I've been struggling with understanding Ludwig von Mises' use of the term autistic exchange published in 1949 in his book Human Action. I was thinking that as a

I've been struggling with understanding Ludwig von Mises' use of the term autistic exchange published in 1949 in his book Human Action. I was thinking that as a non-native writing in English he had more or less invented the term from auto. I had already established the words autism and autistic came into the language in the first half of the 20th century. This article now makes it clear to me he had been keeping up with the literature in other social science fields, and the early literature on autism emphasized the social withdrawal and detachment. Hence von Mises identifies autistic exchange with an economic exchange a person makes with oneself. The example he gives is a hunter who expends a cartridge he possesses to shoot a deer in order to eat.