Tag: Austrian Economics

Theodore Dalrymple on the culture of inflation

In the Summer 2009 issue of City Journal Theodore Dalrymple  discusses the cultural effects of inflation:

asset inflation—ultimately, the debasement of the currency—as the principal source of wealth corrodes the character of people. It not only undermines the traditional bourgeois virtues but makes them ridiculous and even reverses them. Prudence becomes imprudence, thrift becomes improvidence, sobriety becomes mean-spiritedness, modesty becomes lack of ambition, self-control becomes betrayal of the inner self, patience becomes lack of foresight, steadiness becomes inflexibility: all that was wisdom becomes foolishness.

As a general rule, economists do not feel comfortable with cultural arguments. Often, this is not necessary because cultural arguments can be rephrased in technical language that economists do feel comfortable with. In the case of government-induced  currency debasement, the effects of these policies can be evaluated from an economic point of view by studying how inflation alters the incentives and behavior of economic agents. If Dalrymple is correct, the behavioral micro-effects (or even “pico-effects”) of unpredictable changes in the value of money deserve a lot more attention from economists than has been given so far.

Ironically, the cultural effects of inflation have received little attention from empirically-minded  progressive commentators but are increasingly discussed by conservative-leaning Austrian economists. For example, Jörg Guido Hülsmann writes:

The spiritual dimension of these inflation-induced habits seems to be obvious. Money and financial questions come to play an exaggerated role in the life of man. Inflation makes society materialistic. More and more people strive for money income at the expense of personal happiness. Inflation-induced geographical mobility artificially weakens family bonds and patriotic loyalty. Many of those who tend to be greedy, envious, and niggardly anyway fall prey to sin. Even those who are not so inclined by their natures will be exposed to temptations they would not otherwise have felt. And because the vagaries of the financial markets also provide a ready excuse for an excessively parsimonious use of one’s money, donations for charitable institutions will decline.

Similar observations can be made about Keynesian policies to stimulate “the economy.” With the exception of a handful of libertarian socialists, progressives do not appear to be bothered at all by economic doctrines that treat consumption for consumption’s sake as a remedy for economic ills.

Carl Menger and the exact science of economics

In Significance and Basic Postulates of Economic Theory (1938) Terence W. Hutchison presents a logical-empiricist perspective on economic methodology and takes specific issue with Austrian economists who believe that economic theories cannot and should not be falsified through empirical testing. In the chapter “The Application of Pure Theory” Hutchison criticizes Carl Menger’s view of what constitutes an “exact” science:

Menger contributed a further precision to this concept of economic laws, emphasizing what he and subsequent writers called their exactness, exceptions to them being inconceivable, and that “it involved a misconception of the foundations and postulates of the exact method” to test them empirically…To-day one can hardly help concurring with Schmoller that any worker in a chemical laboratory who proclaimed Menger’s conception of exactness would be ejected forthwith.

He also quotes John Elliott Cairnes on the methodology of economics as saying, “The economist starts with a knowledge of ultimate causes. He is already, at the outset of his enterprise, in the position the physicist only attains after ages of laborious research…”

Hutchison responds to his claim as follows:

It is possibly very encouraging for the economist to hear that compared with the natural scientist the psychological method saves him “ages of laborious research”, but it is curious and a pity that this huge start has not enabled him to formulate any considerable body of reliable prognoses such as the natural sciences have managed to achieve.

Hutchison does not completely dismiss the role of  a-priori reasoning in economics but objects to the idea that such reasoning exhausts the subject of economics. He quotes Ernst Mach on “laws” being “a limitation of what is possible.” If a law does not exclude or forbid any conceivable type of empirical occurrence than it  is not telling us anything about the world and, therefore,  such a science should be considered a pseudo-science. A similar complaint has been raised by Karl Popper about the all-accommodating nature of Marxism. The logical positivist writer Otto Neurath was of the opinion that, historically, metaphysical and anti-positivist thinking go hand in hand with the justification of oppression.

Much ink has been spilled over the question of whether the methods of the natural sciences are suitable for the study of economics. But even after 70 years since the publication of  Hutchison’s classic, economists who  have completely rejected empirical testing have contributed little of substance to the science of economics.