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Date: | Wed Dec 27 08:48:06 2006 |
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OK, I am going to make one more post- sorry for this
Bruce, but this WILL be my last one.
> But he doesn't deal with it; he merely asserts
> that his method can, but he doesn't attempt to
> account for the fact that individual attitudes
> are already socially formed before anyone acts.
That is, socially formed by the interaction of
individuals in past time periods. Mises does deal with
these things, for instance with his regression theorem
on money (which actually applies to more than money).
Mises did admit to there being some ultimate givens,
which are assumed not explained. But the ultimate
givens in Mises involve things like psychology, the
existence of god, and other things that baffle human
reason, or at least are beyond economics. Mises does
trace the origin of money back to individual action-
interaction that is, and this reasoning applies to all
market institutions. This addresses the chicken and
egg remarks below.
> The social plays no part in his axioms of
> action. What you have in the relationship between
> the individual and society is a chicken-and-egg
> problem, and such problems are never solved by
> asserting either chicken OR egg; they can only be
> resolved by finding a way to assert BOTH chicken
> AND egg. By asserting the chicken (the
> individual), Mises assumes that the egg (a social
> product) will take care of itself. It won't.
> Mises pays lip service to the social, but his
> solution is in no way different from those who
> don't, from pure individualists.
Well this simply is not true. Mises does not assume
that social products care for themselves, but rather
that individual action does. I think you need to
re-read Mises, or look at Hayek's non sequitur of the
dependence effect.
> >Please explain exactly how exactly
> >Misesean economics fails.
>
> Isn't the prior question, "show a case in which
> Misesean economics has succeeded"?
Misesean economics succeeded in predicting that 20th
century socialists states would mismanage capital
investment on a massive scale (see the paper I sent
you). Mises was right on target in the interwar debate
over socialism- and the rest of the profession at that
time said he was wrong. Mises was right and his
neocolassical opponents were wrong. Mises derived this
conclusion by sticking to Menger and ignoring the
Walrasian paradigm.
I don't think this discussion is likely going anywhere
with additional posts. Lets bag this discussion.
DW MacKenzie
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