On February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born. But today’s big birthday celebration here at Common Sense must be that of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, 1851.
Böhm-Bawerk was an Austrian economist who followed in the footsteps of Carl Menger, ushering in what has been called “the marginalist revolution” in economics. He applied the new understanding of economics’ first principles to the problems of capital and interest, penning two of the great classics of the literature, known “Capital and Interest”: the two major volumes are “History and Critique of Interest Theories ” and “Positive Theory of Capital.” He also wrote the first scholarly and systematic refutations of Karl Marx’s exploitation theory and general economic perspective, including the brilliant “Karl Marx and the Close of His System.”