> 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