Samuel Bostaph wrote:   
> Unfortunately for his argument, Alan Isaac's substitution   
> assumes what he sets out to show--that social  entities   
> are akin to biological organisms and thus meaning can be   
> extracted from such a substitution of  biological terms   
> into Mises's explanation of one task of M.I.   
  
  
I am afraid you missed my point.  
  
What my playful substitution reveals is the structure of   
Mises's "argument".  (I.e., in this particular case, there   
is none.) It is merely a metaphysical stance presented in   
the disguise of a methodological exposition.  
  
My final comment was ironic.  (Email is notoriously a tricky     
medium for the communication of irony.) I was not in any way   
suggesting the superiority (i.e., greater usefulness) of   
a strategy of cellular (or for that matter atomic or   
subatomic) analysis of either individual behavior or social   
evolution.  
  
Of course in the early 21st century we tend to view anyone   
who denies that there is in "some sense" a possible   
reduction to such a level to oddly deviate from naturalism   
and drift into mysticism.  But as Donald Davidson has   
explained at length this has nothing to do with determining   
the appropriate (i.e., useful) level of analysis, which may   
be in in terms of individuals or for that matter may be in   
terms of organizations and institutional structures.  
  
But my point, as you inadvertently expose in your comment,   
was only that Mises does not prove anything about the   
appropriate level of analysis. He merely assumes it and then   
recapitulates implications of his assumption.  
  
Cheers,  
Alan Isaac