In Mises’s View, Böhm-Bawerk’s Theory Failed to Do Justice to the Universality and Inevitability of Time Preference

Mises, while paying tribute to the “imperishable merits” of Böhm-Bawerk’s seminal role in the development of the time-preference theory, sharply criticized the epistemological perspective from which Böhm-Bawerk viewed time as entering the analysis. For Böhm-Bawerk time preference is an empirical regularity observed through casual psychological observation. Instead, Mises saw time preference as a “definite categorial element . . . operative in every instance of action.” In Mises’s view, Böhm-Bawerk’s  theory failed to do justice to the universality and inevitability of the phenomenon of time preference. 

—Israel M. Kirzner, “Ludwig von Mises and the Theory of Capital and Interest,” in Essays on Capital and Interest: An Austrian Perspective, ed. Peter J. Boettke and Frédéric Sautet, The Collected Works of Israel M. Kirzner (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010), 138.