I have sometimes been surprised by the level of hostility of some Austrian economists toward Joseph Schumpeter. I once asked a distinguished Austrian economist why so much hostility? His answer was: ‘Schumpeter was mean to Hayek.’ Of course, Schumpeter and F.A. Hayek disagreed on some issues of method and theory, but so did other Austrians, such as Murray Rothbard and Hayek. I have read a few biographies of Schumpeter and have never read that Schumpeter was ever personally mean to Hayek. To the contrary, when I spent a day in the Schumpeter archives at Harvard, I ran across a carbon-copy of a letter that Schumpeter wrote to Stephen P. Duggan, co-founder and president of the Institute of International Education. Schumpeter wrote that Hayek wanted to give a lecture tour of the United States in March and April and asked if Duggan “would undertake the management of the trip.” Schumpeter wrote that “very many economists in this country would like an exchange of ideas with so outstanding a man.” (The letter was dated “January 16,” with a typo in the year, but with a jotted correction indicating, I think, “1940”—Hayek did visit the United States in 1940.)
Skimming Schumpeter’s letters in the archive leaves the impression that Schumpeter was almost always gracious to everybody almost all of the time, Hayek included.