Michael Nuwer wrote: > Pat Gunning's "logical structure of the human mind" is impervious to such change. He can, thereby, insist that the subject matter of economics is "how people act under the conditions of a market economy." The approach makes our focus the means involved for attaining an end, and removes from focus the molding of ends by social circumstances and psychological interactions. > > This is where I find a systematic bias. The Misian way of looking at matters systematically neglects the ways in which the modern economy constitutes the purposeful individual. Ideology enters here insofar as the discourse of purposeful action theory is directed at reconciling us to accepting capitalist institutions as the inevitable byproduct of social life. > Hi, Michael: I agree with you up to a point. However, I disagree with your characterization of the Misesian system as being systematically biased. If a person chooses to neglect the influence of "the system" on the molding of ends, he is not necessarily biased. In his evaluations of systems from the viewpoint of what actors aim to achieve, Mises ordinarily neglects the possibility that actors would want to avoid being affected by "the system." (The system he had in mind contained with institutions -- private property, free enterprise, the use of money -- and individuals acting in markets.) So it seems to me that the thrust of your criticism should be that Mises neglects what you believe may be important goals, not that he is systematically biased. I suspect that you are right about this neglect. But one would do well, I believe, to think more deeply, as perhaps you have. (I am referring to your use of the phrase "social circumstances and psychological interactions.") One who seeks to evaluate the capitalist system must contrast that system with alternatives with respect to a particular goal or set of goals. Thus, to pursue your apparent aim of evaluating the capitalist system on the basis partly of its effects on the molding of ends, it would be necessary to describe an alternative system that would presumably be a competitor with the capitalist system. To Mises, there were two competing systems: socialism and interventionism. It would seem to follow that to properly criticize Mises from his point of view, you would want to compare the effects of these system with capitalism regarding the molding of ends. Do the other systems "mold ends" more favorably, in some sense, than capitalism? You could, of course, go beyond Mises and discuss some other system. However, the more you removed yourself from the basic utilitarianism that was the focus of the old economists (and also the new ones), the farther you would deviate from what has traditionally been regarded as economics. Simply put, the issue of how "the system" affects individual values has never been a serious concern of economics. It could be, of course. Many years ago, I submitted a paper to Warren Samuels' journal in institutional economics on how private property rights tended to make people sybaritic. As I look back on the paper now, however, while I see the idea as relevant to ethics, I do not see it as relevant to economics as usually conceived. Pat Gunning