1985: A defining year in the history of modern Austrian economics

Mises and Hayek in the 1920s and 1940s thought of their work as within the orthodoxy of economic science. But after WWII it became increasingly obvious that the contributions of Mises and Hayek were out of step with the way the economics profession was evolving. But starting in 1974, due to the organizational efforts of Murray Rothbard and Israel Kirzner, and bolstered by the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science to FA Hayek, a resurgence of interest in Austrian economics by young scholars was initiated. Starting in 1984, but significantly in 1985, the work of the new generation of Austrian economics started to have an impact in the mainstream outlets in terms of journals and university presses. We argue that this is a defining year in the modern history of the Austrian school and that it reflected both the quality of work being done by the new generation as well as a methodological crisis within the mainstream of economic scholarship. Don Lavoie’s work in comparative economics, as well as his work in methodology, reflected this shift within the economic conversation.