OK, I am going to make one more post- sorry for this Bruce, but this WILL be my last one. > But he doesn't deal with it; he merely asserts > that his method can, but he doesn't attempt to > account for the fact that individual attitudes > are already socially formed before anyone acts. That is, socially formed by the interaction of individuals in past time periods. Mises does deal with these things, for instance with his regression theorem on money (which actually applies to more than money). Mises did admit to there being some ultimate givens, which are assumed not explained. But the ultimate givens in Mises involve things like psychology, the existence of god, and other things that baffle human reason, or at least are beyond economics. Mises does trace the origin of money back to individual action- interaction that is, and this reasoning applies to all market institutions. This addresses the chicken and egg remarks below. > The social plays no part in his axioms of > action. What you have in the relationship between > the individual and society is a chicken-and-egg > problem, and such problems are never solved by > asserting either chicken OR egg; they can only be > resolved by finding a way to assert BOTH chicken > AND egg. By asserting the chicken (the > individual), Mises assumes that the egg (a social > product) will take care of itself. It won't. > Mises pays lip service to the social, but his > solution is in no way different from those who > don't, from pure individualists. Well this simply is not true. Mises does not assume that social products care for themselves, but rather that individual action does. I think you need to re-read Mises, or look at Hayek's non sequitur of the dependence effect. > >Please explain exactly how exactly > >Misesean economics fails. > > Isn't the prior question, "show a case in which > Misesean economics has succeeded"? Misesean economics succeeded in predicting that 20th century socialists states would mismanage capital investment on a massive scale (see the paper I sent you). Mises was right on target in the interwar debate over socialism- and the rest of the profession at that time said he was wrong. Mises was right and his neocolassical opponents were wrong. Mises derived this conclusion by sticking to Menger and ignoring the Walrasian paradigm. I don't think this discussion is likely going anywhere with additional posts. Lets bag this discussion. DW MacKenzie