> I certainly agree that Mises rejected
> equilibrium, and many other particular doctrines
> as well. Of course, one can ask, if equilibrium
> (and hence equity) is not possible even in
> principle, than what rationale remains for the
> system?
The rationale is that Mises saw capitalism as a
progresive system, one where living standards would
improve continually, though never reach any global
optimum- because there is no such state, only trends
towards progress and decline.
But laying that question aside, the
> reason for regarding Mises as the purest form of
> neoclassicism involves the basic assumptions of
> neoclassicism, namely the self-interest
> maximizing, autonomous individual.
Mises assumed no such thing. If you read Human Action
you would know that Mises assumed only that
individuals undertake purposeful actions. Mises
allowed for altruism, self sacrifice, and blind
determination. As for being autonomous, Mises saw this
a purely fictional. Moreover, Mises rejected the
notion of an isolated autonomous man as a part of his
theory-
"If praxeology speaks of the solitary individual,
acting on his own behalf only and independent of
fellow men, it does so for the sake of a better
comprehension of the problems of social cooperation.
We do not assert that such isolated autarkic human
beings have ever lived and that the social stage of
man's history was preceded by an age of independent
individuals roaming like animals in search of food.
The biological humanization of man's nonhuman
ancestors and the emergence of the primitive social
bonds were effected in the same process. Man appeared
on the scene of earthly events as a social being. The
isolated asocial man is a fictitious construction."
Human Action, part 2, chapter 8
Now, the
> existence of such an individual is doubtful, and
> cannot be confirmed from psychology, from
> anthropology, or from introspection. Hence it
> must be, logically, a pure a priori without any
> empirical foundation. While this is implicit in
> all of neoclassicism, it is explicit in Mises,
No it is not explicit, but explicitely denied. I have
to wonder where you got such a false impression of
Mises.
> I do believe that Mises is absolutely right about
> capitalist equilibrium;
TO Mises capitalism has no equilibrium. I thought I
had already made this clear in my last post.
the system cannot (and
> certainly has not) delivered what it promises.
The only claims that Mises made regarding capitalism
is that the increase in living standards and total
population in and 19th centuries was made possible by
the adoption of capitalism over mercantilism, and that
this progress would continue- provided that people
rejected socialism. Given the results of Bolshevism
and Nazism (Mises' two main targets, explicitely) it
is clear that he was right.
In
> order to reach any semblance of equilibrium,
> distributional issues will have to be taken into
> account, and distribution not merely of incomes
> but of wealth-producing assets, such as land,
> tools and education. Neoclassicism therefore
> promises what it cannot deliver, and the
> steroidal neoclassicism of Mises honestly
> discards the promise. And while I disagree with
> the system, I must admire the honesty.
Well, I actually have a paper on the distributional
issues with Mises and Lange- close to being published
in ROPE (I can send you a copy directly, but the HES
list does not allow attachments to pass through). So
Mises did address distributional issues. As for your
'semblance of equilibrium' remark, I must again
emphasize that Mises saw equilibrium as nothing more
than a pure thought experiment, pure fiction, fantasy.
Your insistence that Mises beleived in equilibrium and
autonomous maximizers proves only that you do not
understand his work. Reading Mises is hard, but
attacking him prior to doing so is absurd.
DW MacKenzie
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