Michael > Michael's Quotes

“Action is, by definition, always rational. One is unwarranted in calling goals of action irrational simply because they are not worth striving for from the point of view of one's own valuations. Such a mode of expressions leads to gross misunderstandings. Instead of saying that irrationality plays a role in action, one should accustom oneself to saying merely: There are people who aim at different ends from those that I aim at, and people who employ different means from those I would employ in their situation.”
― Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics

“The mathematical economists have commonly been mathematicians first and economists afterward, disposed to oversimplify the data and underestimate the divergence between their premises and facts of life.”
― Frank H. Knight, Ethics of Competition and Other Essays

“The generic concept of capital without which economists cannot do their work has no measurable counterpart among material objects; it reflects the entrepreneurial appraisal of such objects. Beer barrels and blast furnaces, harbour installations and hotel-room furniture are capital not by virtue of their physical properties but by virtue of their economic functions. Something is capital because the market, the consensus of entrepreneurial minds, regards it as capable of yielding an income. This does not mean that the phenomena of capital cannot be comprehended by clear and unambiguous concepts. The stock of capital used by society does not present a picture of chaos. Its arrangement is not arbitrary. There is some order in it.”
― Ludwig Lachmann, Capital and Its Structure

“[The]...feeling for what one should want, in contrast with actual desire, is stronger in the unthinking than in those sophisticated by education. It is the later who argues into the ‘tolerant’ (economic) attitude of de gustibus non est disputandum [in matters of taste, there can be no disputes]; the man in the street is more likely to view the individual whose tastes are ‘wrong’ as a scurvy fellow who ought to be despised if not beaten up or shot.”
― Frank H. Knight, Ethics of Competition and Other Essays

“Formalism, in opting for the functional mode making possible precise quantitative determinations within a closed system of variables, forgoes the possibility of making meaningful statements about human action.”
― Ludwig Lachmann, Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process: Essays on the Theory of the Market Econony

“The Austrian theory rests fundamentally upon the non-reversibility of the investment operation. Once "free capital" has been converted into buildings and machinery, any failure of events to conform to expectations will upset everything.”
― Ludwig Lachmann, Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process: Essays on the Theory of the Market Econony

“...industrial growth is the outcome of conscious and sustained human effort about which "dynamic equations" tell us less than nothing. Growth then is the cumulative effect of individual efforts directed towards the improvement of the productive apparatus of society.”
― Ludwig Lachmann, Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process: Essays on the Theory of the Market Econony

“Goals change, ideas of technology are transformed, but action always remains action. Action always seeks means to realize ends, and it is in this sense always rational and mindful of utility. It is, in a word, human.”
― Ludwig von mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics

“We shall not understand the history of men and of other times unless we ourselves are alive to the requirements which that history satisfied, nor will our successors understand the history of our time unless they fulfill these conditions.”
― Benedetto Croce, History as the Story of Liberty

“The elementary and basic approach that I suggest places “the theory of markets” and not the “theory of resource allocation” at center stage. My plea is really for the adoption of a sophisticated “catallactics,”…”
― James M. Buchanan

“I want economists to quit concerning themselves with allocation problems, per se, with the problem, as it has been traditionally defined. The vocabulary of science is important here, and as T. D. Weldon once suggested, the very word "problem" in and of itself implies the presence of "solution." Once the format has been established in allocation terms, some solution is more or less automatically suggested. Our whole study becomes one of applied maximization of a relatively simple computational sort. Once the ends to be maximized are provided by the social welfare function, everything becomes computational, as my colleague, Rutledge Vining, has properly noted. If there is really nothing more to economics than this, we had as well turn it all over to the applied mathematicians. This does, in fact, seem to be the direction in which we are moving, professionally, and developments of note, or notoriety, during the past two decades consist largely in improvements in what are essentially computing techniques, in the mathematics of social engineering. What I am saying is that we should keep these contributions in perspective; I am urging that they be recognized for what they are, contributions to applied mathematics, to managerial science if you will, but not to our chosen subject field which we, for better or for worse, call "economics.”
― James M. Buchanan

“[Dean] “My dear fellow, who will let you?”

[Roark] “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume I

“The Keynesian world is a world in which there are two distinct classes of actors: the skilled investor, ‘who, unperturbed by the prevailing pastime, continues to purchase investments on the best genuine long-term expectations he can frame’, and, on the other hand, the ignorant ‘game-player’. It does not seem to have occurred to Keynes that either of these two may learn from the other, and that, in particular, company directors and even the managers of investment trusts may be the wiser for learning from the market what it thinks about their actions. In this Keynesian world the managers and directors already know all about the future and have little to gain by devoting their attention to the misera plebs of the market. In fact, Keynes strongly feels that they should not! This pseudo-Platonic view of the world of high finance forms, we feel, an essential part of what Schumpeter called the ‘Keynesian vision’. This view ignores progress through exchange of knowledge because the ones know all there is to be known whilst the others never learn anything.”
― Ludwig Lachmann, Capital and Its Structure

“History is, after all, something that happened to people. No 'force' whether economic or political can act except as it acts through the minds and bodies of human beings.”
― Priscilla Smith Robertson, Revolutions of 1848

“Battles have been won or lost for centuries without winning or losing what they were ostensibly fought for.”
― priscilla Smith Robertson, Revolutions of 1848

“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
― Mark Twain

“All rational action is economic. All economic activity is rational action. All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”
― Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

“True, a socialistic society could see that 1000 litres of wine were better than 800 litres. It could decide whether or not 1000 litres of wine were to be preferred to 500 litres of oil. Such a decision would involve no calculation. The will of some man would decide. But the real business of economic administration, the adaptation of means to ends only begins when such a decision is taken. And only economic calculation makes this adaptation possible. Without such assistance, in the bewildering chaos of alternative materials and processes the human mind would be at a complete loss. Whenever we had to decide between different processes or different centres of production, we would be entirely at sea.”
― Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

“It is not from their intrinsic nature that goods gain the character of economic goods, but through their relation to men and through their ability to lead, directly or indirectly, to the satisfaction of human needs.”
― Sandye Gloria-Palermo, The Evolution of Austrian Economics: From Menger to Lachmann

“In science, compromise is a betrayal of truth.”
― Ludwig von Mises, Memoirs

“The task of the economist is not merely, as in equilibrium theory, to examine the logical consistency of various modes of action, but to make human action intelligible, to let us understand the nature of the logical structure called "plans," to exhibit the successive modes of thought which give rise to successive modes of action. In other words, all true economics is not "functional" but "causal-genetic.”
― Ludwig Lachmann, Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process: Essays on the Theory of the Market Econony

“Catallactics does not ask whether or not the consumers are right, noble, generous, wise, moral, patriotic, or church-going. It is concerned not with why they act, but only with how they act.”
― ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics

“Economists are not responsible for the wealth of nations, but they can be responsible for the poverty of nations. This is an ironic twist that students must come to understand. Economists err if they forget that economic life existed before them, and that it operates, for the most part, independently of them.”
― peter j. boettke, Living Economics: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

“The quality of economists cannot be measured … by the nature of the economic life which surrounds them, but only by the originality and truthfulness of their analysis.”
― Emil kauder

“...philosophers will forever wrangle about the true nature of science as a prelude to their dream of the final knockdown argument which will silence all doubt and opposition to their own favorite utopia.”
― philip mirowski, The Effortless Economy of Science?

“But a theory is not like an airline or bus timetable. We are not interested simply in the accuracy of its predictions. A theory also serves as a base for thinking. It helps us to understand what is going on by enabling us to organize our thoughts. Faced with a choice between a theory which predicts well but gives us little insight into how the system works and one which gives us this insight but predicts badly, I would choose the latter, and I am inclined to think that most economists would do the same.”
― Ronald H. Coase, Essays on Economics and Economists

“The writing of contemporary history can be among the most treacherous of ambitions. Everybody knows we never appreciate what we have till it’s gone; that the owl of Minerva flies at dusk; that familiarity breeds contempt; and so forth.”
― Philip Mirowski

“The laws of economics are to be compared with the laws of the tides, rather than with the simple and exact law of gravitation. For the actions of men are so various and uncertain, that the best statement of tendencies, which we can make in a science of human conduct, must needs be inexact and faulty.”
― Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics

“Economists came along after the existence of the phenomena they try to understand. In other words, economists emerged in a philosophic effort to understand an already existing practice. This point has broad implications for the nature of the discipline, even though we do not usually address then in introductory courses.”
― Peter J. Boettke, Living Economics: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow