Sep 23, 2021

Curt Howland on the basic principles of Austrian economics

What is the best way to disprove the Austrian School (Mises, Hayek, Friedman)? “What is the best way to disprove the Austrian School?” 

To disprove the Austrian method of economic analysis, first you would have to disprove the axioms upon which that analysis is based. 

Humans act. So, prove humans don’t act. 

People use scarce resources to achieve desired ends. Again, prove people don’t. 

Each additional unit of a homogeneous good will be used to satisfy the most urgent remaining use, and that use sets the price of all units of the homogeneous good. Surely the principle of “marginal utility” would be easy to disprove, I mean it was formulated in 1872 and signaled the foundation of the Austrian School itself: 

Principles of Economics | Carl Menger Easy to read, and free. Give it a try. 

People prefer the same good now compared to the same good some time in the future. Of course, if you can disprove this, then you disprove the existence of interest rates. 

Individual preferences are ordinal, not cardinal, and interpersonal comparisons don’t work. Can you prove you like chocolate 2 times as much as I do, but not 4 times as much? 

There are more such axioms, but all stem from the fundamental principle that people act, people choose. They are not merely atoms all responding the same way. 

So disprove that, and you’re set for the rest. 

You can start here: "Understanding 'Austrian' Economics," by Henry Hazlitt.

~ Curt Howland, Quora, September 16, 2021



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