Hardback
The Revival of Modern Austrian Economics
A Critical Assessment of its Subjectivist Origins
9781858985404 Edward Elgar Publishing
This insightful book critically assesses the subjectivist metatheoretical origins of the revival of modern Austrian economics. It examines the ideas of the main contributors to the Austrian school, including von Mises, von Hayek and Lachmann.
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Critical Acclaim
Contents
More Information
This insightful book critically assesses the subjectivist metatheoretical origins of the revival of modern Austrian economics. It examines the ideas of the main contributors to the Austrian school, including von Mises, von Hayek and Lachmann.
Allen Oakley analyses the contribution to subjectivist philosophy made by the key founders of the neo-Austrian revival. He argues that while von Mises and von Hayek each confronted mainstream microeconomics with restricted subjectivist alternatives, Lachmann played the ‘devil’s advocate’ for a more comprehensive range of subjectivist principles. The author finds that ultimately, although all three provided analyses that reached well beyond the confines of neoclassical economics, none fully applied the tenets of a complete subjectivism. Their contributions to the 1970s revival of interest in Austrian themes, and their legacies for neo-Austrian schools of thought, have thus left a great need for further methodological development if economics as a human science is to be reconstructed on subjectivist foundations.
The Revival of Modern Austrian Economics will be of central interest to students and scholars of Austrian economics and to historians of economic thought and methodology more generally.
Allen Oakley analyses the contribution to subjectivist philosophy made by the key founders of the neo-Austrian revival. He argues that while von Mises and von Hayek each confronted mainstream microeconomics with restricted subjectivist alternatives, Lachmann played the ‘devil’s advocate’ for a more comprehensive range of subjectivist principles. The author finds that ultimately, although all three provided analyses that reached well beyond the confines of neoclassical economics, none fully applied the tenets of a complete subjectivism. Their contributions to the 1970s revival of interest in Austrian themes, and their legacies for neo-Austrian schools of thought, have thus left a great need for further methodological development if economics as a human science is to be reconstructed on subjectivist foundations.
The Revival of Modern Austrian Economics will be of central interest to students and scholars of Austrian economics and to historians of economic thought and methodology more generally.
Critical Acclaim
‘. . . I find this book both useful and important. . . Oakley does an admirable job in laying out the subjectivist credentials of Mises, Hayek and Lachmann. However, even more important is how this book lays the groundwork for further debate.’
– Karen Vaughn, Economic Record
‘. . . Oakley has clearly done his homework. As both his text and his footnotes attest, his knowledge of the relevant primary and secondary literature is unimpeachable. The book contains summaries of an amazingly large amount of Hayek’s work.’
– Bruce Caldwell, Journal of the History of Economic Thought
– Karen Vaughn, Economic Record
‘. . . Oakley has clearly done his homework. As both his text and his footnotes attest, his knowledge of the relevant primary and secondary literature is unimpeachable. The book contains summaries of an amazingly large amount of Hayek’s work.’
– Bruce Caldwell, Journal of the History of Economic Thought
Contents
Contents: Preface 1. Introduction 2. An Historical Sketch of Seminal Austrian Subjectivism 3. The Legacy of Ludwig von Mises 4. Hayek’s Early Formalism and Subjectivism 5. Hayek and the Vision of Economic Order 6. Hayek and Subjectivist Human Agency 7. Hayek’s Situated Human Agency 8. Hayek’s Methodology of Subjectivist Economics 9. The ‘Radical’ Subjectivism of Lachmann 10. Lachmann’s Kaleidics 11. Subjectivism: The Legacy Bibliography Index
