Capital and Production

Richard Ritter von Strigl (1891–1942) was one of the most brilliant Austrian economists of the interwar period. As a professor at the University of Vienna he had a decisive influence on Hayek, Machlup, Haberler, Morgenstern, and other fourth-generation Austrian economists.

Very few classic works on capital and business cycles in the Austrian tradition have been translated from the original German. Strigl's important contribution to Austrian capital theory is brought to the English-speaking world for the first time. The book links Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk's production theory and Mises's business-cycle theory, and gives a pathbreaking account of the role of consumers' goods within the structure of production.

Translated by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, with an extended introduction by Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Capital and Production is the essential foundation — both in theory and in the history of thought — to Austrian macroeconomics.

As positive theory, this book is unusually lucid. He patiently lays out the entire theory of capital and production, long before getting to applications in the area of business-cycle theory. He establishes without question that time and production plans play the critical role in the formation of the capital sector. We find in here the foundation of what later came to be called Hayekian triangles. We even find a thorough discussion of the impossibility of central monetary planning by the Federal Reserve — it has no way to meet changes in demand with rational plans.

In general, Strigl's theory and explication offer a level of clarity and plainness of expression that some find missing in later works by, for example, F.A. Hayek.

The Mises Institute is particularly proud to have played the essential role in bringing this treatise to the English-speaking world.