Macro economic phenomenon are emergent, not deducible. They are often explainable. And the discipline of macro economics attempts to explain those phenomenon. Yet many phenomenon are still not yet explainable. Although rapid increase in economics in the past twenty years has improved the field dramatically.
Any given price for example, is often not explainable. Nor did we nor could we have deduced the stickiness of prices. Nor can we deduce the time frame of phenomenon.
It is true for example that in the long run, money may be neutral, but that does not mean that interference in the supply of money cannot be used to create beneficial temporary advantages even if they are neutralized over time.
It is true that unemployment will increase with minimum wages, but the reasons for this are not those proposed by cosmopolitan-Austrians. They are because people lose the possibility of entry into the work force when they are young and become permanently unemployable. Empirical evidence does not support the assumption that minor increases are statistically meaningful. Only that, say, in the french model, do we see statistically meaningful permanent unemployment.
So, emergent phenomenon are not deducible. They are instrumentally and empirically observable. And once observed may be explained by deduction. But this is indifferent from physical phenomenon, where phenomenon are emergent.
But to say that we can deduce all economic activity – all human action – from first principles is demonstrably false. We cannot.
To say that we can deduce all mathematical phenomenon, logical phenomenon, physical phenomenon from first principles is demonstrably false.
At scale, beyond our perceptions, we must rely upon empirical evidence for observation, instrumentation to obtain that evidence, and deduction to theorize the construction of those phenomenon.
The false-flag, straw-man argument against empiricism, states that we must be able to run tests, thereby constructing data sets, rather than merely observe phenomenon and explain that phenomenon. But science does not practice empiricism. It practices the scientific method. And physical science takes this experimental approach only to discover first principles, not to analyze emergent phenomenon. Red shift is not something we need to create conditions for, it is something we must simply observe.
Conversely, experimentally constructed evidence is LESS reliable than naturally occurring evidence. So experimentation is a means of creating conditions for observation. Observation is what is required for analysis.
Likewise, we do not need to discover the first principles of man, but we must discover and explain the emergent phenomenon of man’s actions.
And even in those cases where we can construct a very loose economic principle, that does not mean that we cannot take action to alter the interstitial conditions and conduct experiments upon how we can effect those conditions and for how long. The Keynesian argument is that even if the Austrian business cycle is true, the good obtained in the interim is worth the risk, because states under fiat currency – unless they overextend by war and shock – cannot fail and become insolvent.
In any and all cases of the anti-scientific arguments put forth by the rothbardian rationalists I will easily demonstrate that each case is a straw man argument.
Because that is the technique of Critique: the marxist and cosmopolitan device of creating a straw man argument that is sufficiently obscurant that it is possible to load, frame, and overload the average, and even above average human mind.
It is the greatest form of deception ever constructed by man.
While we can look back in awe at monotheism as a great deception for the purpose of imposing authoritarian rule – despite its absurdity. And while we can look back in awe at how successful the marxists were. We can also grasp that libertinism (the cosmopolitan wing of Austrian economics) is yet another instance of the same technique: create an unbelievable lie, repeat it, and defend it with straw men. Libertinism is merely cosmopolitan separatism in new dress. It didnt’ work, it wont work, and it can’t work.
Libertines cannot hold land. And he who holds land determines the basis of law. That is an inescapable law of human action.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine