RoR: Forum

Ed,

I really enjoyed your article. Very much.

Here's a question for you: In your view, to what extent has modern Austrian economics, and by that I mean the economics of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and their followers, embraced Menger's "economics of well-being"?

Now, I realize this is a question for another essay entirely, and I also realize that each of these thinkers may embrace different aspects of Menger's legacy---given that they are all Austrian representatives.

I'm just wondering what your general view is of the modern Austrian school and its relation to Menger... and, by implication, to Rand.

(Truth in advertising: Ed will be a contributor to a very special Journal of Ayn Rand Studies symposium called "Ayn Rand Among the Austrians," which is scheduled for publication in the Spring of 2005, part of volume 6, our year-long celebration of the Rand Centennial.)

Post 2

Friday, January 23, 2004 - 7:26am

Thanks Chris!!!

By extracting information from existing paradigms I believe it is possible to create a paradigm that is more reflective of reality. Specifically, it may be desirable to refine and fuse together the following components: [1] an objective, realistic, natural-law-oriented metaphysics as exemplified in the work of Aristotle, Menger, Rand, and the more recent works of Rothbard; [2] Rand's epistemology which describes essences or concepts as epistemological rather than as metaphysical; [3] a biocentric theory of value as appears in the writings of Menger and Rand; [4] Misesian praxeology as a tool for understanding how people cooperate and compete and for deducing universal principles of economics; and [5] an ethic of human flourishing based on reason, free will, and individuality as suggested in the works of Machan, Rasmussen, Den Uyl, and others.

I plan on writing several short essays for SOLO in the next few months explaing how these components can work together.

Post 3

Friday, January 23, 2004 - 7:14pm

Ed

Your article and subsequent post have intrigued me. I will be very excited to hear more about your ideas as well as learning of the Austrian/Rand relationship. Encore! Now I will have to pick up some supplemental reading to broaden my foundation on the Austrian school of economics. Any suggestions (I am pretty ignorant at the moment)?

Dave

Post 4

Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 9:35am

Mr. Voigt,

For Austrian methodology, you might want to check Hulsman's introduction to the 3d edition of von Mises' EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF ECONOMICS ("EPE")(published by the Mises Institute). Ayn Rand's "marginalia" on some of the philosophical sections of HUMAN ACTION was published in AYN RAND'S MARGINALIA (ed. Mayhew). George Reisman's CAPITALISM has some comments on methodology (he translated EPE but is a Randian).

-NP

Post 5

Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 11:30am

Thanks Neil!

Working at a bookstore will make it easy to get a hold of those titles (I hope!). I have checked out many links here on SOLO and elsewhere on the net for info, but I always LOVE to hear what other people have to say about what they have read and learned.

Dave

Post 6

Monday, January 26, 2004 - 2:18am

Ed, nice article. I agree about the compatibility of Objectivism and Austrian economics. Certainly if you take Menger's work, the parallel is difficult to dispute. Mises' Human Action didn't provide anything like Menger's discussion of value, which is an excellent place to start.

But I think Mises makes an excellent case for his own subjective value theory. It doesn't matter what values someone seeks, praxeology explains the outcomes of those values choices. Do you have an opinion on this topic?

Dave and Neil,

Personally, I don't think Ayn Rand's Marginalia is worth reading. She does a line by line rebuttal of parts of Human Action (and other books), and it gives you the impression she thought it was all crap, when in fact she recommended it. Line by line rebuttals are like nit-picking. If you can't take a step back and see the major thesis of a work, the individual critiques mean little. If you want to know what Rand was thinking while reading something, jump right into it. But I don't think it's useful in understanding Austrian economics at all. I think it says more about her opinion on his choice of words then on her opinion of his ideas.

It's like if someone said to an Objectivist "screw morality...I want to do what makes my life better". You might criticize his words, and some tangential implications of them, but that's different from saying he's wrong.

If you want to learn more about the Austrian school, I suggest reading Menger's Principles of Economics, which is a great introduction, and you can see exactly what Ed's article is referring to. Pretty easy read, if I remember right.

Post 7

Monday, January 26, 2004 - 8:07am

Hi Dave, Neil, and Joe:

I am happy that you enjoyed my essay!

I agree that a good place to begin reading is with Menger's Principles of Economics and Mises' Epistemological Problems. Also, the first 120 pages or so of Mises' magnum opus, Human Action, covers a lot of the philosophical issues involved.

You might want to look at a series of essays I have written on the possibility of an Austrian-Objectivist paradigm. These can be found at www.quebecoislibre.org.

I am just finishing a brief piece that I will shortly send to SOLO called "Can the Ideas of Mises and Rand be Reconciled?"

There are several SOLO contributors who hold similar ideas to mine including Larry J. Sechrest, Tibor Machan, and Chris Sciabarra, among others.

Barry Smith, Sam Bostaph, and Uskali Maki are three experts on Menger and Mises whose works you may want to read.

In addition, the writings of Rothbard, Walter Block, Hans Hoppe, and Stephan Kinsella contribute greatly to one's understanding of the relationship betweeen Austrian Economics and Objectivism.

That should be enough to get started on!

Take care.

Ed

Post 8

Monday, January 26, 2004 - 9:04am

Ed

"That should be enough to get started on!"

I would think so! That's great. By the way, Ed, is Wheeling Jesuit in the Chicago area? I grew up in Chicago and have family and friends there.

Joe

Thanks for the heads up on Marginalia. Maybe at first I will just stick to the Austrians for learning Austrian economics :)

Dave

Post 9

Monday, January 26, 2004 - 11:30am

Dave,

Barry Smith's article on "a priorism" is a good place to start to understand methodological issues --

http://www.mises.org/apriorism.asp

For basic Austrian texts, in level of difficulty start with (1) Gordon's ECONOMIC REASONING, (2)then Hazlitt's ECONOMICS IN ONE EASY LESSON; (3) Callahan's ECONOMICS FOR REAL PEOPLE and (4) Rothbard's MAN, ECONOMY and State. Finally proceed to von Mises' HUMAN ACTION.

Another important work is Fetter's PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS which yours truly had a small role in bringing back to "print."

http://www.mises.org/etexts/fetter.asp

Joe,

I agree with you on the marginalia. I mentioned it only because there isn't much Randian interaction with Austrian methodology in print. Rand had a habit in thinking that she knew what others "really" believed based on what she thought their assumptions were. This comes through a lot in the marginalia.

Post 10

Monday, January 26, 2004 - 2:33pm

Neil, I'm not sure I agree. The marginalia has it's own set of problems that have nothing to do with Rand.

When editing an article, there are multiple levels you examine. The first is a high level idea and flow. Are you making the point well enough. Do you stray too much. What's the major thesis? Is there enough evidence?

Then you can go down to the level of sentence construction, grammar, etc.

The problem with writing notes in the margins is that you're dissecting the work line by line, without ever seeing the big picture. You end up having disagreements with the wording of ideas, without really examining or addressing the major ideas. That's why nearly every comment Rand had in the marginalia is negative, and yet she ended up liking the book enough to endorse it to some degree.

You can clearly see that if you've read Human Action before the marginalia. She's attacking his sentences, but missing his meaning. I don't think this a problem unique to her. I think it's a natural result of trying to comment throughout a book.

It'd be the same if someone edited an article of yours. They might attack every particular line, and at the end say "good article". It's not that they're misunderstanding, or trying to read in false assumptions.

As for Human Action specifically, I also think his philosophy section is one of the most interesting portions. He gives a powerful justification for his methodology. Only problem is, he uses the language of bad philosophy. Any particular line might make you shudder. But if you can see the big picture, the broad lines of reasoning, you'll see what a major accomplishment it was.

Post 11

Monday, January 26, 2004 - 7:54pm

Ed: terrific article -- remarkably sophisticated and well-written. You're up there with Neil Parille and his recent great article on Rand and
religion.

But I wonder how "brilliant" Menger could have really been since even his ~best~ pupil, Ludwig von Mises, doesn't seem to have been a pure economic or political liberal. Didn't both Menger and von Mises support a bit of state interventionism and welfare statism in order to guide/stimulate the collective economy ~and~ to correct/uplift the morality of the individal? Where did they go wrong, in your view?

Similarly, I also wonder why it is that Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc., intellectually ~defeated~ Menger et al. with all of their tommyrot about "class war," "oppression/exploitation of the workers," "wage slaves," "surplus value," "natural monopolies," etc.?

And why haven't Rand and other Objectivists noted and praised this guy more? It's hard to believe ~anyone~ can be as engenius and saintly as this piece implies.

Still, I thought it was an outstanding article overall, with many good and inspiring lines.

Post 12

Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 3:20pm

Wow. I just got around to reading this one, and I'm glad I did. Great job, Ed!

Post 13

Wednesday, January 28, 2004 - 8:49am

Dave:

Wheeling Jesuit University is in Wheeling, West Virginia. Wheeling is about 50 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, PA.

Andre:

Mises and Menger just missed each other as Menger was retiring when Mises arrived at the university.

Mises began as an historicist and took a while to come around. He said that reading Menger's book made an economist of him but he saw Menger's Aristotelianism as too closely related to reality.

In his efforts to escape from historicism Mises wanted to build on "theory alone". He argued that concepts can never be found in reality. Mises wanted to construct a purely deductive system and searched for a foundation upon which to build it. This unfortunately led him to Kantian apriorism.

With respect to Objectivists and Menger the only two that I know of that have lauded Menger are Salsman and Buechner. Their taped courses can be found at ARI's Ayn Rand Bookstore.

Jeremy:

Thanks!!!! I am pleased that you liked my essay.

Post 14

Sunday, March 26, 2006 - 12:15am

You should look at the work of Ludwig Lachmann, whose explicit purpose was to return to both Menger's economic "subjectivism" and to his Aristotelean ontology and epistemology; and at the work of two of Lachmann's students from his South African period, both now in the US: Roger Garrison (http://www.auburn.edu/~garriro/) and Peter Lewin (http://www.utdallas.edu/~plewin/). They are both philosophically closer to Rand than followers of the neo-Kantian Mises can be, and in a better position to take advantage of the fulness of the Austrian tradition than Buechner or Salsman (both of whom I believe now disclaim the name of "Austrian" for their economic viewpoints).

Post 15

Sunday, March 26, 2006 - 10:12am