hearing what he had to say. Machlup would say that he told that person that he (Machlup), too, was looking forward to finding out what he would say!

Thus, he gave the impression that it was all extemporaneous, off the top of his head. But it was always clear that his words had been clearly thought out before he got up to speak, though he often did not read from prepared notes.

He has great charm, and an old-world Viennese gentlemanly style. He would be introduced to women attending his lecture, and invariably would kiss their hand, and complement them in some way.

He was always patient and giving of his time. There were many occasions during which I would spend hours in his company at his office at NYU, with him telling stories of old Vienna, the Mises-Circle, and the economic controversies of a long-gone era.

I liked him very much. I had lunch with him only two or three days before he died, and he told me to be sure to come to see him, again, soon. There was a lot more he still had to tell. Alas, that time was the last.

Dr. Richard Ebeling is a faculty member in the Economics department at Northwood University in Midland, MI, and the "discoverer" of the lost papers of Ludwig von Mises. His most recent book is Political Economy, Public Policy and Monetary Economics: Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian Tradition