> I do think that it is important, as a matter of   
> history, to get Mises right. Mises, far from   
> being "heterodox," represents, in my opinion, the   
> purest form of neoclassical orthodoxy, sort of an   
> orthodoxy on steroids. After all, the man who   
> accused his Mount Pellerian Society colleagues of   
> being "a bunch of socialists" deserves some   
> points for purity, if not for coherence.   
  
  
This is absolutely wrong. Mises worked out a system,  
right or wrong, that focused on true dynamics. To  
Mises neolcassical competitive equilibria are purely  
fictional. Mises recognized only a 'plain state of  
rest'- the actual results of daily trading, where  
competition would result in some set of actual non  
optimal trades.   
  
Mises reffered to competitve equilibrium as a 'final  
state of rest'- which he argued was completely  
impossible. Actual markets work in a series of plain  
states of  rest with only some tendency towards a  
final state of rest. There are two points to mention  
here. First, changing economic conditions imply that  
the circumstances of the final state of rest are never  
the same. With perfect information on existing  
economic conditions we might attain a final state of  
rest on a given day, but we do not have this  
information. With unchanging conditions we might  
approach a final state of rest through successive  
trials, day after day. But with changing conditions  
this is utterly impossible. In other words, to Mises  
there is no unique and unchanging final state of rest,  
as depicted in mainstream models. There are only  
potential unseen final states of rest, which change  
every day, for eternity, and actual realized market  
trades- far from pareto optimal, but superior to  
anything that state planning can generate. See this  
link for further explanation-  
  
http://www.mises.org/story/2289  
  
Second. The tendency towards a final state of rest  
derives from the action principle- we each perceive  
our present situation, imagine some alternative  
situations which we beleive to be feasible in the  
future, and then undertake actions to attain what we  
expect to be the most desirable situation out of our  
known alternatives. Please tell me how any of this  
fits in with the Neoclassical orthodoxy- which derives  
from the purely fictional Walrasian thought  
experiment.   
  
Modern orthodoxy is Walrasian and Mises, as a true  
evolutionary thinker, was absolutely opposed to such  
static equilibrium theorizing. As for the Mt Pellerin  
reference reference, this is irrelevant because it  
does not represent his thinking on economics. Mises  
had a very short fuse and was therefore prone behaving  
like a jackass. Sorting Mises out as a scholar  
requires one to look past his emotionally driven  
tirades, and to focus instead on his thought driven  
economic analysis. His analysis was truly brilliant,  
so one should make some effort to look past his  
obnoxious outbursts. Doing so reveals that his system  
was fundamentally at odds with static neoclassical  
theorizing.   
  
  
DW MacKenzie