Category: Epistemology and Method

THE ECONOMIC METHOD IN CRITICAL RATIONALISM

(heavy philosophy warning) (profound) (austrian econ) (scientific method)

Math can be stated in a language of NAMES existentially possible operations free of errors of interpretation; or stated in a language of ANALOGIES to operations that are subject to errors of interpretation.

Math can be used to describe a unique instance in an existential context, or to construct general rules of arbitrary precision independent of existential context.

With arbitrary precision (independent of real world context) we encounter the problem of decidability (insufficient information) and therefore necessity of the grand label ‘axiom of choice’).

Much of the language of mathematics obscures the underlying operations upon which all such mathematical statements are constructed. So students usually speak in a ‘language’ of analogy, rather than in a language of ‘names of operations’.

To circumvent this problem, intutionistic proofs have been suggested as a means of insuring that any deduction is open to operational construction. If it is not, then we cannot claim it is fully criticized.

This is EXACTLY the same problem we face economics: if any statement of economics is not reducible to subjectively testable operations, we cannot claim that it is fully criticized.

(Note that this is were Mises failed. He stated that economics was deductive and therefore justifcationary rather than critical process, and the praxeology was a science rather than a test of internal consistency – an error I work daily to correct as a means of rescuing Austrian econ from the Heterodox fringe. )

Now, because we evolved logic from moral discourse, we used justification. Because we evolved mathematics from the justificationary pre-scientific era, and because mathematical deduction is dependent upon the use of operations (discovery and proof are conducted by the same methods in mathematics), we retained justification. But a proof is not a truth – a proof is a form of criticism that a statement must survive in order for one to testify that it is potentially true.

The same criterion applies in economics: if we cannot demonstrate that an economic statement can be constructed by subjectively testing a sequence of rational choices, then we cannot warranty that such a statement is existentially possible – and then we cannot say that it has been fully criticized. And as such we cannot warranty that the statement can survive criticism, and we cannot then testify that it is potentially true.

As such, the means by which we hypothesize is irrelevant – we can construct theories through free association, or by random sentence construction for that matter. What matters is the criticism: due diligence that we have performed.

The discipline of science is reducible to a series of tests of due diligence, the purpose of which is to eliminate imaginary content, leaving only existential content. If this due diligence is performed, then the author can testify that he speaks as truthfully as possible. Otherwise he cannot testify that he has spoken as truthfully as is possible. (Albeit he can speak truthfully only to those due diligences that he has performed, and those he has not performed.)

But the reason to practice mainstream macro without subjectively testable micro-foundations, is so that we can justify misinforming individuals (committing fraud) in order to cause them to increase their consumption. As such, mainstream macro is in no small part, the art of deceit: how much can we use the information system provided by prices to deceive people into increasing consumption.

Whereas the Misesian proposition in economics (and the Hayekian in law) is that we should seek to identify how to inform people truthfully so that we assist them in making mutually beneficial decisions. The jury is still out on whether the accumulated effect of deceit is preferable to the accumulated effect of truth.

But if the Austrian cycle theory is correct (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), and if the conservative criticisms against denegration of norms, traditions, law, and family structure by this deceit are correct (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) then the Austrian argument will have demonstrated itself to falsify the mainstream argument.

So, methodologically, we can use the monopoly process we call majority rule; for the construction of monopolistic commons, and we can perform immoral (fraudulent) economics to measure the effects of that monopoly, and we can justify our immoral (fraudulent) monopoly, and immoral (fraudulent) economics and immoral (fraudulent) morality, using fallacious (fraudulent) philosophy that attempts to justify monopoly and takings by aggregate (fragility-producing, equalitarian and dysgenic) measures rather than meritocratic and eugenic) subjective measures.

OR;

We can construct economics as a means of conducting research into how to facilitate institutions for the provision of moral actions consisting of truthful statements; and we can use government as a means of providing a market for the construction of contracts for the production of commons; and we can justify (morality is justified, science is criticized) these markets by the uncontestable law of cooperation: the prohibition on free riding – fully articulated as the requirement for productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary transfer, free of negative externality of the same.

And to assuage the unproductive classes, there is no need for monopoly production of commons only monopoly prohibition on parasitism (free riding), and conversely, the requirement for production – even if one’s production is limited to the defense of the most important commons: property in all its forms, whereby the voluntary organization of production is possible, and without friction.

Science is, as I have tried to show here, the pursuit of the means of speaking truthfully: warranties that we have eliminated all imaginary content, error, bias, and deception.

Because the only existentially possible truth is the testimony of an individual that he has performed due diligence to eliminate imaginary content, error, bias, and deception tot he best of his knowledge and ability.

That is the only existentially possible meaning of truth.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine.

( Michael Philip Ayelam Valentine Agaliba Frank Lovell #criticalrationalism #libertarian )