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http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/06/21/mises-praxeology-as-the-failure-to-develop-economic-operationalism-yes/UNDERSTANDING MISES, HAYEK, ROTHBARD, AND THE AUSTRIAN PROGRAM

(from elsewhere)

Gabriel Zanotti is correct that (1) the hard core of the Austrian scientific research programme: is the study of dispersed knowledge. But Austrians also retain the remaining thesis of the Austrian program (2) that the business cycle (whether government intervention amplifies and extends booms and busts.) And (3) the Austrian program is perhaps best understood as an effort to develop a legal philosophy of economics rather than rational or empirical. Failure to understand this distinction is probably why the movement failed.

The following might be life altering for those of you who are deeply engaged in philosophy?

A) Mises’ program can best be understood as a failed effort to develop Economic Operationalism. He intuited it, but was not skilled enough to solve it, as did Bridgman and Brouwer in science and mathematics. (See my post at: http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/06/21/mises-praxeology-as-the-failure-to-develop-economic-operationalism-yes/ )

B) Hayek succeeds in grasping that a legal philosophy is what is needed for the formation of a free society such that we produce the optimum economic outcomes – unfortunately he fails (as does Popper, Mises, and Rothbard, and even Hoppe) to solve the underlying cause, which is that property and morality are identical expressions given the structure of the family in relation to the structure of production. Hoppe correctly determines that property is the unit of commensurability and compatibility in all human cooperation (social systems) but his generation lacked the science to demonstrate that all human moral intuitions (instincts and norms) can be expressed as property rights, or to map them to the various family structures. (See my post here: http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/09/28/the-evolution-of-cooperation/ for condensed list, although I discuss this topic daily.)

D) Rothbard an best be seen as an attempt to give us a religio-moral code, and an formal-institution-free society, rather than a legal system of formal institutions, and a legal philosophy. Rothbard writes as a cosmopolitan ideologist using the same arguments as marxists, socialists and neo-conservatives: to express Jewish ethics in christian legal terms. And, yes, Rothbard writes simply and accessibly. He excites our moral sentiments. But just as Hayek’s legal framework will produce beneficial ends, Rather than the high trust polity of the northern europeans advocated by Hayek using the formal institution of law, Rothbarian ethics using the informal institution of belief (moral religion) would produce the low trust levantine polity of the middle east. So while few self identified libertarians will like or appreciate it, Rothbard is probably as damaging to the liberty movement as Hayek was beneficial. As far as I know I have put Rothbard to bed permanently. (See: http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/06/20/rendering-rothbardian-fallacies-intellectually-embarrassing-and-argumentatively-impossible/ )

Roula Robinson above, is largely correct: only western-into-europeans of the north sea region invented liberty as we know it (universalist liberty), by evolving it. And only the English managed to implement it as a formal system of legal institutions. And only Americans wrote it down in a constitution (Rather poorly it turns out). But that does not mean that once a formal institution is understood (universal individual property rights, rule of law, organic evolution of that law), it cannot be spread and adopted. However, the point I think Emmanuel Todd has demonstrated most convincingly, is that family structure and structure of production, determine moral intutions (as well as our genetics). So diversity turns out to be a ‘bad’, if diversity means a diversity in family structure. (See http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/08/26/how-do-family-structures-vary/ , or any of these: http://www.propertarianism.com/?s=family&submit.x=0&submit.y=0 )