Max Ehrenfreund

Ehrenfreund’s dissertation is a study of the socialist calculation debate, an intellectual exchange among interwar economists, journalists, and politicians who sought an economic theory for a socialist society. Using archival sources, Ehrenfreund presents a new interpretation of this debate in the context of contemporary shifts in the cultural meanings of calculation and the political valences of mathematics in Austria and the United States. With the Botstiber Institute’s support, Ehrenfreund will travel to archives in Michigan and California to examine papers and letters that belonged to some of the major participants in this controversy.

Max Ehrenfreund is a Ph.D. candidate in history of science at Harvard University.