Austrian liberal economists conceived economics as an aesthetic, spirit-based humanities discipline.

Evidence

Though the distance between the sinuous forms of Klimt and Schiele and the dry texts of economists might seem vast, Haberler and his fellow Austrian liberals ­were engaged with something similar. Their questions ­were basic, and at some level also aesthetic: How should we mea­sure the “complicated latticework of individual economic acts,” and how can we represent it visually? What face of economic actions should we pres­ent to the public? Haberler wrote in 1927 that economics was concerned not only with outward actions but also with internal motivations, ­matters of the “psyche” and the “spirit,” or Geist. For this reason, he said, economics was one of the humanities, or Geisteswissenschaften, a “science of the spirit.” — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 179

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reading-purpose theme of economic knowledge production: these economists saw their craft as representational/aesthetic rather than value-free social science. — connects to: Austrian liberal economists aligned their discipline with the humanities and the arts — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 179; The Austrian liberal economists grew up amid Vienna’s Secession art movement — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 178; Vienna’s aesthetic formalism and logical positivism derived from its material-economic lag behind high capitalism. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 39 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Explains that Austrian interwar economics was classified as a Geisteswissenschaft, a spiritual/humanities science concerned with motivation and psyche.

Broader Connections

• Austrian liberal economists aligned their discipline with the humanities and the arts #corroborates (0.95) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 179
• The Austrian liberal economists grew up amid Vienna’s Secession art movement #qualifies (0.75) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 178
• Vienna’s aesthetic formalism and logical positivism derived from its material-economic lag behind high capitalism. #expands (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 39
• Neoclassical economists deliberately framed economics as an exact science to gain authority. #qualifies (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 209