Abstract
In this chapter, I shed light on the issue of world view or public opinion: a different aspect of economics from vision held by an economist. I examine in what way and why Hayek was interested in the issue of world view and which positions he took regarding vision and world view in the theory of the market and money. While an economist's vision has an indispensable role in creating any new theory and thought, “world view” (Weltanschauung) or “prevailing opinion” of the public has an important role in diffusing economic theories and thoughts and thereby transforming the present reality. Finally, after briefly reviewing the issues and contrasting them with the arguments of other researchers, I will present, along the lines of Hayek, my interpretation of a comprehensive picture of economics that is comprised of vision, world view, theory, methodology, and reality.
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Notes
- 1.
We clearly distinguish Schumpeter’s “vision” that economists hold to define the economic realm from Hayek’s “world view” as the prevailing public opinion on the economic reality. However, Maki fused the latter into the former without making such a distinction between them (Maki 2001, pp. 4–5).
- 2.
The term “Weltanschauung” was initially used by Immanuel Kant in Critique of Judgment (1790) and ever since has been widely used by many German philosophers and writers as Dilthey, Husserl, Jaspers, Mannheims, Freud, Heidegger, and Gadamer. It is also well known that Adolf Hitler frequently used the term in his book, Mein Kampf. So such a connection to the term might have prevented Hayek from frequent use of the term “world view.”
- 3.
Since Hayek strongly felt after WWII that socialism had completely defeated liberalism and it was necessary to form a liberal Utopia, he must have taken an initiative to hold a conference with 39 liberal scholars and urged foundation of The Mont Pelerin Society in 1947.
- 4.
Schumpeter (1954) in Chap. 4 “’The Sociology of Economics” explains “ideology.” Truly, the concept might seem to be that of world view or public opinion, but in fact it is completely different. For Schumpeter regards it only as rationalization or political bias of class interests of the public according to conventional Marxist interpretation and as something to be detached from “economic analysis” that is what he regards as scientific contents, not as something that can affect or change reality. On the other hand, “economic thought” is defined as normative statements for economic policies for the economists.
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Nishibe, M. (2018). The Trend of Economic Thinking on Markets and Money: What Is Hayek’s Position on These Issues?. In: Godart-van der Kroon, A., Vonlanthen, P. (eds) Banking and Monetary Policy from the Perspective of Austrian Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75817-6_4
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