Carl Menger - an unwitting revolutionary?

The primary purpose of the considerations in this chapter is to show that there is a fundamental difference in the two styles of thinking about economic processes, namely initiated by Carl Menger (and then continued by other representatives of the Austrian school of economics) and the other two representatives of the marginalist revolution, Stanley Jevons and Léon Walras. These two traditions of thought are called à la Menger and à la Walras. We highlight the differences in understanding the marginality concept among the three founders of the marginalist revolution, describe the attempts to “homogenize and de-homogenize” the ideas of Menger, Walras, and Jevons, highlight the fundamental differences in the acceptance of mathematics in economic analysis by these three economists, and describe the reasons why Carl Menger consciously have not used mathematics in the analysis of economic phenomena. The concluding remarks present the variety of opinions of other economists on Carl Menger and his work.