We can certainly agree on the historical   
importance of Mises, if not for the same reasons.   
You, for his uniqueness, me for his typicality.  
  
Steven Horwitz wrote:  
>"As a thinking and acting being, man emerges   
>from his prehuman existence already as a social   
>being.  The evolution of reason, language and   
>cooperation is the outcome of the same   
>process;  they were inseparably and necessarily linked together."  (HA:  43)  
>  
>"Inheritance and environment direct a man's   
>actions.  They suggest to him both the ends and   
>the means.  He lives not simply as a man in   
>abstracto;  he lives as a son of his family, his   
>race, his people, and his age;  as a citizen of   
>his country;  as a member of a definite social   
>group; as a practitioner of a certain   
>vocation;  as a follower of definite religious,   
>metaphysical, philosophical, and political ideas;  
>as a partisan in many feuds and   
>controversies.  He does not himself create his   
>ideas and standards of value;  he borrows them from other people."  (HA:  46)  
>  
>"Individual man is born into a socially   
>organized environment.  In this sense alone we   
>may accept the saying that society is -   
>logically or historically - antecedent to the individual."  (HA:  143)  
  
You are certainly correct in that Mises does   
recognize man as a social being, but he draws no   
conclusion from this, at least none that I can   
see. Instead, he insists on a methodological   
individualism. But if man is a social being, how   
is this possible? It does not seem to me that Mises answers this question.  
  
  
>I'm not even going to bother to refute the   
>"self-interest maximizing" part because Mises   
>never invoked the language of "maximization" and   
>his notion of "self-interest" was so broad as to   
>be nearly empty.  It certainly was not narrow   
>"self-interest" in the way we often talk about it now.  
  
Then how do you reconcile that with this   
statement from Mises (and many just like it):  
  
"The man who gives alms to hungry  
children does it, either because he values his own satisfaction expected from  
this gift higher than any other satisfaction he could buy by spending this  
amount of money, or because he hopes to be rewarded in the beyond.  
(735)"  
  
The concept in this statement hardly seems   
"empty" at all; clearly, he believes that even in   
charity the benefit derived must exceed the   
dollars expended. Is that an "empty" concept? And   
is this really different from "narrow   
self-interest" as "we often talk about it now"?   
The difference is not clear to me.  Further,   
Mises, who does not know me, purports to know my   
motive for giving a buck to beggar. The question   
arises, "how does he know this?" And still   
further, in other parts of the text, Mises denies   
that we can make any statements about motives,   
yet here he clearly makes such a statement. There   
seems to me to be an inconsistency; there is certainly room for doubt.  
  
  
  
>I must confess my pleasure in seeing an extended   
>discussion of Mises's work on this list, as I do   
>think he needs to be taken seriously by   
>historians of thought.  I must also confess my   
>disappointment that we are seeing this attempt   
>to read Mises into a neoclassical framework that   
>is utterly contradicted by not just the text of   
>HA but by his whole life's work, not to mention   
>that of the modern Austrians who are attempting   
>to expand and explore his framework.  
  
And yet the Libertarians invoke him constantly,   
and I don't think you can easily sever the   
connection between Libertarianism and   
neoclassicism, even if neither side likes the association.  
  
  
John C. Medaille