Mises comments on Parsons

I have for along time wondered what Talcott Parsons and Ludwig Mises thought about each others work, and more generally what the Austrians thought about the Parsons school and vice versa. It appears that the twain never really met in any meaningful way, or even acknowledged each others existence, although I sometimes wondered whether the title of the Mises opus "Human Action" was a challenge to Parsons' "The Structure of Social Action".

Imagine my surprise to find that there is a footnote reference to Parsons in a Mises essay 'The treatment of irrationality in the social sciences', originally in the journal "Philosophy and Phenomenological Research" (June 1941) and reprinted in the posthumous collection "Money, Method and the Marketplace" (1990).

The footnote is appended to the following sentence "However, we should not forget that a long line of German philosophers and historians have brilliantly succeeded in the elucidation of the epistemological problems of history."

The footnote reads "For a critical presentation of these theories, cf Talcott Parsons' The Structure of Human Action [and] Raymond Aron, German Sociology."

The text continues "Of course, to the men to whom we are indebted for these contributions no place is assigned in present-day Germany's Hall of Fame".

That is a remarkably generous tribute to Parsons, because the only reference to Carl Menger in TSA is a footnote reference to his debate with Schmoller. By comparison, Parsons refers to Marshall as an independent discoverer of marginalism and also the pioneer in opportunity cost which is the role usually attrbuted to Weiser.