Subjectivism and Economic Analysis: Essays in memory of Ludwig ...

INTRODUCTIONdirection of Israel Kirzner, a programme in Austrian economics wasbegun. At Kirzner’s invitation, Lachmann was brought to NYU in1975 as a Visiting Research Professor. Until 1987 when his healthprevented it, Lachmann travelled each spring to NYU to participatein the Austrian Economics Colloquium and to give a seminar on‘Topics in Advanced Economic Theory’.In these final years Lachmann’s patient exposition of his radicalsubjectivist views finally received the sort of attention it deserved.Young Austrians were not the only students coming under hisinfluence. Post Keynesians and other opponents of neoclassicalorthodoxy also discovered him. By the time Lachmann died inDecember 1990 he had ensured a future for his ideas by leavingbehind him a large and heterogeneous group of young scholarsstrongly influenced by his work.The difficulty in classifying Lachmann according to schools ofthought testifies to the originality of his thought. Lachmann isgenerally thought of as an Austrian economist. And yet theacademics who most zealously claim that label generally repudiateLachmann’s views as ‘nihilistic’. Lachmann’s closest intellectual allywas probably G.L.S.Shackle, a scholar generally counted among theKeynesian or Post Keynesian ranks. Hayek once describedLachmann’s Capital and its Structure (1956) as containing all thatwas of value in Hayek’s own Pure Theory of Capital. Nevertheless,Lachmann was to reject his teacher’s definition of economics as thestudy of the unintended consequences of human action (Lachmann1986:32–3). The influence of Sombart was to be reflected inLachmann’s book The Legacy of Max Weber (1971b). Sombartmay even have been one of the influences encouraging Lachmann totake a sceptical view of the predictive powers of economic theory.As we have seen, however, Sombart’s influence was not sufficient tokeep Lachmann from identifying with the Austrian tradition ofMenger, Mises, and Hayek.The great variety of influences on Lachmann and the greatvariety of persons upon whom he had an influence are reflections ofa marked openness of his thought and character. Lachmann waspersonally a very open-minded thinker. He was one of the fewserious scholars, for instance, to give careful consideration to theanti-inflation proposal of Abba Lerner and David Colander. (For atime, their proposal was required reading for students in NYU’sprogramme in Austrian Economics.)Lachmann’s attitude towards students was also that of openness.He was always available for discussions with graduate students. He3