Authors Forum: Action, Time and Knowledge - The Austrian School of Economics

0:00I would like to thank the committee for inviting me here, especially Professor Salerno. And my purpose today is to present a summary of my book, this book. It's a very simple book and I wrote it to my students, who are permanently poisoned by Keynesian and monetarist textbooks. His main purpose is to clean their minds and put some Austrian concepts, which we all in this room we know are important.

0:50From my point of view, in a very simple way, the Austrian School is founded on a concurrent and complementary triad, formed by the concepts of a, human action, b, dynamic time, and c, the hypothesis about the limitations of human knowledge. These three concepts form the cornerstone of the monumental Austrian School of Economics, Theoretical Edifice. And certain elements emanate from the triad. They are, first, marginal utility, b, subjectivism, and c, spontaneous orders.

1:39From these propagation elements, every proposal of a practical nature may be logically deducted. I refer to these as propagation elements, for they bring implications for various fields of human knowledge, such as political philosophy, epistemology and economics proper. First of all, action. As you know, every economic act, without exception, can be reduced to choices made in accordance with the seminal concept of human action. And the basic proposition, the first axiom of praxeology, is that the motivation for any action is dissatisfaction, This nobody acts unless he feels some dissatisfaction and considers that a particular action will improve satisfaction, comfort, joy or feeling of accomplishment, thus decreasing discomfort, frustration or dissatisfaction.

2:48This axiom is fundamental and universal. Wherever there are people, there are actions. are that economics which is built on praxeology is by corollary universal. The second element is the dynamic concept of time or subjective time or even real time in which time ceases to be a static category described by a single horizontal axis to be be redefined as the continuous flow of new experience, which is not in time, as in the static or Newtonian concept, but becomes time proper.

3:36When we consider dynamic time, we are implicitly accepting that something new is continuously occurring. We must also recognize dynamic time's three characteristics, Dynamic Continuity, Eterogeneity and Causal Efficacy, as explained by Mario Rizzo and Gerold Odrisco in their interesting book, The Economics of Time and Ignorance. The real-time dynamic is irreversible and leads to a creative evolution process, which implies unpredictable changes. The concept of real time is essential to the understanding of human action, because acting individuals continuously accumulate new experiences which generate new knowledge, which in turn often leads them to change their plans and actions.

4:34The third element is the limitation of knowledge. It is the epistemological treatment of the undeniable fact that human knowledge always contains components of uncertainty and unpredictability, which confer on every human action unintended effects that cannot be a priori calculated. There are, for the Austrians, limits to the ability of the human mind to fully fatten the The Complex of Social and Economic Phenomena Formal systems possess certain operating rules that cannot be predetermined, as the Spanish philosopher José Ortega Higase states, the eye does not see itself.

5:28As it is not possible to quantify our knowledge, the Austrian School does not analyze the markets as equilibrium states, but as process of discovery and articulation of knowledge. About the propagation elements. The first is the concept of marginal utility, and you all know what that means. The second is subjectivism. Subjectivism emphasizes creativity and autonomy of individual choices, and for that reason shall be subject to methodological individualism, the notion that market outcomes may be explained in terms of individual acts of choice. For the Austrian scholar, economic theory should consider primarily the web of factors that explain choices and not be limited to simple Interactions Among Objective Variables. Subjectivism then presupposes that action always take place under conditions of immeasurable and genuine uncertainty, and also that it occurs over dynamic time. The third element is the concept of spontaneous orders, which are intermediate Classes of Phenomena that are specific to the science of human action or praxeology.

6:59They are institutions that fall between instinct and reason as a result of human action, but not the execution of human design or planning. Typical examples of these orders are, as you know, the monetary system markets cultural Events and Language. The next step in the book is combining the elements of the Austrian School. In the epistemological field, the implications should be A, methodological individualism, B, the difference between models and facts in the social sciences, C, the recognition that the social sciences have their own characteristics, which differentiate them from the natural and the rejection of forecasting methods in social sciences and with regard to political philosophy the implications should be a criticism of the mixed systems be evolution in the social sciences see democracy and separation of powers the limitations to power and the rejection of constructivism and in the and Social Sciences. In the field of economics, based on these core elements and seminal propagators, the Austrian economists from Menger onwards have erected a remarkable and rich structure

8:40from the scientific point of view. It works perfectly, at least as perfectly as one can Let me briefly set out each of the six fields of economic theory that I believe are essential to the understanding of the Austrian thought. The first is the market process. The main elements of the Austrian theory of the markets are, first, markets are moved by the actions of its participants, both on the demand and the supply sides. Second, human action takes place over dynamic time where each moment is a learning opportunity. Third, market transactions are carried out under conditions of limitation and dispersion of knowledge.

9:31And fourth, markets are spontaneous orders subject, therefore, to permanent changes. And fifth, human action is essentially subjective. How can it be expected, therefore, that real world markets be in equilibrium at a given point of time? This is one of the central tenets of the Austrian theory. Markets are reflections of trials and errors in a permanent process for finding new opportunities. and whose dynamism does not provide room for balance or equilibrium. The second element in economics is the role of the entrepreneur and its function in the markets.

10:23Entrepreneurship is the subjective individual ability to perceive the possibilities of gains on the markets. Therefore, it is nothing more than a category of action. Thus, human action can be considered a business phenomenon, specifically one based on the capabilities of perception, coordination and creativity of the acting individual. In addition, to economists of the Austrian tradition, each action embeds a pure and creative entrepreneurial component that does not require any cost. This pure entrepreneurial component provides for the convergence of the concepts of action and entrepreneurship.

11:10The third element is the debate about the impossibility of economic calculation in socialist economies. Even in the 20s, Mises saw clearly that in a socialist economic system, calculation is impossible. His argument was very simple, economic calculation requires planners to know the prices, and these, in turn, to be considered prices as such, and not pseudo-prices, presuppose both the existence of the market process, in which actions of bidders and sellers flow normally, and private property, a prerequisite of markets. Socialism, however, does not admit private property, so it makes no sense to speak about markets in a socialist system if there are no functioning markets and therefore no prices.

12:09Accordingly, if there are no prices, economic calculation is impossible. You know these arguments. The fourth element is the monetary theory. I was, first I was a monetarist. I have a PhD and my PhD dissertation was about freedom and arguments. I came from the dark side of the street. And why saved by the lecture of Human Action? There are five main points about the Austrian School Monetary Theory. Firstly, money, that is the monetary system, is a spontaneous order, a phenomenon that is constantly changing as the result of human action, thought not of planning.

13:01Secondly, variations in the stock of money have an unequal effect on relative prices, capital structure and patterns of production in the economy. and the economy, and in addition, they changed the employment levels of the factors of production. Thirdly, money, like any other good, has its value established by the principle of marginal utility, as Mises showed a century ago by solving the problem of Austrian circularity, which is his famous regression theorem. The fourth point is that business cycles are phenomena which, without manifesting themselves in the so-called real sector, have only monetary causes.

13:49And lastly, Austrian scholars do not define inflation as continuous and widespread increase in prices, because that is actually a mere symptom of inflation. They define it as a permanent decline in the purchasing power of money caused ultimately by the issuing of currency with a consequent decrease in its marginal utility. The first element is the Capital Theory, which no doubt is an element that differentiates the Austrian School of Thought from all others, simply because they do not have anything resembling a theory of capital.

14:34Its central tenet is the concept of capital structure or the structure of production, which describes a good that passes through various stages in the production process. These various stages correspond to the capital structure of the economy. Therefore, capital is not homogeneous and constant, as the macroeconomic models consider. It is essentially heterogeneous and varies with other factors of production over time. The heterogeneity of capital goods and the fact that economies have capital structures have led, among other hypotheses, such as the methodological individualism, also in economists to Reject Macroeconomic Analysis, the last element is the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, ABCT, which is simultaneously a theory of money, of capital and of business cycles. It shows how the issue of money and credit in excess of the corresponding amount of savings has the effect of reducing interest rates, which initially fooled agents into believing that this reduction is the result of higher savings. Thus inflation, i.e. that additional money introduced into the economy without corresponding savings, will eventually cause the

16:02unemployment of factors of production. As Hayek said, there is no choice between Between eating too much, issuing unbacked currency and having indigestion, recession. Those are inseparable, the first leading to the second. The Keynesian analysis, which came to be known as the Phillips Curve, which postulated the existence of a trade-off between inflation and unemployment, so that if the government If it wanted to fight inflation, it would have to accept a higher unemployment rate or alternatively, if it wanted to reduce unemployment, it would be forced to accept a higher inflation rate, is therefore wrong.

16:50For Keynes, depression is a problem of excess savings over investment, and for the monetarists, it is a shortage of currency. and for us, the Austrians, an excess of bad investments over real savings, causes, depressions. Concluding remarks, when we look at the six elements of the Austrian economic theory, we realize how much the mainstream economics got wrong. Definitely, the economic theory that has been taught in universities in all the world for decades is also incorrect. I hope the world learns the truth.

17:39Armed with the apparatus of the core triad and the propagation elements in this book, I attempt to describe, in an introductory level, the implications of the tried and propagation elements to the fields of political philosophy, epistemology and the economy. And, as I said, I know I came from the dark side of economics and now I can affirm action, time and knowledge. This is the fascinating universe of the Austrian School of Economics. Thank you.

18:33Thank you very much.