Hayek misquotes and mistranslates Menger

Diff

Hier‧ist‧es,‧wo‧uns‧das‧merkwürdige,‧vielleicht‧das‧merkwürdigste‧Problem‧der‧Soczialwissenschaften‧entgegentritt:↵
‧Wieso‧vermögen‧dem‧Gemeinwohl‧dienende‧und‧für‧dessen‧Entwickelung‧höchst‧bedeutsame‧Institutionen‧ohne‧einen‧auf‧ihre‧Begründung‧gerichteten‧**Gemeinwillen**‧zu‧entstehen?

Hier‧ist‧es

,

‧wo‧uns‧das‧merkwürdige,‧vielleicht‧das‧merkwürdigste‧Problem‧der‧So

c

z

ialwissenschaften‧entgegentritt:

↵

‧

Wieso‧vermögen‧dem‧Gemeinwohl‧dienende‧und‧für‧dessen‧Entwick

e

lung‧höchst‧bedeutsame‧Institutionen‧ohne‧einen‧auf‧ihre‧Begründung‧gerichteten‧

**

Gemeinwillen

**

‧zu‧entstehen?

Notes

Hayek does not provide a full source – he merely writes “Untersuchungen, etc., p. 163”. I could not find a bibliography. Providing full source information is the quoter’s responsibility. My policy when the quoter provides insufficient information is simply to pick a source at my discretion and compare. Apart from formatting changes, Hayek introduces a grammatical mistake by omitting a comma. He also modernizes spelling without indication. Hayek translates (83) the passage he quotes into English: “[T]he question ‘how it is possible that institutions which serve the common welfare and are most important for its advancement can arise without a common will aiming at their creation’ is still ‘the significant, perhaps the most significant, problem of the social sciences.’” Unless German had changed since 1883, ‘merkwürdig’ does not mean ‘significant’ but ‘strange’ or ‘remarkable’. Arguably, the first part-quote should say ‘is it’ not “it is” to be true to the original. The second part-quote should end in an ellipsis (though some style guides, such as Chicago, IIRC, permit omitting the ellipsis at the end if the quoting sentence ends there), definitely not in a period (since the original ends in a colon). Thanks to Amaro Koberle for pointing out Bryan Caplan’s claim that Hayek was a “sloppy” quoter (he says at 8:31 that “Hayek was really sloppy.”).