Is The Market A Test Of Truth And Beauty? : Essays In Political Economy

Is the Market a Test of Truth and Beauty? Is the Market a Test of TRUTH BEAUTY? Essays in Political Economy L by B. Y Ludwig von Mises Institute by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and published under the Creative Commons Attribution License . © http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Ludwig von Mises Institute West Magnolia Avenue Auburn, Alabama mises.org : Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii : Should Austrians Scorn General Equilibrium eory? . . Why Subjectivism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry George and Austrian Economics . . . . . . . . . e Debate about the Efficiency of a Socialist Economy . e Debate over Calculation and Knowledge . . . . . . . Austrian Economics, Neoclassicism, and the Market Test . Is the Market a Test of Truth and Beauty? . . . . . . . . Macroeconomics and Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . e Keynesian Heritage in Economics . . . . . . . . . . Hutt and Keynes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . e Image of the Gold Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . Land, Money, and Capital Formation . . . . . . . . . . Tacit Preachments are the Worst Kind . . . . . . . . . . Tautologies in Economics and the Natural Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Free Will and Ethics . . . . . . . . . . Elementos del Economia Politic . . . . Is ere a Bias Toward Overregulation? Economics and Principles . . . . . . . American Democracy Diagnosed . . . Civic Religion Reasserted . . . . . . . A Libertarian Case for Monarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi Contents Uchronia, or Alternative History . . . . . . . . . . Hayek on the Psychology of Socialism and Freedom Kirzner on the Morality of Capitalist Profit . . . . Mises and His Critics on Ethics, Rights, and Law . e Moral Element in Mises’s Human Action . . . . Can a Liberal Be an Egalitarian? . . . . . . . . . . Rights, Contract, and Utility in Policy Espousal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction is book’s title is the same as the newly chosen title of chapter , “Is the Market a Test of Truth and Beauty?” at chapter, along with the one before it, questions a dangerously false argument for the free-market economy sometimes made by its supposed friends. eir argument threatens to discredit, by association, the powerful and valid case for the market. Asked whether the market is a test of truth and beauty—of excellence—Ayn Rand would presumably give the same answer as mine: “No, of course not!” Consider her hero of e Fountainhead, Howard Roark. Political economy is the area of overlap among economics, political Thscience, and philosophy. Beyond its positive content, political economy does bear on policy but not only on policy; it is far from a hodge-podge of different people’s policy prejudices. Economics, when not disregarded, is obviously relevant to policy. So are philosophy and psychology, as when they underlie doctrines such as redistributionism and egalitarianism. Policy can affect economics. More exactly, a policy proposal may help clarify a strand of economic analysis even when, considering side-effects, the author does not actually recommend the policy; “Land, Money, and Capital Formation,” chapter , provides an example. Regrettably, though, policy-driven economists do exist who start with their or their employers’ pref