Author: Curt Doolittle

[W]hen we attempt to promote Austrian Economics, we could, if we were intelligent, state that our interests are merely in developing institutions that facilitate voluntary exchanges, rather than mainstream economics, which attempts to maximize involuntary transfers.

In other words, we practice moral economics, and mainstream practices immoral economics.

It does no good whatsoever for advocates of Austrian Econ to make the false claims, or that mainstream does not practice our definition of ‘economics’, nor that their work is unscientific, nor that ours is somehow scientific even though it does not adhere to the warranties of scientific claims. All of these statements are mere verbalisms — they’re deceitful at worst, and merely ignorant at best.

Mises uses the word science repeatedly, yet offers purely rational (apriori) arguments. (He does not understand the difference between empirical science (observable external correspondence) and rationalism (internal consistency), and he was apparently unaware of operationalism (existential possibility free of imaginary content). Too bad. He was close.

We can make empirical statements about all sorts of economic phenomenon. And we cannot observe many economic phenomenon other than empirically. We can explain them operationally, but we cannot observe them or even identify them without empirical analysis.

The only way to warranty that we speak truthfully is to speak scientifically. And to speak scientifically requires that we speak operationally.