Abstract
Schutz and the Austrian Economists emphasized meaning and intentionality for understanding social and market processes. This is clearest in their conception of the logic of action and choice, and the mental process by which social and market agents formulate interpersonal expectations for purposes of successful mutual orientation.
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References
Helmut Wagner, Alfred Schutz: An Intellectual Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983, 11–13.
B.B. Greaves, “An Interview with Dr. Alfred Schutz” (unpublished, 1958 ). Hereafter referred to by author’s name.
Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981. Hereafter referred to as TMC. For a discussion of Mises’ contributions to monetary theory and policy and their relationship to the writings of other Austrians on the same themes, see, Richard M. Ebeling, “Ludwig von Mises and the Gold Standard,” in Llewellyn H. Rockwell, ed., The Gold Standard: An Austrian Perspective. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1985, 35–59.
Ludwig von Mises, Nation, State, and Economy. New York: New York University Press, 1983.
Ludwig von Mises, “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,” in F.A. Hayek, ed., Collectivist Economic Planning. London: George Routledge Sons, 1935.
Tor a more thorough discussion of Mises’ critique of socialist central planning, see, Richard Ebeling, “Economic Calculation Under Socialism: Ludwig von Mises and His Predecessors,” in J.M. Herbener, ed., The Meaning of Ludwig von Mises. Boston: Kluwer Academic Press, 1993, 56–101.
Ludwig von Mises, Notes and Recollections. South Holland: Libertarian Press, 1978, 97–98. ‘Margit von Mises, My Years with Ludwig von Mises. Cedar Falls: Center for Futures Education, 1984, 207.
Ibid., 203.
These papers were found by the present writer among the “lost papers” of Ludwig von Mises in a formerly secret archive in Moscow, Russia. In March, 1938, the Gestapo came looking for Mises in Vienna following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. Mises was in Geneva, Switzerland at the time, but the Gestapo seized all of his papers, documents, “For summaries and overviews of the ideas of the Austrian School of Economics, see, L.M. Lachmann, ”The Significance of the Austrian School of Economics in the History of Ideas,“ in R.M. Ebeling, ed., Austrian Economics: A Reader. Hillsdale: Hillsdale College Press, 1991, 17–39;
Richard Ebeling, “The Significance of Austrian Economics in Twentieth-Century Economic Thought,” in R.M. Ebeling, ed., Austrian Economics: Retrospect on the Past and Prospects for the Future. Hillsdale: Hillsdale College Press, 1991, 1–40.
The most significant ones from this period are “Sociology and History” (1929), and “Conception and Understanding” (1930); they were reprinted in Epistemological Problems of Economics. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1960, 68–145. Hereafter referred to as EPE.
Cf., EPE, 1–67; also Ludwig von Mises, Nationalökonomie: Theorie des Handelns und Wirtschaftens. München: Philosophia Verlag, 1980 and, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996. Hereafter HA.
On some aspects of this problem, see, Oskar Morgenstern, Wirtschaftsprognose. Wien: Julius Springer, 1928; also
Perfect Foresight and Economic Equilibrium,“ in Andrew Schotter, ed., Selected Economic Writings of Oskar Morgenstern. New York: New York University Press, 1976, 169–183.
See F.A. Hayek, “Economics and Knowledge,” as well as his “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” in Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948, 35–56 and 77–91.
For a critical evaluation of Hayek’s writings on his theme, partly from a Schutzian point-of-view, see Richard Ebeling, “Toward a Hermeneutical Economics:
Expectations, Prices, and the Role of Interpretation in a Theory of.the Market Process,“ in D.L. Prychitko, ed., Individuals, Institutions, Interpretations: Hermeneutics Applied to Economics. Brookfield: Avebury Publishing, 1995, 138–153.
IA. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934.
See HA. On the differences in the conception of the entrepreneur in Schumpeter’s and Mises’ writings, see I.M. Kirzner, Competition and Entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.
See John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944.
For a summary and critical analysis of Mises’ use and application of the Weberian Ideal Type for purposes of developing a theory of expectations, see Richard Ebeling, “Expectations and Expectations-Formation in Mises’ Theory of the Market Process,” in P.J. Boettke and D.L. Prychitko, eds., Individuals, Institutions, Interpretations: Hermeneutics Applied to Economics. Brookfield: Avebury Publishing, 1994, 83–95.
Fritz Machlup, The Economics of Sellers’ Competition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1952, 370.
For recent expositions by Austrian Economists on economic processes of adjustment, coordination and discovery, see, R. Cowan and M.J. Rizzo, “The Genetic-Causal Tradition and Modern Economic Theory,” Kyklos 49, no. 3 (1996): 273–317; and I.M. Kirzner, “Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process: an Austrian Approach,” Journal of Economic Literature (March 1997): 60–85 and How Markets Work: Disequilibrium, Entrepreneurship and Discovery. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1997.
I have attempted to suggest how such a theory of expectations and intersubjective market orientation can be applied using Schutz’s ideas in several writings. See, Richard Ebeling: “What is a Price? Explanation and Understanding,” in Don C. Lavoie, ed., Economics and Hermeneutics. New York: Routledge, 1990, 177–194; “Cooperation in Anonymity,” in D.L. Prychitko, ed., Individuals, Institutions, Interpretations: Hermeneutics Applied to Economics. Brookfield: Avebury Publishing, 1995, 81–92; “Toward a Hermeneutic Economics,” op. cit., 138–153; I have tried to contrast the Austrian views with those of some of the Swedish economists on these themes, see, Richard Ebeling, “Money, Economic Fluctuations, Expectations, and Period Analysis: The Austrian and Swedish Economists in the Interward Period,” in Willem Keizer, Bert Tieben, Rudy van Zijp, eds., Austrian Economics in Debate. New York: Routledge, 1997, 42–72. The following section draws upon these earlier writings and extends the analysis and applications.
Alfred Schutz, The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967, 137, 245.
G. Becker, “De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum,” in Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Alfred Schutz, “Choosing Among Courses of Action,” Collected Papers I: The Problems of Social Reality. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962, 67–97. Hereafter CACA.
As an example of this Neo-Classical analysis of the allocation of time, see G. Becker The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976, 89130; for an Austrian critique of the Neo-Classical conception of time, see G.P. O’Driscoll Jr. and M.J. Rizzo, The Economics of Time and Ignorance. New York: Routledge, 1996, 52–70.
n the limits of knowing and making predictions about the future in terms consistent with this analysis, see, B. de Jouvenel, The Art of Conjecture. New York: Basic Books, 1967; also, J. Jewkes, A Return to Free Market Economics. London: Macmillan, 1978, 12–38.
For a detailed critique of the founding theories of Neo-Classical equilibrium analysis by an Austrian Economist, see, H. Mayer, “The Cognitive Value of Functional Theories of Price,” in Classics of Austrian Economics: Volume II. London: William Pickering, 1994, 55–168.
Ludwig von Mises, Theory and History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957, 312–320.
Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974, 27–33. Hereafter referred to as CP2.
For an exception to this, in which Schutz discussed “The Basic Assumption of Economic Theory for Dealing with the Problem of Choice,” see Alfred Schutz, “Choice and the Social Sciences,” in Lester Embree, ed., Life-World and Consciousness: Essays for Aron Gurwitsch. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972, 584–588. Only recently has there been published in English four previously unavailable papers by Schutz on aspects of the nature and application of economic theory for understanding the social world, see Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers IV. Boston: Kluwer Academic Press, 1996, 75–105. Hereafter CP4.
Fritz Machlup, Methodology of Economics and Other Social Sciences. New York: Academic Press, 1978, 211–301.
For a discussion of some of these contradictions and inconsistencies, see Richard Ebeling, “The Free Market and the Interventionist State,” in R.M. Ebeling, ed., Between Power and Liberty: Economics and the Law. Hillsdale: Hillsdale College Press, 1998, 16–21; and Hayek, “The Meaning of Competition,” op. cit., 92–106.
Matchlup, The Economics of Sellers’ Competition,op. cit., 418–424.
few of the rare exceptions in which aspects of this problem have analyzed include, H. Schurman, The Promises that Men Live By. New York: Random House, 1938; S.H. Frankel, Money and Liberty. Washington D.C.: Amercan Enterprise Institute, 1980; F. Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: The Free Press, 1995. On some of the institutions and social relationships essential for a functioning market order and how the Classical Economists of the 18th and 19th century understood them, see, Richard Ebeling, “How Economics Became the Dismal Science,” in R.M. Ebeling, ed., Economic Education: What Should We Learn About the Free Market. Hillsdale: Hillsdale College Press, 1994, 51–81.
R.H. Coase, Essays on Economics and Economists. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, 34–46
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Ebeling, R.M. (1999). Human Action, Ideal Types, and the Market Process: Alfred Schutz and the Austrian Economists. In: Embree, L. (eds) Schutzian Social Science. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 37. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2944-4_6
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