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NEW PERSPECTIVES
ON
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Volume 2 Number 1
ARTICLES
Barnett
and Block: Some Thoughts on Price Deflation
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm
Long: Rule-following, Praxeology and Anarchy
Simpson
and Kjar: A Diagrammatic Exposition of the Socialist Calculation Argument
Koderová: Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky na ˇceských
vysokých školách pˇred rokem 1989
2006
ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 2, Number 1, 2006, pp. 1 – 12
Some Thoughts on Price Deflation∗
William Barnett II† and Walter Block‡
JEL Classification: E31
Abstract: Price deflation has long been a bugaboo of economics; cordially hated, reviled
and feared by practically everyone. There is some justice in these sentiments when the
price deflation comes about as a result of government action. However, there is no warrant
for them when they stem from the freely made economic decisions of the masses of
economic actors. Then, price deflation is not only not problematic, it is a positive virtue.
∗
The authors would like to thank a referee of this journal for extremely incisive suggestions which, when
incorporated into the paper, greatly improved it. We are of course solely responsible for any remaining
errors and infelicities.
†
William Barnett II – Chase Distinguished Professor of International Business and Professor of Economics;
Department of Economics; Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business Administration; Loyola University
New Orleans; New Orleans, Louisiana 70118; (504) 864-7950; wbarnett@loyno.edu
‡
Dr. Walter Block, Ph.D. – Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics;
College of Business Administration; Loyola University New Orleans; 6363 St. Charles Avenue, Box 15,
Miller 318; New Orleans, LA 70118; c.v.: http://www.cba.loyno.edu/faculty.html; office: (504) 864-7934;
dept: (504) 864-7944; fax: (504) 864-7970; wblock@loyno.edu; www.walterblock.com
2 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Introduction
Price deflation1 has long been a bugaboo of economics; cordially hated, reviled and feared
by practically everyone. There is some justice in these sentiments when the price deflation
comes about as a result of government action. However, there is no warrant for
them when they stem from the freely made economic decisions of the masses of economic
actors. Then, price deflation is not only not problematic, it is a positive virtue. In
Section 2 of this paper we discuss money as a productive capital good, and demonstrate
that this quality can be enhanced by deflation. Section 3 is devoted to an analysis of deflation,
looking at it on the basis of three (3) different assumptions: 1. Full free enterprise
in money; 2. Quasi free enterprise: free banking; and 3. Fiat currency. We conclude in
Section 4.
2 Money as capital good
It seems curious that virtually all economists are concerned about P-deflation and that
the news, information and opinion media seem to consider it either a disaster in itself,
or a prelude thereto. As has been noted by others, mainstream economists have a fear of
P-deflation that leads such as Governor Bernanke of the Federal Reserve System to state:
Thus, as I have stressed already, prevention of [p-] deflation remains preferable to
having to cure it. If we do fall into [p-] deflation, however, we can take comfort that
the logic of the printing press example must assert itself, and sufficient injections of
money will ultimately always reverse a [p-] deflation (Bernanke, 2002).2
1
Today “inflation” and “deflation” are commonly used to refer to increases and decreases, respectively, in
the general level of prices. Formerly, they were used to refer to increases and decreases in the stock of
money. Even that was problematical, as some restricted the term solely to increases and decreases in the
stock of non-commodity media of exchange. Therefore, throughout we shall use the terms “P-inflation”
and “P-deflation” to refer to changes in the general level of prices. When referring to changes in the money
stock, we will make explicit which concept is relevant.
2
Stated Rudolf Havenstein, the head of the German Reichsbank in 1923: “The wholly extraordinary depreciation
of the mark has naturally created a rapidly increasing demand for additional currency, which
the Reichsbank has not always been able fully to satisfy. A simplified production of notes of large denominations
enabled us to bring ever greater amounts into circulation. But these enormous sums are
barely adequate to cover the vastly increased demand for the means of payment, which has just recently
attained absolutely fantastic level, especially as a result of the extraordinary increases in wages and salaries.
Barnett and Block: Some Thoughts on Price Deflation 3
Money is a capital good (Barnett and Block, 2005). It is a commonplace in economics
that the more productive is a capital good the better it is. As the essence of money is that
it is a generally accepted medium of exchange and means of final payment,3 the more
productive a money is in terms of this function, the better the capital good it is. This
leads us to the issue of the productivity of money.
“Productivity” is used in four different senses: subjective value productivity, pecuniary
value productivity, and productivity with respect to the quantity and quality of
output. Consider, first, subjective value productivity. The actions that are relevant to
money qua money are exchanges. The purpose of every voluntary exchange is to improve
the expected well-being of each party thereto relative to what he thinks it would
have been if he were to have done something else.4 That is, the purpose is to create subjective
value or utility. However, as all we can do is ordinally rank alternatives, there is
no way to measure value productivity; i.e., all the actor may say is: “I prefer A to B.”
He may not say: “I prefer A twice (or any other multiple) as much as B.” Therefore, in
terms of productivity all that may be said is that action A is more productive than action
B, and there is no way to say that A is twice (or some other multiple) as productive as B.
This concept is irrelevant for our discussion.
The running of the Reichsbank’s note-printing organization, which has become absolutely enormous, is
making the most extreme demands upon our personnel” (Ringer, 1969, 96; cited in Rothbard, 1983, 73).
3
Most economists usually define money in terms of its essential function as a generally accepted medium
of exchange. Because they are guaranteed by financial institutions, a very large number of individuals’
personal notes are more or less generally accepted in exchange for goods and services. It is therefore
necessary to include a second essential function of money – as a of means of final payment – in order to
distinguish it from such notes. We realize that because money is a medium of exchange, some maintain
that when an economic actor gives up goods in return for money, in an important sense the exchange is
not final, and therefore the money does not constitute final payment, because the money is intended to
later be exchanged for other goods. Nevertheless, though that may be the intent of the seller of goods
who receives money in exchange therefore, the buyer who pays in money has completed his part of the
exchange, and the seller has no recourse against him; to wit: if immediately after the sale, the exchange
value of the money fell to zero because, for whatever reason, no one wanted it anymore, the seller would
have no recourse against the buyer, or, for that matter, anyone else. This is most easily seen, when money
is a commodity; e.g., gold. It is obvious that no one accepting gold coins in an exchange for goods would
have any recourse against the buyer should, for whatever reason, the value of gold coins fall to zero
immediately thereafter (for the claim that property rights can only apply to things themselves, and not
their value, see Hoppe and Block, 2002).
4
Every involuntary exchange creates subjective value in the ex ante sense for every coercing party thereto,
and destroys subjective value for every coerced party, not relative to the coerced options, but relative to
those that would have existed absent coercion. See on this Rothbard (1997).
4 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Pecuniary value productivity is the ratio of the pecuniary value of the output to
that of the relevant inputs. For money, this is the ratio of the pecuniary value of the
non-money goods whose exchange is mediated in a given period of time to the amount
of money stock involved in those transactions.5 Note that a change in pecuniary value
productivity could be the result of a changes in prices not completely offset by changes
in transactions. Because of this, the concept of value productivity is also unsatisfactory
for our purposes.
Quality of output productivity is the quality of a given output relative to the inputs
used to produce it. This concept is also unsatisfactory for our purposes, in that, in
addition to being subjective6 (similar to subjective value productivity), it also has the
same defect as pecuniary value productivity. Note that a change in quality productivity
could be the result of changes in quality not completely offset by changes in transactions.
Moreover, changes in quality as they affect productivity do so by affecting prices. Because
of this, the concept of quality productivity is unsatisfactory for our purposes.
This brings us full circle to the productivity of money – the quantity of exchanges
mediated by a given stock of money, ceteris paribus. That is, the greater the quantity of
exchanges mediated by a given stock of money, the more productive is money.
In sum, the productivity of the specific capital goods that constitute money is the
quantity of transactions that are mediated in a particular period of time with a given
5
Consider the quantity equation of money: MV = PQ = Y as per mainstream economics. M is the
stock of money, V is the average (transactions) velocity of the stock of money, P is the average price of
a transaction, Q is the total number of transactions in a given period of time, and Y is the pecuniary
value of those transactions. Then, the value productivity of money is V (=PQ/M). Thus, an increase in
value productivity would allow, in the same period of time, the same pecuniary value of transactions to
be executed with a smaller amount of capital in the form of money, or the same amount of capital in the
form of money to mediate a greater pecuniary value of transactions.
Austrian economists eschew the use of mathematics as unsuitable for the study of human action. However,
this does not preclude them from considering the concept of the value productivity of money. Thus,
an increase in value productivity would allow an individual, in the same period of time, the same pecuniary
value of transactions to be executed with a smaller amount of capital in the form of money, or the
same amount of capital in the form of money to mediate a greater pecuniary value of transactions.
6
Although there are, depending on the specific good involved, various objective measures of the quality of
an output, including even exchange, still, ultimately quality is subjective. Thus, e.g., even if we consider
the quality of an exchange to be related so that there would be some objective measure of that aspect of
quality, nevertheless, quality is, fully considered, subjective. Is it possible that there could be an inverse
relationship in operation here? Yes. This could come about if some market participants desired to prolong
the exchange process because, say, of an attraction to the other party[ies]).
Barnett and Block: Some Thoughts on Price Deflation 5
stock of money. The productivity of money, in that sense, changes only if during that
particular time period, ceteris paribus: 1) individuals (or firms) change their average holding
periods of money in such ways that they do not offset each other, with productivity
increasing (decreasing) with decreases (increases) in the holding periods; or 2) the prices
of goods change in such ways that they do not offset each other, with productivity increasing
(decreasing) with decreases (increases) in prices.
Therefore, ceteris paribus, P-deflation increases the productivity of the capital goods
that comprise money, and thus is greatly to be desired.7
3 Deflation in three different contexts
Milton Friedman (1992, 262) has famously said that, “[Price] inflation is always and everywhere
a monetary phenomenon.”8 The corollary is, “[Price] deflation, also, is everywhere
a monetary phenomenon.” In fact, the very concepts of inflation and deflation
are nonsensical in a barter economy. And, this is true regardless of whether inflation and
deflation are taken to refer to changes in the general level of prices (or, what is the same,
alterations in the purchasing power of money) or in the stock of money.9
Before proceeding, it is interesting to ask why one should be interested in monetary
deflation, or for that matter, monetary inflation. Certainly in a world of perfect helicopter
money10 neither M-inflation nor deflation11 should be of concern. The reason is
that perfectly-anticipated helicopter-borne changes in the money supply would have absolutely
no effects on any real variable, including subjective ones. Then, the only impact
of monetary inflation or deflation would be to cause price inflation or deflation, respec-
7
For other defenses of deflation, see Rockwell (2003); Rothbard (1976; 1991) and, Salerno (2003, 2004).
8
For Austrians, the crucial distinction is between commodity and fiat money, whereas for the mainstream
it is that between real and nominal money. On the latter, see: Friedman, M. 1969, 1.
9
The term “money” is used ambiguously, also, in order to avoid confusion, herein it is taken to mean a
generally, though not necessarily universally, accepted medium of exchange and means of final payment.
10
Of course, in the real world perfect helicopter money is impossible, if for no other reason than that real
resources would have to be diverted to the production of the new paper money, or storage or destruction
of withdrawn money, not to mention the real resources devoted to adjusting the records of nominal values.
11
We assume, arguendo, that just as the helicopters can disburse money in such fashion that its effects are
perfectly neutral, they can also withdraw it with the same lack of effect on real variables. For a critique of
the claim that neutral money can exist in the real world, however, see Cochran (2004), Mises (1998), and
Shostak (2003, 2004).
6 New Perspectives on Political Economy
tively; i.e., only nominal variables would be affected. However, it is precisely because
real-world monetary inflation and deflation do cause real effects, both distributional and
with respect to the allocation of resources,12 as well as causing booms with attendant
crises and busts in the former cases and exacerbating busts in the latter case, that they are
of interest.
Although there are and have been many different monetary arrangements or systems,
only three (3) are considered herein.
3.1 Full free enterprise in money
Consider, first, a market, commodity money with 100% reserve requirements for demand
deposits and banknotes, with no governmental intervention re money and banking, save
to enforce the 100% reserve requirement and other contractual obligations, should such
prove necessary. Barnett and Block (2004, 48) make the case that: “The optimum quantity
of money is . . . whatever amount of gold as coins the free-market process creates.” That
is, if the voluntary actions of individuals resulted in a monetary deflation, that would
be optimal13 as it would indicate they had chosen to divert some of the scarce monetary
commodity to more valuable non-monetary uses. In such a situation, the only way the
monetary commodity would not be so reallocated would be if governmental intervention
prevented it. Obviously, such intrusion would lead to sub-optimality. Moreover, in such
a system price deflation could result from monetary deflation, increased hoarding of
money, or increased production. Assuming that neither the monetary deflation, nor
12
This is the main insight of Austrian Business Cycle Theory. On this see Rothbard (1963), Garrison (2001),
Cochran (2004), Hayek, (1933, 1935, 1939).
13
What is our major interest in this paper: the desirability of price deflation, or the rule for the optimal
quantity of money? It might be thought that there is little or no connection between these two concepts,
since the first one is dynamic, and the other static. We, however, deny the latter contention, at least under
certain circumstances. That is, in our view, it all depends upon whether we are discussing free market or
fiat money. If the former, then the optimal amount of money, just as in the case of the optimal amount
of chalk or cheese or any other good, is dynamic, not static. The optimal amount of any good, service or
item, certainly including money, is the amount desired by the consumers, and this is subject to change.
On the other hand, if the latter is under discussion, then our view is that either the optimal amount of
this is zero (i.e., we move to free enterprise money), or, if this is somehow precluded, arguendo, then and
only then do we embrace a static state of affairs: the optimal amount of fiat currency is whatever amount
is now in existence.
Barnett and Block: Some Thoughts on Price Deflation 7
the increased hoarding, nor the increased production14 was the result of governmental
intervention, the price deflation would come about as the result of an adjustment of the
structure and level of prices to accord with individuals’ preferences, precisely what would
be expected to occur in a free enterprise economy.
All of which is to say that, from an economic point of view, any deflation, or, for that
matter, inflation, whether monetary or price, that results from the voluntary choices of
individuals is optimal, and any that results from governmental interference is suboptimal
(Rothbard, 1997).15
3.2 Quasi free enterprise: free banking
Second, posit a market commodity money with free banking16 in the sense that there
is no legal reserve requirement for either demand deposits or banknotes, and without
any government intervention re money and banking, save for the enforcement of any
contractual obligations, should that prove necessary. Assuming, arguendo, that competition
would not eliminate any banks choosing to hold only fractional reserves, and also
that people would voluntarily accept the fractionally-backed banknotes and checkable
deposits as money, the only relevant difference between this situation and the previous
one is the possibility of a deflation in the form of a decrease in the sum of banknotes,
checkable deposits, and commodity money not held as reserves by the banks.
The same thing can be said in this case as in the previous one. From an economic
point of view, any deflation, or, for that matter, inflation, whether monetary or price,
14
It might seem strange to think that deflation consequent on any increase in production might be suboptimal;
however, of the production were the result of governmental intervention, say taxation on leisure
and direct subsidization of production, output of goods might be sub-optimally high, leisure sub-optimally
low.
15
Let us consider an objection to the foregoing. We are offering two criteria that seem to be incompatible:
on the one hand “productivity of money as a capital asset”, and on the other Rothbard’s (1977) assertion
that any transaction not-forced by the government is beneficial, while anything forced by it is not. The
use of multiple criteria is not per se problematical. Certainly one could establish two criteria with respect
to the solution of a mathematical problem: 1) it must be correct; and 2) it must use the least possible
number of steps. If there is a problem it must be because the criteria lead to disparate results. However, re
deflation that is not the case with our criteria. Rather, as we show they yield consistent results. Therefore,
unless one disagrees with both of our criteria our results hold.
16
We assume, arguendo, that such free banking is non-fraudulent by virtue of fully informed parties. On
this, see Selgin and White (1996, 85-92). For a critique of this position, see Hoppe, et al. (1998).
8 New Perspectives on Political Economy
that results from the voluntary choices of individuals is optimal, and any that results
from governmental intervention is suboptimal.
3.3 Fiat currency
The third system is one of inconvertible paper money issued by the government, or by a
central bank that has been given monopoly powers re the issue of banknotes, with such
banknotes having the quality of legal tender, and a regulated, fractional-reserve banking
system. Banks may hold reserves in the form either of banknotes or deposits at the
central bank. Two versions of this latter system are considered, one in which the central
bank can act as lender-of-last-resort and/or the government provides deposit insurance,
and the other in which it can do neither.
Barnett and Block (2004, 40) state:
The optimal quantity of fiat money is zero (Hoppe, Hülsmann, and Block, 1998,
1-50). However, in a fiat-money-using society, the optimal quantity of fiat money
is whatever is in existence, and, from an Austrian perspective, that quantity should
never be changed, either increased or decreased, save for its complete elimination in
shifting to a commodity money.
The reason for this position is straightforward. Any change in the stock of money involves
injection and distribution effects, and attendant resource reallocations. Because
such effects and reallocations are costly, fiat-money inflation is never warranted. Moreover,
the only justifiable reasons for fiat-money deflation are: 1) if it is part and parcel of
a process to reinstate a commodity money; or, 2) if it would rectify the injustices brought
about both by the introduction of the fiat money system and by subsequent monetary
inflation. However, as this last is an impossible task, if for no other reason than a lack of
relevant knowledge (Hayek, 1945), only the former remains as a legitimate purpose. Fiat
money deflation, merely to reduce the amount of fiat money, without eliminating it entirely,
is not warranted because not only would it not remedy past injustices, it would add
to them new ones in the form of injection and distribution effects, and consequent misallocations
of resources. In such a system, optimal monetary policy would require that the
stock of fiat money remain constant, literally in perpetuity. And, in that case, any price
Barnett and Block: Some Thoughts on Price Deflation 9
deflation, or, for that matter, inflation, resulting from the otherwise voluntary actions of
individuals would be optimal; and, any consequent on governmental intervention would
be sub-optimal.
The importance of this distinction cannot possibly be overstated. There are two very
different kinds of deflation. The first is that which ensues as the result of the decisions of
the millions upon millions of people who together constitute the market. They decide,
for their own reasons, to increase their demands for cash balances. Naturally, if the
amount of money in circulation is fixed, they cannot all, at least initially, succeed in
obtaining this goal. But as each economic actor makes this attempt, the “magic of the
market” moves them in this direction. For the attempt to achieve greater cash implies
that people are now more likely to sell what they own and to hold on to whatever cash
they already have. If everyone does this at around the same time, prices will fall below
the level that would otherwise have obtained.17 At reduced prices, the real value of the
extant money stock rises, thus allowing the market participants to attain their purposes.
Deflation emanating from this source is not only non objectionable, it is part and
parcel of the market process. To oppose it is to oppose the free decision making on the
part of the masses of people in the pursuit of their economic goals. There is nothing
whatsoever to fear from general price falls occurring as a result. This is not a “market
failure,” nor untoward in any manner, shape or form.
Deflation that occurs as the result of government18 intervention is entirely a different
matter. Here, it is not at all the case that the deflation stems from the voluntary decisions
of all. Rather, it is the result of the actions of a few monetary central planners. Since this
is not a result of markets, it cannot constitute a “market failure” (Cowan, 1988); rather,
it is a “government failure” (DiLorenzo, 2002).
17
For the view that economic analysis is largely a matter of counter factual reasoning, see Hülsmann (2003).
18
According to Friedman and Schwartz (1965) the great depression came about after then Fed chairman
Benjamin Strong died, and his successors presided over the fall of the money stock by about one third in
a matter of mere months. For an alternative and correct explanation of this event see Rothbard (1963).
10 New Perspectives on Political Economy
4 Conclusion
Deflation sounds horrible to most economists because it evokes the image of the Great
Depression during which there was massive deflation. But we have demonstrated the
case to the contrary: it enhances the value of money, and is harmless, as these matters go,
under three widely differing assumptions, as long as it emanates from the private decision
making of market participants, and does not stem from government intervention into the
economy.
Is deflation desirable? We take no stand on this issue whatsoever. That is, we do
not at all commit ourselves to the claim that deflation is desirable per se. However, it
is desirable if it results from free market activity based on free market money. The same
applies to any other economic consequences of truly free enterprise decisions.
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ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 2, Number 1, 2006, pp. 13 – 35
The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm∗
Judit Kapás†
JEL Classification: B53, D20, P10
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the market
and the firm through an analysis of the coordination problem. An important question
is to what extent the nature and process of the coordination differs in the market from
that within the firm. The paper deals only with those aspects of this issue which are
related to a distinction between two types of coordination proposed by Klein (1997) and
Sautet (2002). The author presents three dilemmas stemming from this framework and
investigates the similarities and differences between the firm and the market by providing
answers to these.
∗
This paper has benefited from the support of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (contract no: T
49602).
†
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Debrecen, 26 Kassai street, H-4028 Debrecen,
Hungary; Tel: + 36-52-416-580, Fax: + 36-52-419-728; e-mail: judit.kapas@econ.unideb.hu
14 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Introduction
The issue of coordination, both from a theoretical and empirical point of view, has been
of primary importance in economics since Adam Smith. The major question is how a
multitude of individuals participating in a complex division of labor can successfully coordinate
their actions and minimize disappointments, when each possesses different and
changing knowledge and expectations about future possibilities? How do agents make
the decisions necessary to fulfill their goals when the success of their own actions depends
upon the decisions and actions of others (Ebeling 1987)? These questions suggest
that coordination is one of the essential ingredients for the functioning of society and
organizations. In a broad sense, all actions are always somehow coordinated; the important
question however, is how this coordination is achieved (Hülsmann 1997), and this
leads to the issue of what the arenas of coordination are and how coordination is achieved
within them.
That markets provide important institutions of coordination is widely accepted in
economics. Hayek (1945, 1946, 1978) contributed to a significant extent to an understanding
of how coordination is achieved through a price system, and in addition, to an explanation
of how the institutions of the market evolve spontaneously (Hayek 1967). “The
institutional setting and the allocation of resources matter in economics precisely because
behavior in a changing world is not automatically coordinated” (O’Driscoll 1977:141).1
Besides the market, business institutions also arise as solutions to coordination games
(Langlois and Robertson 1993). The issue of how coordination is achieved within firms
is extensively discussed in the theory of the firm which developed from Coase’s (1937)
seminal paper.2 Nevertheless, the perspective of the theory of the firm is restricted to a
view of the firm from a transaction-cost-efficiency point of view, which hampers this theory’s
conception of the very essence of coordination and the nature of the coordination
process (Langlois 1997).
1
Note also that the problem of economic coordination is important not simply because the decisionmaking
is decentralized, although this is an important aspect of the problem, but because of constant
change. Decentralization in an unchanging environment will not cause serious problems.
2
I will not criticize here the Coasean-Williamsonian theory of the firm, it is beyond the scope of my present
paper, but it is important to stress that for a better explanation of the firm “we have to show how firms
are part of the market process” (Sautet 2000:69). That is, we need to explain how existence of firms is
linked to the operation of the market process.
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 15
An important question is to what extent the nature and the process of the coordination
differs in the market from that within the firm. In this paper I am concerned
with this issue. My aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the firm and the
market through an analysis of the coordination problem. I will not strive to give an allembracing
account of how coordination is achieved in the market and within firms; this
is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead I will deal only with those aspects of the issue
which are related to a distinction between different types of coordination proposed by
Klein (1997) and Sautet (2002). That is, my starting point will be the distinction between
two kinds of coordination (type I and type II), and two kinds of solutions to these (catallaxy
and conventions respectively). My argument will be that this simple schema poses
severe problems in several respects; the major issue amongst them concerns the role of
the firm in solving the coordination problem. I will investigate the similarities and differences
between the firm and the market in terms of what kind of coordination problem
is solved in what way in the market and within the firm.3 The major conclusion will be
that both the market and the firm could be seen as particular solutions to both kinds of
coordination problems.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 shows the two kinds of coordination
and, based on certain controversial issues stemming from Sautet’s (2002) and Klein’s
(1997) framework, draws up three dilemmas, the answers to which may help to better
understand both the market and the firm. Section 3 and 4 deal with the issue of coordination
in the market and within the firm respectively, while also providing answers to
the dilemmas. Section 5 concludes.
2 Two kinds of coordination
According to Sautet (2002) and Klein (1997) there are two kinds of coordination4. Although
there is a slight difference in their views, basically they take the same position.5
Type I coordination is a process through which mutual awareness of individuals becomes
3
The issue of whether firms and markets are essentially different or similar things is an important question,
on which views differ largely. For an overview, see Cowen and Parker (1997).
4
The word coordination comes from the Latin words co (meaning together) and ordinare (to arrange).
5
I use Sautet’s labels, i.e. type I and type II coordination, while Klein calls these metacoordination and
coordination, respectively.
16 New Perspectives on Political Economy
gradually greater. Here coordination happens without individuals being aware of it and
without their ever knowing each other. Type I coordination means that a concatenation
of activities is arranged so as to produce good results. As opposed to this, type II coordination
refers to situations where one coordinates one’s actions with those of others in a
purposeful way. Here coordination is understood as something one hopes to achieve in
one’s interaction with others, i.e., it is defined as the achievement of concerted actions.
This kind of coordination problem, contrary to type I coordination, can be assessed by
the human mind. In this case the coordination requires the use of certain common means
to achieve a particular end. The difference between the two meanings can be explored
in terms of whether the verb coordinate is transitive or intransitive (Klein 1997). As an
intransitive verb it means: “to be or become coordinate esp. so as to act together in a
smooth, concerted way” (Klein 1997:326). Here there is a direct object only of a reflexive
kind. This is type II coordination. Coordination as a transitive verb means “to put in the
same order or rank . . . to bring into common action, movement, or condition” (Klein
1997:326), which is type I coordination.
The two authors argue that these two kinds of coordination are solved in two different
ways. Type I coordination is the result of the entrepreneurial competitive process as
described by Hayek (1946) and Kirzner (1973). An entrepreneur, by discovering profit
opportunities, turns information into knowledge and tends to improve the degree of coordination
of individuals’ plans: discoordinatedness is gradually replaced by a greater
degree of coordination. Since past entrepreneurial acts create new profit opportunities
(Holcombe 2003), this process never comes to a state of rest.6 Out of this process emerges
a spontaneous social order that exists without being planned, which is based on abstract
rules and has no particular purpose. The social order is achieved by following certain
rules and utilizes the knowledge of all its members without the knowledge being available
to any particular mind.
Type II coordination is solved by rules or conventions such as “we all drive on the
same side of the road”. To put it differently, while the resolution of type I coordination
brings about “a pleasing arrangement” (Klein 1997), that of type II means an agreeable
interaction for the actors. An important point is that rules or conventions that are solu-
6
Two other factors that create profit opportunities are as follows: (1) factors that disequilibrate the market,
(2) factors that enhance production possibilities (Holcombe 2003).
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 17
tions to type II coordination permit the functioning of type I coordination: these rules
establish a framework that makes type I coordination possible (Sautet 2002)7. That is,
type I coordination can be solved by institutions that are in their turn solutions to type
II coordination problems. This means that the two kinds of coordination have a hierarchical
relationship.8 To summarize Sautet’s and Klein’s views, type I coordination refers
to a coordination where the invisible hand coordinates the acts of many purposeful individuals,
while type II coordination means an intentional coordination of the acts of
many purposeful individuals by themselves.
From the above rather simple schema of the two scholars three propositions arise.
The first is that the two types of coordination differ essentially from one another in intentionality.
The second is that while type I coordination admits only organic solutions,
that is solutions that emerge from the process itself, type II coordination may admit organic
and pragmatic solutions as well (Sautet 2002). The third proposition maintains that
type I coordination can be solved exclusively by the spontaneous market process, or put
differently, firms solve exclusively type II coordination problems. My argument is that
all these three propositions are controversial and require further investigation. It is worth
transforming these assertions into dilemmas or questions to be answered.
The first dilemma concerns whether coordination in a market, i.e., type I coordination
is unintentional and all conventions and rules, i.e., type II coordination is intentional.
The second question is whether the solutions to type I coordination could have an
exclusively non-designed (organic) character. The third dilemma refers to whether type I
coordination can be solved exclusively by the spontaneous order, or put alternatively, do
firms exist to solve exclusively type II coordination problem?
My argument is that answers to these questions may help to better understand both
the market and the firm. In what follows, by analyzing the coordination both in the
market and within the firm, I will provide answers to the above three dilemmas. The
argumentation will be based upon two things. First, I will emphasize more explicitly the
difference as regards the nature of coordination problems (whether type I or type II) and
7
“Social order emerges through the existence of meta-market institutions such as property rights and contract
law, and market institutions such as firms” (Sautet 2002:35).
8
This view will be supported by what will be said in Section 3.3. and 4.2.
18 New Perspectives on Political Economy
their solutions (whether the market process or conventions and rules9). This suggests, as
I will discuss below at greater length, that there is no one-to-one correspondence between
them, in contrast to what both scholars have argued. On the other hand, I will show that
it is crucially important to differentiate between the coordinating institutions and the
solutions to coordination. This framework will allow me to draw some new conclusions.
3 Coordination by spontaneous order
Adam Smith (1776) argued that the invisible hand of the market produces coordination
in an economy, albeit the details of how coordination is achieved remained unexplained.
Hayek (1945, 1946) and Kirzner (1973) provided an explanation for this. In this section I
will first show the Hayekian-Kirznerian theory of coordination. Then I will turn to the
first two dilemmas I have raised above and will discuss the issue of intentionality in the
market and the issue of the organic character of the market.
3.1 The Hayekian-Kirznerian theory
The coordination problem is of central concern in Austrian economics. Based on Hayek
(1945), who speaks of coordination in terms of individuals’ plans which reflect individuals’
knowledge and expectations, coordination is needed because of dispersed knowledge10.
Dispersed knowledge has to be coordinated in order to exploit it for the benefits
of humans. The problem that the market has to solve is in fact how individuals’ particular
knowledge can be diffused and made general (Bianchi 1994). Hayek’s theory maintains
that in an uncertain world the discovery procedure of market competition spontaneously
coordinates decentralized knowledge. According to him, this coordination is achieved by
the mechanism of prices.
Hayek’s (1945) major achievement has been to show that the advantage of decentralized
decision-making in a market stems from the fact that this is an extremely efficient
way to coordinate dispersed knowledge. Efficiency is reflected, on the one hand, in the
fact that the price system allows us to economize on knowledge: the only thing we must
9
What Klein (1997) means by conventions, can be regarded as institutions.
10
Knowledge exists only in “the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which
all the separate individuals possess” (Hayek 1945:77).
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 19
know is prices.11 On the other hand, exchange enables us to make our local tacit knowledge
socially usable for others: buying and selling for instance convey our knowledge to
others without the need to articulate our knowledge.12 To put it differently, the major
advantage of the market process is that it allows us to utilize a much greater amount of
knowledge than under an alternative system.
In Hayek’s view there is a tendency to equilibrium in a decentralized exchange system,
which is brought about by competition and entrepreneurship. Here the role of
the entrepreneur becomes crucial because the coordination depends upon his activity
(Kirzner 1973).13 “A fully coordinated state of affairs . . . is one in which each action can
be taken by each individual in a demarcated set of actions, correctly takes into account (a)
the actions in fact taken by everyone else in the set, and (b) the actions which the others
might take were one’s own actions to be different” (Kirzner 1998:292). Clearly, a state of
perfect coordination, by definition of the market process, never can be reached. Accordingly,
the term coordination is used to refer to the process in the course of which a state
of discoordinatedness gradually comes to be replaced by successive state of greater and
greater degrees of coordinatedness. That is, coordination is a dynamic concept: plans become
more consistent over time.14 Entrepreneurial competition must be seen as responsible
for coordination: individuals are constantly revising their plans in a way that brings
them into greater uniformity: “The very disappointments and regrets that results from
initial coordination failures systematically bring about improved sets of market decision”
(Kirzner 1992:146). The above coordination story is about how markets work; accordingly,
the Austrian theory of the market process is in fact a coordination theory. When
arguing that there is a tendency toward diffusion of knowledge and increased consistency
of plans, we speak of an ex post coordination (O’Driscoll 1977) which is conceptually
different from an ex ante coordination.
11
See the tin case in Hayek (1945).
12
In this sense, according to Hayek, the market is a communicative process. For a critique of this, see
Hülsmann (1997).
13
Kirzner’s view of equilibrating entrepreneurship is very often contrasted with Schumpeter’s disequilibrating
entrepreneurship. See among others Kirzner (1973), Boettke and Coyne (2003).
14
This means that the market economy is characterized by continual planning and plan revision, albeit on
a decentralized level. That is, spontaneous order does not preclude planning as such; the argument is
that only planning by individuals in decentralized markets will tend towards an optimal use of knowledge
(Barry 1982).
20 New Perspectives on Political Economy
In a state of disequilibrium individuals’ plans are not perfectly coordinated, which is
reflected, however, in price discrepancies in product and input markets (Kirzner 1973).15
All this means that prices are always, to some extent, “incorrect” in the Kirznerian sense
because they are disequilibrium prices. What is of significance is that the coordinatedness
is not perfect in the market; as a consequence we can conceive various degree of
coordinatedness. A system is better if it exhibits a higher degree of coordinatedness, and,
according to Hayek (1945), the price system is a system that can produce the highest
degree of coordinatedness.16
To refer to the complex system that assures coordination of individuals’ acts Hayek
(1964, 1973) uses the term spontaneous order or catallaxy. According to him, spontaneous
order consists of those institutions that are the result of human action but not the
result of some specific human intention. In other words, spontaneous order or catallaxy
is a network of firms and households and has no specific purpose of its own; rather it
serves as a process by which individuals and organizations pursue their own purposes.
Catallaxy is that which results naturally from the interaction of firms and households
through the market exchange.
3.2 On intentionality
The coordination that is achieved through the spontaneous order, as noted above, is referred
to as type I coordination by Sautet (2002) and Klein (1997). The important thing
is that here individuals are not aware of the fact that they participate in a coordination
game. In this sense the coordinatedness – which is not perfect, as I have argued above – is
an unintentional result of the activities of all market actors. Clearly, here unintentionality
refers to the way the coordination problem is solved since the outcome of the market
process looks as if it had been designed and predicted by an omnipresent actor, but clearly
could not have been. Actors whose activities become coordinated act intentionally, i.e.,
15
Note that the Kirznerian concept of equilibrium (there are no unexploited profit opportunities) differs
from the Hayekian concept (the plans of all individuals are mutually compatible). See Holcombe (1999)
for the details.
16
Hayek’s concern was to show the advantage of the price system in coordination over other systems, and,
in this spirit he claims that the price system exhibits better coordinatedness than other systems. This view,
however, does not give a criterion for the quality of the coordination, which would be indeed necessary
as is also stressed by Hülsmann (1997).
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 21
they pursue their own interest. Nevertheless, the solution to such a coordination problem
emerges as an unintentional result of the actors’ intentionality. All this concerns
the first dilemma (i.e. whether it is in terms of intentionality that the basic difference
between the two types of coordination lies) I have drawn up above.
In order to better understand the whole issue of intentionality I propose to differentiate
between the nature of coordination problems and the solutions to them. The
ambiguities that are embedded in Sautet’s and Klein’s framework stem precisely from the
fact that they fail to distinguish between these two things. My argument is that intentionality
must be interpreted in terms of how the solutions to coordination problems are
achieved, while the nature of the coordination problem refers to whether the actors are
aware of the fact that they are playing a coordination game or not. It follows that, of
course, the two types of coordination differ in intentionality, but, it is not intentionality
that constitutes the fundamental difference between them. Instead, what constitutes
the difference is to be found in the fact that actors are not aware that they are playing a
coordination game in type I coordination, while they are aware of this in type II. And it
is precisely this latter concept which is reflected in the question of whether the solution
is an intentional (type II coordination) or unintentional (type I coordination) result of
individuals’ intentional acts.17 To put it differently, difference in intentionality between
the two types of coordination is best seen as a consequence of individuals’ awareness, i.e.,
the nature of the coordination problems, rather than as a cause of it.
3.3 The organic versus pragmatic character of the market
What was said above leads us to the second dilemma: whether the solutions to type I
coordination could have an exclusively non-designed (organic) character. My answer is
no. The fact that solutions to type I coordination problems emerge unintentionally does
not mean that designed (pragmatic) institutions do not play a role in this. For instance,
for markets (spontaneous orders) to emerge there are some preconditions such as private
property rights, freedom to contract and contract enforcement (Hodgson 2001:310).
When these institutions exist, markets can emerge to a large extent spontaneously. In
addition, in many cases people who expected to undertake a great many transactions
17
In this sense intentionality per se is not missing from type I coordination, since actors behave intentionally
in both types of coordination.
22 New Perspectives on Political Economy
and valued the private benefits to be gained from making the market above the private
costs invested in making markets (Loasby 1999:119). There were periods in history when
rulers or kings initiated markets, or buyers and sellers or other organizations created markets
by inventing new institutions necessary for the market to operate (Lamoreaux et al.
2003)18. This is to say that markets, which are the best way to solve the type I coordination
problem, could emerge either spontaneously or to a certain extent deliberately.
This seems to contradict what Hayek (1973) said about the spontaneous origin of the
market process. Thus, this is only a paradox which can be resolved by rethinking what
the market means.
The point is that the “market” is not a simple term (Ménard 2005) and has two meanings.
The first meaning of the “market” is market economy. In this sense “market”
means the general set of arrangements of how an economic system operates and cannot
be equated with particular markets. It involves the set of institutions that embed all
modes of organizations and make them possible to operate. A “market” in the sense of
the market economy is a purely spontaneous result of the actions of humans, as Hayek
argued. In another sense “market” delineates a concrete mode of organizing exchanges
(spot markets) as opposed to arranging them within the firm. Here markets are understood
as one of the governance structures in Williamsonian terms (Williamson 1985). In
this sense a particular market can be partly created by purposeful actors as in the case of
the wheat market in Chicago.
Let me now focus on the first meaning of the market, i.e., the market economy and
analyze how coordination is achieved in the catallaxy. In fact, the word catallaxy describes
the network of market institutions that surround the use of exchange as a means
of achieving human ends. These institutions facilitate coordination by providing rules
that guide actors making choices in a world of uncertainty (Horwitz 2004). As argued
by Lachmann (1970) there are various institutions through which coordination can be
assured in the market, which means, in fact, that it is not the market itself that coordinates,
but the various institutions of the market: “An institution provides means of
18
Lamoreaux et al. (2003) argue that in the second half of the 19th century some markets (for instance the
wheat market in Chicago) could not work properly even despite the significant decrease in transportation
and communications costs in the U.S. because of the “lemons” problem. To resolve this problem the
Board of Trade worked out three categories of wheat (standards of quality) and hired inspectors to control
quality in stores. This proves that in some cases markets need assistance to emerge.
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 23
orientation to a large number of actors. It enables them to coordinate their actions by
means of orientation to a common signpost” (Lacmann 1970:45). In this spirit I argue for
a differentiation between the coordinating institutions and the solutions to coordination.
Solutions to coordination are those complex institutions such as for instance the catallaxy
and firms, which themselves encompass numerous institutions such as rules and conventions,
which may emerge either spontaneously or deliberately.19 That is, institutions
which are “the social crystallization of rule-following behavior” (O’Driscoll and Rizzo
1985:6) and from which the market economy is built up serve to coordinate individuals’
dispersed knowledge, while the market economy is a complex of interrelationships and
the institutions. Market in the sense of market economy involves particular markets,
firms, long-term contractual relationships between firms, all contractual institutions, etc.
Clearly, the price system could not have been equated with catallaxy, unlike in Sautet
(2002) and Klein (1997); the price mechanism is only one of the coordinating institutions
of the market.20 As Hayek (1945) pointed out, prices convey information, which serves
to achieve a greater consistency between plans. Moreover, prices do not simply summarize
an already existing information set, they also provide the incentives for the discovery
of new information (Hayek 1978)21, which enforces individuals to revise their initially
uncoordinated decisions. Individuals base their plans on prices, even though these prices
reflect past ratios of exchanges. Nevertheless, it is not only prices that coordinate activities
and plans in the market, but all other market institutions as well. Amongst them, let
me start with the role of trust. Trust should be seen in the context of the anonymity of
market interactions. What markets do is to promote cooperation in anonymity (Ebeling
1987) by enabling anonymous actors to have high levels of trust in each other. The trust
that actors have in each other is not the sort of personal trust that comes from face-toface
relationships; rather this trust is institutionally driven. Another, and probably the
most fundamental institution of the market economy is private property (Mises 1920).
As Hülsmann (1997) points out it is not prices that coordinate the actions: prices are
the outcome of the coordination. Rather, it is property that coordinates the individuals’
19
See Sugden (1989) for an explanation of how rules can evolve without conscious human design.
20
Similarly, firms involve numerous coordinating institutions too, an idea which will be developed in the
following section.
21
Note that both the market and the firm provide an incentive system. I will discuss this at greater length
below.
24 New Perspectives on Political Economy
actions because only a property owner can “select knowledge in terms of importance”
(Hülsmann 1997:44). And of course, the other coordinating institutions such as the rule
of law, contract enforcement, rules of how to make contracts, smaller scale norms, practices,
etc. are also necessary for catallaxy to operate. Some of these institutions, such as
private property, rule of law, freedom to contract must assure the stability of the broad
institutional framework in the market economy (Lachmann 1970).
It follows from all this, that good institutions are important because they coordinate
our behavior by limiting our choices: they make behavior more predictable, which
enhances the coordination of our behavior with that of others.22 In most cases the institutions
of catallaxy work best when they emerge as unintended consequences of human
choices, rather than being imposed (Horwitz 2004). In other words, rules appropriate
for spontaneous order are more likely to be discovered than deliberately created (Barry
1982), which does not exclude the fact that some rules may have a pragmatic origin.23
To summarize, the spontaneous order consists of various coordinating institutions
which are mostly, but not exclusively, of a non-designed character. However, designed
(pragmatic) institutions are much important when thinking of the market in its second
meaning, i.e., a particular market for organizing particular transactions. Note that this
meaning may also involve those long-term relationships between firms which are basically
of market-type contracts (e.g., supplier programs, joint ventures, outsourcing, networks
of firms). Since these modes for organizing transactions are deliberately chosen
by the actors they entail numerous designed institutions such as quality standards, standards
in production, distribution and quality control, etc. However, we must recognize
that here, to a significant extent, the coordination game is well-defined and well-known
to the participants (for instance for the firms who belong to the same franchise system).
Accordingly, in many respects firms in a network coordinate their activities similarly to
22
“To justify one’s faith in the coordinating function of markets, one cannot simply assume that prices are
coordinating at their ex ante equilibrium level. Rather, one must be concerned with the institutional
environment of economic systems and the appropriateness of these institutions for the emergence of a
spontaneous market order” (O’ Driscoll 1977:141).
23
For instance, in some markets property rights have evolved spontaneously, while in many other cases they
were created deliberately (Sugden 1989).
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 25
the way activities are coordinated inside firms.24 Without going into details, from the
viewpoint of my present context the important thing is that market in its second meaning
involves a mixture of type I and type II coordination problems and I argue this for
the same reasons I will present in the next section in case of firms.
My intention was only to draw attention to the fact that when thinking of the market
in its second meaning, i.e., a particular mode for organizing transactions, it can be seen
as a solution to the type II coordination problem, the actors being aware they are playing
a coordination game. It is only in this sense that the market may have a largely pragmatic
character.
4 Coordination within the firm
Sautet (2002) and Klein (1997) suggest that firms are solutions to type II coordination,
although they are rather ambiguous as regards the role of firms. The third dilemma I
have drawn up above specifically concerns how coordination is achieved within firms.
In providing answers to this dilemma I will use the framework I have used in the case
of spontaneous order. That is I will rely on a distinction, on the one hand, between
coordinating institutions and solutions to coordination, and, on the other hand, between
the nature of coordination problems and solutions to them.
First of all, note that it is self-evident that the more the work is subdivided inside the
firm, the greater is the danger of confusion and the greater is the need for coordination.
Coordination, of course, resolves task dependencies that result from the division of work
and specialization just as in the market. However, more importantly we can articulate
the coordination problem in the same way as in the case of catallaxy, as proposed by
Sautet and Foss (1999).
24
The deep investigation of how coordination is achieved in long-term contracts between firms is beyond the
scope of my present paper. Whereas this organizational form is becoming the “swollen middle” (Hennart
1993); an extensive literature has accumulated on the topic. For an overview see Ménard (2004).
26 New Perspectives on Political Economy
4.1 The knowledge problem within the firm
Just as in the market, each agent in a firm possesses knowledge that is local, subjectively
held and partly tacit. There can always be knowledge possessed by the employees, which
will depend on a particular “place and time” that the management cannot know. This
knowledge is about how to improve allocation inside the firm or how to seize profit opportunities
in the marketplace. That is, the Hayekian knowledge problem exists within
firms, too, and the CEO, like the central planner cannot centralize the employees’ knowledge.
This knowledge problem can be partly solved within the firm just as in the market,
by entrepreneurship.
Central management must rely on the entrepreneurial process within the firm to
discover new profit opportunities. For this, managers must give employees discretion and
responsibility to induce them to make use of their tacit knowledge.25 For this, firms must
deliberately create or let spontaneously emerge within their boundaries such institutions
that serve to promote the effective use of individuals’ knowledge. One conclusion from
all this is not only that firms cannot rely on central planning26, but that the firm must let
the knowledge decentralized, as in the market. To put it differently, the centralization of
individuals’ knowledge is impossible within the firm just like in the market; instead both
markets and firms are systems for economizing on knowledge (Langlois 1995).
All this has an implication for the third dilemma involving the question of whether
type I coordination can be solved exclusively by spontaneous order. My argument is that
while admitting that members of a firm are aware of the fact that they participate in a
coordination game, because of the Hayekian knowledge problem that occurs within the
firm too, in some respects they are not able to identify the details of this coordination
game. When this latter situation prevails, type I coordination occurs. Nevertheless,
the firm is a solution to a mixture of type I and type II coordination problems: the more
complex the firm is, the more the details of the coordination game are ambiguous for firm
25
A good example is found in the so-called project-based firms which proliferate in today’s economy. These
firm organizations infuse more entrepreneurship into firms by organizing work cross-functionally around
a well-defined task, or project and by giving the employees the right to decide in many important questions.
See Kapás (2004).
26
As argued by Langlois (1995) it is a false conclusion that planning (conscious, rational, forward-looking)
is what a firm is about. Firms plan in a sense quite different from the meaning usually given that term in
discussions of central planning. Planning can mean some sort of policy, however broadly defined.
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 27
members, and consequently the more the coordination acquires a type I coordination
character. That is, the spontaneous order is not the only solution to type I coordination;
on the other hand, although type I coordination occurs in firms, it does not exclusively
characterize firms. This being said, how is coordination achieved within firms?
4.2 The role of incentive institutions within the firm
As I have argued, to a significant extent, the employees of a large firm, just like the actors
in the market, are not able to consciously coordinate their activities because they cannot
identify the details of the multipersonal coordination game inside the firm; very often
they are not aware of each other’s existence. The coordination is achieved by inducing
individuals to make use of their local, tacit knowledge. For this, no doubt, an effective incentive
system is needed which, in addition, must be carefully designed (Sautet and Foss
1999). That is, the reason why employees’ actions become coordinated is not only that
they consciously do so, but the incentive system designed by the management “enforces”
them to behave in a particular way. Management should provide a framework or environment
in which internal entrepreneurial processes can best function (Cowen and Parker
1997). It must be noted that despite the fact that particular institutions emerge spontaneously
within the firm, the overall character of the institutions of the firm remains
designed. When the management lets the new institutions emerging from employees’
interactions survive, this is part of the “design” too. These spontaneously evolved institutions
entail a lot of tacit and shared knowledge, which coordinates activities within
the firm in the same way as in the market. Another important aspect of the similarity
between the incentives of the firm and the market lies in the fact that firms like markets
are based on property rights, the rule of law and trust (Cowen and Parker 1997).
Clearly, the incentive system must be designed in such a way as to produce a “pleasant
arrangement”, a result which is also produced by the institutions of the market, as shown
above. However, the institutions of the market (e.g., price system, property rights, etc.),
which serve to align incentives27 just as incentives used within the firm are mostly not
designed, unlike the firm’s incentive system. But the crucial thing is that both the market
and the firm use a particular incentive system (institutions) for the coordination of dis-
27
“[T]he incentives offered by market prices during this competitive process are the key elements in motivating
competitive entrepreneurial entry and discovery” (Kirzner 1992:150).
28 New Perspectives on Political Economy
persed knowledge. In the market the price system and the other coordinating institutions
are able to coordinate individuals’ acts without referring to a central mind. Contrary to
this, the incentive system that operates within the firm must be designed by humans, but
once it is designed, it drives the individuals’ acts in the same way as the incentive system
of the market: the individuals may only pursue their own interest.
4.3 The pragmatic versus organic character of the firm
Let me turn to the question of whether the firm has an exclusively pragmatic character.
Firms are of pragmatic origin in the sense that an individual starts a firm with some
concrete purpose in mind. But this does not mean that firms do not contain organic
elements; on the contrary, firms may develop strong organic elements, such as a corporate
culture.
Hayek has put a special emphasis on the crucial relationship between the character of
the rules of individual conduct and the character of the resulting order (Vanberg 1994):
the spontaneous order rests on abstract rules while the firm rests on concrete ones.28
To the extent that firms develop abstract rules the originally pragmatic character of the
firms may change and acquire a partly spontaneous character.29 Ioannides (2001) has
shown how this process operates.
The growth of the firm inevitably leads to this process because the complexity of
the firm increases as it becomes larger; and complex orders rely on abstract rules (Hayek
1973).30 As Hayek suggested, the more abstract the rules of a system are, the better
that system is able to coordinate a diversity of concrete purposes. Large firms, by becoming
more complex, entail a wider diversity of individual goals, and accordingly the
perspicuity of the coordination game the firm members face degrades. This brings about
a situation in which individuals become no more able to identify all the details of the
28
For a critique of Hayek’s theory on the relationship between the kinds of rules and the kinds of orders,
see Garrouste (2001).
29
Note that even if rules are deliberately designed, an order may partly acquire the characteristics of spontaneous
order provided these rules have all the following attributes: abstractness, generality, and independence
of purpose (Ioannides 2001). This means that it does not matter whether abstract rules are
deliberately designed or they emerge spontaneously, the firm may acquire to a certain extent the character
of spontaneous order.
30
Of course, catallaxy is far more complex than the firm can ever become. For the reasons, see Ionannides
(2001).
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 29
coordination game, which in turn requires more abstract rules (institutions). That is, in
the evolution of the firm, more commands will tend to acquire a character of generality.
Further, the introduction of abstract rules affects the character of the firm by gradually
changing the nature of the firm itself. Moreover, the extent to which the firm can acquire
an organic character depends upon particular characteristics of the firm itself (e.g.,
history, informal rules, corporate culture), that of the industry in which it operates and
that of the whole economy.
In this evolutionary process the fact that the proportion of abstract rules among the
rules of the firm increases and the firm becomes more complex and to a certain extent
acquires the characteristics of the market is reflected in significant changes in firm organization.31
The original highly centralized hierarchical organization that characterized
firms in the period before the Second Industrial Revolution rested almost exclusively
on concrete rules (commands).32 From the 1920s the large vertically integrated multidivisional
firms, for various reasons, gave decision rights to lower levels and stimulated
entrepreneurship within their boundaries, something which was made possible, in fact,
by letting more abstract rules operate. And today the project-based firms, as already mentioned
above, are built upon the entrepreneurial acts of their employees, which results
in a shift in the mix of concrete and abstract rules towards more abstract rules. That
is, to some extent, firms exhibit an organic character too, similar to catallaxy. However,
the “constitution” of the firm surely differs from that of the market: commands (authority)
remain of primary importance. In fact, the firm can be seen as a hybrid order, i.e.,
a mix of the man-made and spontaneous orders since it entails many elements of both
(Ioannides 2003).
What was said above allows us to analyze the character of the coordination problem
the firms deal with. Of course, type II coordination predominates within firms since
most aspects of the coordination game are well-known to the employees as well as to the
management, who, basically, consciously coordinate their activities with those of others.
What was stressed above is that type II coordination is not exclusive within firms,
the type I problem occurs too, but to a lesser extent. The more the firm acquires an
31
For an overview on the evolution of firm organization, see Kapás (2006).
32
Even in the highly centralized hierarchy the members of the firm build up some fund of ideas in common
(Sugden, 1989), which belongs to the corporate culture and which will allow them to coordinate their
actions without any conscious communication.
30 New Perspectives on Political Economy
organic character, the more type I coordination becomes relevant. And type I coordination
is solved, as argued above, by referring to the incentive institutions designed by the
management.
5 Conclusions
By analyzing coordination problems my aim was to better understand the firm and the
market. The starting point was a distinction between two kinds of coordination problems
and two kinds of solutions to these, proposed by Sautet (2002) and Klein (1997).
The significant critique I have leveled against their views was that they suggest a one-toone
correspondence between the two kinds of coordination and the solutions: the type I
coordination problem is solved by catallaxy, while type II by rules and conventions (the
firm being of primary importance). I have formulated three dilemmas stemming from
Sautet’s and Klein’s framework that needed further investigation. My argument was that
answering these dilemmas requires two kinds of distinction: on the one hand between
the nature of coordination problems and the solutions to these, and on the other hand,
between coordinating institutions and the solutions to coordination problems.
Through an analysis of (1) the coordinating institutions of the market and of the
firm and of (2) the character of the rules on which the market and the firm rest, the
major conclusion was that both the market and the firm could be seen as particular
solutions to both kinds of coordination problems, provided that we distinguish between
two meanings of the market. Since I have focused on the first meaning of the market,
namely the market economy, the emphasis was on the similarities and the differences in
how market and firms resolve the type I coordination problem.
Coordinating institutions play a crucial role in solving the type I coordination problem
both in the spontaneous order and within the firm. My conclusion was that (1)
coordinating institutions provide incentives for individuals both in the market and inside
firms, and (2) both the institutions of the market and that of the firm are the product
both of deliberate and spontaneous investments, but (3) the institutions of the firm have
an overall designed character, while to a certain extent also relying on abstract rules, and
finally (4) the institutions of the market have an overall undesigned character, while to a
certain extent also relying on deliberately designed coordinating institutions.
Kapás: The Coordination Problems, the Market and the Firm 31
That is, how coordination is achieved within the firm is fundamentally similar to how
it is assured in the catallaxy: through coordinating institutions which induce individuals
to use their local, partly tacit knowledge. My argument is that the coordinating institutions
both in the catallaxy and within the firm drive the individuals’ acts in the same way:
the individuals may only pursue their own interest. Nevertheless, what makes the difference
is that the institutions of the firm are designed by the management, while those of
the catallaxy have an overall undesigned character. That is, the difference between catallaxy
and the firm lies in the extent to which they are the result of design (Loasby 1999).
And this is a difference of degree, and not of kind. Accordingly, “the well-managed firm
is more similar to the market than different from it” (Cowen and Parker 1997:60).
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ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 2, Number 1, 2006, pp. 36 – 46
Rule-following, Praxeology, and Anarchy
Roderick T. Long∗
JEL Classification: B41, B53, B31, B2, P48, A12
Abstract: Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox has important implications for two aspects
of Austrian theory. First, it makes it possible to reconcile the Misesian, Rothbardian,
and hermeneutical approaches to methodology; second, it provides a way of
defending a stateless legal order against the charge that such an order lacks, yet needs, a
final arbiter.
∗
Department of Philosophy, Auburn University; Praxeology.net
Long: Rule-following, Praxeology, and Anarchy 37
1 Introduction
The aim of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “rule-following paradox” is to diagnose a seductive
error that Wittgenstein sees as underlying a variety of different philosophical mistakes:
the implicit assumption of the need for and/or possibility of a self-applying rule. A further
implication of Wittgenstein’s diagnosis is that human action is not reducible either to
purely mentalistic or to purely behavioural phenomena.
If, as I shall argue, Wittgenstein’s analysis is correct, then, I shall further argue, the
rule-following paradox has important implications for two aspects of Austrian theory.
First, Wittgenstein’s argument sheds light on the relation between economic theory
and economic history – i.e., between the aprioristic method of praxeology and the interpretive
method of thymology, as Ludwig von Mises uses those terms in Theory and
History. In particular, it shows that, just as thymological interpretation involves praxeological
categories, so the possession of praxeological categories involves thymological
experience – thus enabling a reconciliation of the superficially opposed insights of
Mises’ Kantian approach, Murray Rothbard’s Aristotelean approach, and Don Lavoie’s
hermeneutical approach to Austrian methodology.
Second, Wittgenstein’s argument provides a way of defending the stateless legal order
advocated by Rothbard, Lavoie, and others. Critics of free-market anarchism often charge
that a stateless society lacks, yet needs, a “final arbiter” or “ultimate authority” to resolve
conflicts; but what such critics mean by a “final arbiter” turns out to be yet another
version of the “self-applying rule” that Wittgenstein has shown is neither needed nor
possible.
2 The Rule-Following Paradox
I’ll start by explaining the rule-following paradox. Suppose I present the following sequence
of numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16; and then I ask you to continue the series “in
the same way.” I’m confident that you would continue with 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, and so on.
But what grounds this confidence? By “the same way” I mean following the same rule –
that rule being “add 2 each time.” But that is not the only rule that could generate my
38 New Perspectives on Political Economy
initial series. Another rule that would also generate it is “add 2 each time until you get
to 16, then start adding 3 each time.” Still another is “add 2 each time until you get to
4387, then start adding 12 each time.” Yet another is “repeat the even numbers between 2
and 20 over and over again.” And still another is “count by 2s up to 16, then count down
again.” In fact there are infinitely many rules that would all generate the initial sequence
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and then diverge at some point thereafter. How can I know that
you will follow my interpretation of “continuing the series in the same way,” rather than
some other interpretation?
It may quickly seem that I can never know this. No matter how far you continue the
series in the way I expect, there is always some rule other than “add 2 each time” that
could explain this, and the divergence between your rule and mine might emerge at the
very next step. No finite sequence of numbers can ever guarantee that you are following
my rule rather than some other.
Of course I can ask you what rule you are following. And perhaps you will say, “Oh,
I’m adding 2 each time.” But does that really help? How do I know that you mean the
same thing I do by the phrase “adding 2 each time”? The only way I can determine what
you mean by those words is by seeing how you apply them – but as we’ve just seen, any
finite empirical test will always be inconclusive on this question.
It may be suggested that what I mean by the words “add 2 each time” is the simplest
procedure, and that all these other possibilities are more complicated. Well, it’s certainly
the simplest given my language and my conceptual scheme – but might not some other
rule be the simplest in some other language (perhaps yours) or some other conceptual
scheme (perhaps yours)? Or even if my interpretation really is the simplest, why should
I assume that you care about simplicity as much as I do? (You may assure me that you
do indeed care about simplicity as much as I do, but that just throws me back on the
question whether you mean by the word “simplicity” what I do.)
This will initially look like a skeptical question, a question as to how we can ever be
sure what other people are thinking. But in fact Wittgenstein isn’t trying to drive home
a skeptical moral at all; quite the opposite, as we’ll see. (Indeed, Wittgenstein is one of
the most relentlessly anti-skeptical philosophers in history.) His eye is on other game.
So what point is Wittgenstein trying to make?
Long: Rule-following, Praxeology, and Anarchy 39
Well, Wittgenstein goes on, suppose I could telepathically peer into your mind and
see what rule you’re following. It’s tempting to think that that would settle the question.
But would it? Let’s say I peer into your mind and see the thought “add 2 each time”
inscribed there in big shining ectoplasmic letters. What does that settle? What prevents
you from cheerfully saying or writing 10, 12, 14, 16, 50, 40, 10, 12, 14, 16, 50, 40, regardless
of what words I see shining in your mind? What you mean by the thought “add 2 each
time” depends on how you actually apply it in practice, just as much as what you mean
by the spoken words does. As Wittgenstein writes:
I cannot know what he’s planning in his heart. But suppose he always wrote
out his plans; of what importance would they be? If, for example, he never acted on
them. . . . Perhaps someone will say: Well, then they really aren’t plans. But then
neither would they be plans if they were inside him, and looking into him would do
us no good. (Wittgenstein (1982) 234-235.)
Once we see that telepathy wouldn’t solve the problem, we can see why Wittgenstein isn’t
pushing a skeptical moral. His primary interest lies not so much in the epistemological
question “how can we know what rules people are following” as in the metaphysical
question “what is it to follow a rule?” If it’s not reducible either to my private thoughts
or to my overt actions, what else is there for rule-following to be? This is a puzzle that
arises just as much about one’s own actions as about those of others. And it’s not a
skeptical puzzle, because I know perfectly well what rule I’m following; Wittgenstein
never denies, indeed he readily grants, that I know what I mean by “adding 2 each time.”
In fact, he’s happy to admit that I know what you mean by “adding 2 each time” also.
The point of Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox is not to shake our confidence that
we understand ourselves and one another; rather, it is to shake us free from a certain false
picture of what such understanding is like.
The apparent problem with the spoken phrase “add 2 each time” is that it can be interpreted
or applied in a variety of different ways. When I initially suppose that telepathy
would resolve the question, what I’m supposing is that there’s something in your mind
that can’t be interpreted or applied in different ways, something that carries its own interpretation
or application with it. But that supposition is dissolved by Wittgenstein’s
thought-experiment where I peer into your mind and see your thought – but still don’t
know what I need to know.
40 New Perspectives on Political Economy
The moral of the rule-following paradox, then, is not that following a rule is somehow
mysterious or impossible, but rather that following a rule would have to be mysterious
or impossible if it involved what we’re tempted to think it involves: a self-interpreting
or self-applying rule. That’s what I was hoping to find by peering telepathically into your
mind – but all I could find there was simply more stuff that required interpreting and
applying. If I think that following a rule must somehow be anchored by the rule’s having
its application already built into it, then a close look at rule-following is bound to
turn vertiginous, because there’s no such thing to be found. As Wittgenstein puts it,
“any interpretation still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it
any support.” But what he infers from this is not that grasping a rule is impossible, but
rather that “there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is
exhibited in what we call ‘obeying the rule’.” (Wittgenstein (1958) I. 201-202.)
In short, understanding a rule is not a matter of possessing some purely interior
mental item; for any such item could be applied in a variety of ways. Nor, however,
is it a matter of performing some finite sequence of bodily movements – because any
such sequence is likewise compatible with a variety of different rules. And of course
understanding a rule cannot be identified with some particular combination of an interior
mental item and a finite sequence of bodily behaviour, for just the same reason. At
this point we feel driven to vertigo because we’re inclined to ask “what else is there for
following a rule to be, if not interior thoughts, bodily movements, or some combination
of the two?” But the reductionist impulse to explain action in terms of something else is
part of the mistake that generates the paradox. One moral of the paradox is that action
is an indivisible whole, of which thoughts and movements are aspects but not separable
ingredients; action is more than the sum of its parts. The identity of my thoughts depends
on how I translate them into action – not bodily movement, but action. As Wittgenstein
puts it:
Thinking is not an incorporeal process which lends life and sense to speaking,
and which it would be possible to detach from speaking rather as the Devil took the
shadow of Schlemiehl from the ground. (Wittgenstein (1958) I. 339)
[A] move in chess doesn’t consist simply in moving a piece in such-and-such a
way on the board – nor yet in one’s thoughts and feelings as one makes the move:
but in the circumstances that we call “playing a game of chess”, “solving a chess
problem”, and so on. (Wittgenstein (1958) I. 33.)
Long: Rule-following, Praxeology, and Anarchy 41
So what entitles me to think I know what rule you’re following? Well, I’m thinking of
a certain rule – but my thinking of that rule isn’t a matter of shining words inscribed in
my mind; rather, what rule my thought is about depends on how I express that thought
in action. One way of expressing my thought of a rule is to follow that rule; but another
is to identify instances where others are following the rule. As Wittgenstein notes:
What use of a word characterizes that word as being a negation? . . . It is not a
question of our first having negation, and then asking what logical laws must hold
of it in order for us to be able to use it in a certain way. The point is that using it
in a certain way is what we mean by negating with it. (Wittgenstein (1989) XX, p.
191)
The ability to apply a concept is thus part of having the concept; just as I don’t count
as thinking of a given rule unless I can successfully follow it myself, so I don’t count
as thinking of a given rule unless I can successfully identify the following of that rule
in others. (In each case the application needn’t be unerring, so long as it’s reasonably
reliable. My possession of the concept cat is consistent with my occasionally mistaking
a cat for a dog or vice versa, but not with my doing so regularly.) Far from promoting
skepticism, then, the moral of the rule-following paradox is anti-skeptical.
3 Implications for Austrian Methodology
What implications might Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox have for Austrian
methodology? Ludwig von Mises introduced into Austrian theory a distinction between
praxeology, the method of economic theory, and thymology, the method of economic
history. Praxeology comprises a set of a priori insights into the nature and implications
of human action; thymology involves identifying, via the hermeneutical method
of verstehen, the particular means and ends chosen in particular cases. Thus praxeology,
for example, states the laws governing monetary exchange, while thymology determines
whether a particular interaction is in fact a case of monetary exchange. For Mises, thymology
presupposes praxeology, since one must possess such concepts as means and ends
before one can apply them. Praxeology, by contrast, does not presuppose thymology;
Mises maintains, in Kantian terms, that we derive our praxeological categories not from
experience but from the innate structure of the human mind.
42 New Perspectives on Political Economy
The precise status of and relation between praxeology and thymology have been debated
in Austrian circles ever since. For example, Murray Rothbard argued, in Aristotelean
terms, that praxeological insight derives not from the mind’s innate structure
but from experience, and that it is a priori only relatively, being prior to more narrowly
empirical sorts of experience. And Don Lavoie, invoking Gadamer, suggested that praxeology
depends on hermeneutical verstehen just as much as thymology does.1 And so
on.
Mises’ distinction raises further epistemological questions. Critics of Mises often
seem to assume that he regarded the application of economic theory as an a priori matter;
as we’ve just seen, he did not. But given that application is thymological rather than a
priori, one might worry how economics can claim any scientific accuracy. For although
delineating the relations among concepts of action may be a matter of apodictic certainty,
it might seem that one could possess the total fund of praxeological knowledge and yet
be clueless about its application and unable to explain any actual events. For if I am
praxeologically mighty but thymologically weak, I might be able to write hefty tomes
on, say, monetary theory, and yet be woefully unable to recognise monetary exchanges
in real life – in which case I would be helpless in trying to explain historical events
like depressions and hyperinflations. It may thus appear that praxeology is useless in
explaining anything unless it is supplemented by thymology, which in turn seems to
require some special knack of intuition whose presence or absence seems more a matter
of luck than of scientific insight.
Here is where Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox becomes relevant. One of the
morals of that paradox is that we don’t count as possessing a concept unless we are – not
perfectly reliable, but – reasonably reliable at applying it. It follows that the just-imagined
scenario of praxeological proficiency combined with thymological ineptitude is not a real
possibility; we don’t count as possessing praxeological concepts except insofar as we are
generally able to apply them accurately. Grasping an economic law is not, cannot be, a
purely interior, private mental episode with no implications for our outward conduct –
because that conception of the mental has been exposed as incoherent.
It further follows that the relation of dependence between praxeology and thymol-
1
See Mises 1986 and 1995; Rothbard 1997; and Lavoie 1986.
Long: Rule-following, Praxeology, and Anarchy 43
ogy must be two-way rather than one-way. We can’t have thymology without praxeology,
because we can’t apply concepts we don’t possess; but equally we cannot have praxeology
without thymology, because we can’t possess concepts we are unable to apply. In
that sense, Rothbard and Lavoie are correct in holding, against Mises, that praxeological
insight requires some sort of experience; but Mises is equally right in insisting that praxeological
insight is not derived from experience – since the relevant experience already
involves praxeological categories. Praxeological and thymological understanding arise together;
they are simply aspects – not separable components – of the single indissoluble
whole which is intelligent human experience.2
4 Implications for Austrian Political Theory
Finally, let’s turn to the rule-following paradox’s implications for Austrian political theory.
Many Austrians – including Rothbard, Lavoie, Hans Hoppe, Walter Block, Ed
Stringham, and others3 – have defended a stateless legal order, or “free-market anarchy,”
in which such traditionally governmental services as protection of rights and adjudication
of disputes are provided via market competition with no monopolistic central authority.
A frequent criticism of such an arrangement is that it lacks a final authority to resolve
disputes. Without such an authority, what guarantees that disagreements will be resolved
peacefully rather than triggering violent conflict? And how can a dispute ever be brought
to a close if there is no final court of appeal, beyond which no further appeal is possible?4
The proper answer to such questions, I think, is to ask what guarantees the peaceful
resolution of disputes under a government? Suppose you and I have a dispute, and the
court rules in your favour. I can appeal the ruling to a higher court; but suppose I reach
the highest court of appeal, and it too rules against me. Is that the end of the matter? It
may or may not be, depending on what I choose to do next. I can petition the legislature
to pass a law reversing the court’s decision, or to appoint judges friendlier to my point
of view; or I can try to foment a revolution to overthrow the government. There are
plenty of options available to me; in that sense, no legal system, whether governmental
2
For further discussion of the implications of Wittgenstein’s ideas for Austrian methodology, see Long
(2004).
3
See, e.g., Rothbard 1978, Lavoie 1993, Hoppe 1999, Block 2005, and Stringham 2006.
4
See, e.g., Bidinotto (1994).
44 New Perspectives on Political Economy
or anarchic, can guarantee absolute legal finality. To be sure, many of my options involve
a lot of hard work and are unlikely to be successful, and so I probably won’t bother to
pursue them; in that sense, governments can provide reasonably reliable legal finality –
but now there’s no reason to suppose that anarchies can’t do so as well.
Defenders of government often complain that under anarchy, providers of legal services
are not themselves subject to legal limitation, whereas under a constitutional government,
the monopoly provider of legal services is limited by the constitution. But
presumably a mere written document is not sufficient to limit the government’s power;
what’s needed are actual institutional structures. But these sorts of constitutional restraints,
such as checks and balances and divided powers, do not exist in their own right,
as external limitations on society as a whole; on the contrary, they exist only insofar as
they are maintained in existence by human beings acting in systematic ways. Hence they
are just as available under anarchy as under government – more available, in fact, since a
system that allows free entry into the market for legal services is obviously going to have
more effective checks and balances than a system that monopolizes such services. As
the anarchist Gustav Landauer once wrote: “The state is a relationship between human
beings, a way by which people relate to one another; and one destroys it by entering into
other relationships, by behaving differently to one another.”5 When Hobbesians worry
that people won’t be able to cooperate without a government, they forget that government
is not some sort of automatic robot standing outside the social order it serves; its
existence too depends on ongoing cooperation, both from the members of the government
and from the populace it governs.
The opponent of anarchy has thus fallen into the same error as the one Wittgenstein
diagnoses in his rule-following paradox: the error of supposing the possibility, and/or
the necessity, of a self-applying rule. Just as one may initially be thrown into intellectual
vertigo by the failure to locate some mental item that all by itself guarantees its own
meaning regardless of how one goes about applying it in practice, so the opponent of
anarchy is thrown into vertigo at the thought of a legal system lacking any component
that all by itself guarantees social order regardless of how it is applied by human agents.
Just as it’s tempting to think that my grasp of a rule is something independent of my
actions, something that makes me behave in a certain way, so it’s equally tempting to
5
“Weak Statesmen, Weaker People,” Der Sozialist, 1910; quoted in Graham (2005), p. 165.
Long: Rule-following, Praxeology, and Anarchy 45
think that a society’s legal system is something external to that society that makes it
orderly. But as the rule-following paradox shows, there couldn’t be any such self-applying
entity; and since individuals do manage to follow rules pretty well most of the time – and
since societies do likewise manage to maintain order pretty well most of the time – the
absence of such a self-applying entity is no problem at all.
Bibliography
[1] Bidinotto, Robert J. 1994. “The Contradiction in Anarchism.” Published online at:
http://rous.redbarn.org/objectivism/Writing/RobertBidinotto/ContradictionInAnarchism.html
[2] Block, Walter. 2005. “Governmental Inevitability: Reply to Hokcombe.” Journal
of Libertarian Studies 19, no. 3 (Summer), pp. 71-93. Published online at:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/19_3/19_3_4.pdf
[3] Graham, Robert, ed. 2005. Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas.
Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939) (Montreal: Black Rose
Books, 2005).
[4] Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. 1999. “The Private Production of Defense.” Journal of
Libertarian Studies 14, no. 1 (Winter), pp. 27-52. Published online at:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/14_1/14_1_2.pdf
[5] Lavoie, Don. 1993. “Democracy, Markets, and the Legal Order: Notes on the
Nature of Politics in a Radically Liberal Society,” Social Philosophy and Policy 10,
no. 2 (Summer), pp. 103-120.
[6] Lavoie, Don. 1986. “Euclideanism versus Hermeneutics: A Reinterpretation of
Misesian Apriorism.” In Israel M. Kirzner, ed. Subjectivism, Intelligibility, and Economic
Understanding: Essays in Honor of Ludwig M. Lachmann on His Eightieth
Birthday (London: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 192-210.
[7] Long, Roderick T. 2004. “Anti-Psychologism in Economics: Wittgenstein and
Mises.” Review of Austrian Economics 17, no. 4, pp. 345-369. Published online at:
http://www.gmu.edu/rae/archives/VOL17_4_2004/3_long.pdf
[8] Mises, Ludwig von. 1996. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, 4th rev. ed (San
Francisco: Fox & Wilkes).
46 New Perspectives on Political Economy
[9] Mises, Ludwig von. 1985. Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic
Evolution (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute).
[10] Rothbard, Murray N. 1997. “Praxeology: The Methodology of Austrian Economics.”
In Rothbard, The Logic of Action I: Method, Money, and the Austrian School
(Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar, 1997), pp. 58-77.
[11] Rothbard, Murray N. 1978. For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, rev. ed.
(New York: Macmillan).
[12] Stringham, Edward, ed. 2006. Anarchy, State, and Public Choice (Cheltenham UK:
Edward Elgar).
[13] Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1989. Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics:
Cambridge, 1939; From the Notes of R. G. Bosanquet, Norman Malcolm, Rush
Rhees, and Yorick Smithies. ed. Cora Diamond (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press).
[14] Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1982. Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology. Volume I:
Preliminary Studies for Part II of Philosophical Investigations. Eds. G. H. von Wright,
Heikki Nyman; trans. C. G. Luckhardt, Maximilian A. E. Aue (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press).
[15] Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1958. Philosophical Investigations. 2nd ed. Trans. G. E. M.
Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell).
ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 2, Number 1, 2006, pp. 47 – 59
A Diagrammatic Exposition of the Socialist Calculation
Argument∗
Barry Dean Simpson† and Scott A. Kjar‡
JEL Classification: B25, B53, P51
Abstract: In this article, the authors build on the previous work of Kirzner (1963) and
Simpson and Kjar (2005) to present a diagrammatic exposition of the impossibility of
monetary calculation in a purely socialist economy. In order to accomplish this goal, the
authors juxtapose diagrams of the socialist economy with previous Austrian diagrams of
price theory and the social appraisement process in a free market economy.
∗
This paper was presented at the 2005 Austrian Scholars Conference in Auburn, Alabama. The usual
caveats apply.
†
bsimpson@usouthal.edu; Assistant Professor of Economics, University of South Alabama
‡
scottakjar@yahoo.com; Instructor of Economics, Baldwin Wallace College
48 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Introduction
In this article, the authors present a diagrammatic exposition of the socialist calculation
argument. The first section recapitulates the previous work of Kirzner (1963) and Simpson
and Kjar (2005), presenting diagrams of the social appraisement process in a market
economy.1 Section two restates the calculation argument against socialism. Section three
builds on the previous diagrams, positing diagrams for a purely socialist economy. By
juxtaposing these diagrams, we stress the impossibility of central planners to construct a
common unit with which to compare the data of human action. If central planners cannot
compare such data, then they cannot rationally allocate scarce factors of production
to meet human needs.
2 Social Appraisement in a Market Economy
Figure 1 presents the diagram of price theory in a market economy. The economic actors
are consumers, entrepreneurs, and factor owners (other entrepreneurs and laborers).
Economics begins with the consumer, who has an unmet need. This unmet need, or
“feeling of uneasiness,” leads to economic action.2
Entrepreneurs act to quell the feeling of uneasiness in consumers. In a monetary
market economy, entrepreneurs perform monetary calculation to accomplish this task.
Monetary calculation can be broken down into two temporal activities, plus the production
process. Ex ante, entrepreneurs compare current prices of factors and methods of
production. These comparisons are weighed against entrepreneurial judgments of future
consumer good prices.3 If the entrepreneur’s calculations of current factor prices and
future consumer good prices deems the product profitable, then he will bid for factors
of production from the factor owners. Entrepreneurs who bid the most for factors of
production acquire the scarce resources to create consumer goods.
1
Israel Kirzner, Market Theory and the Price System, (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1963), and Barry Dean
Simpson and Scott A. Kjar, “Circular Flow, Austrian Price Theory, and Social Appraisement,” The Quarterly
Journal of Austrian Economics, Volume 8, no. 4 (Winter 2005), pp. 3-13.
2
See Carl Menger, Principles of Economics (Grove City: Libertarian Press, 1994), pp. 51-52, and Ludwig
von Mises, Human Action, The Scholars Edition (Auburn: LVMI, 1998), pp. 13-14.
3
The entrepreneur also receives an interest payment for the time of the production process. See Mises
(1998, p. 550), and Simpson and Kjar (2005).
Simpson and Kjar: A Diagrammatic Exposition of the Socialist Calculation Argument 49
Figure 1–Price Theory4
Competitive
money bids
based on
consumers’
subjective
valuations
Past
entrepreneurial
judgment
Competitive
money bids
based on
monetary
calculation
Reserve
prices
based on
resource
valuations
Past
factor
prices
Current
consumer
good
prices
Ex post, entrepreneurs evaluate their previous decisions through profit and loss. Entrepreneurs
who profit increase their capital base and may acquire even more scarce
resources for production. Since profit rewards entrepreneurs who correctly anticipate
consumer needs, and who correctly allocate scarce resources to meet these needs, it allows
them to make more decisions concerning the allocation of scarce resources. Entrepreneurs
who suffer losses decrease their capital base; therefore, they make fewer allocating
decisions. The entrepreneurs who continue to suffer losses will eventually cease
to be entrepreneurs.5
4
Figures 1 and 2 are derived and explained as a single figure in Simpson and Kjar (2005).
5
This is part of the “Selective Process” of markets described below.
50 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Factor owners receive bids from entrepreneurs for factors of production. Factor owners
make subjective valuations of the worth of their owned factors.6 If the highest bid
exceeds the reserve price of the factor owners, then the factor owner sells his factor to
the highest bidding entrepreneur. This process leads to prices for resources and capital
goods.
Once entrepreneurs acquire the necessary resources for production, they combine or
transform these factors to produce consumer goods. Consumers make subjective evaluations
of the value of consumer goods and then buy or refuse to buy the goods. This
process leads to prices for consumer goods, and to profits and losses for entrepreneurs.
Since the exchanges between consumers and entrepreneurs are based on the past judgments
of entrepreneurs, current consumer good prices have little direct connection to
current factor prices.7 Additionally, since the economic process begins with the unmet
needs of consumers, the process ends when these needs are satisfied.
The Selective Process
The entire process is called a market, and explains how prices are formed.8 Although
we break this process into a market for consumer goods and a market for factors, this
is a simplification for pedagogic purposes. The entire diagram helps to explain the selective
process of the market. First, entrepreneurs generate expectations of future consumer
good prices and market conditions. Second, entrepreneurs select the production
processes and resources they expect to be the most profitable. Third, consumers select
products, thereby indirectly selecting entrepreneurs. Fourth, entrepreneurs earn profits
or suffer losses based on how well their expectations actually met consumer needs. Successful
entrepreneurs earn profits and have more financial wherewithal to make allocating
decisions concerning scarce resources. Unsuccessful entrepreneurs suffer losses and have
less financial wherewithal to make allocating decisions. Fifth, entrepreneurs revise their
6
We stress here that the bids of the entrepreneurs are based on their expectations of future consumer good
prices and market conditions. See Simpson and Kjar (2005, p. 3).
7
Entrepreneurs might use current consumer good prices as their starting points in projecting future consumer
good prices. As such, we hesitate to say there is no connection. Still, any connection is based on
expectations only.
8
See Kirzner (1963), page 21-22.
Simpson and Kjar: A Diagrammatic Exposition of the Socialist Calculation Argument 51
expectations, and the process continues endlessly. This process is made possible by profit
and loss, and profit and loss calculations are made possible through market prices.
Social Appraisement
The selective process allows social appraisement to occur, as seen in Figure 2. Because entrepreneurs
select resources based on monetary calculation (which includes projections
of future consumer good prices), and these decisions are evaluated at a later date through
profit and loss (based on actual consumer good prices), a rational allocation of scarce
resources to unlimited consumer wants transpires. Social appraisement refers to the fact
that factors and production techniques are appraised by entrepreneurs based on their
projected satisfaction of consumer wants. As this process occurs repeatedly, subjective
consumer values are imputed to the factors of production in the form of factor prices.
The social appraisement process entails imputation, the pricing of factors, resource allocation,
and entrepreneurial cost and profit calculations.9
9
See Salerno (1990), Mises (1998, p. 308), and Simpson and Kjar (2005).
52 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Figure 2–Social Appraisement
Consumer
Goods
P
R
O
D
U
C
T
I
O
N
S
O
C
I
A
L
A
P
P
R
A
I
S
E
M
E
N
T
Scarce,
substitutable,
higher-order
goods
3 The Calculation Argument
The Social Appraisement Process explains how entrepreneurs use factor prices to allocate
scarce resources among unlimited wants within the market economy. The socialist
economy, however, is a different story.
The Calculation Argument
Why can central planners in a socialist economy never rationally appraise factors of production?
Mises recognizes that exchange can exist in a socialist economy; thus, in Figure
Simpson and Kjar: A Diagrammatic Exposition of the Socialist Calculation Argument 53
3 below, consumers exchange consumer goods. No matter how consumer goods are distributed,
consumers may exchange quantities of one good for quantities of another good.
Money, a universal medium of exchange, can then develop through these exchanges of
consumer goods.
The problem is that when production is centrally controlled, the significance of
money is drastically different from an economy in which resources are privately owned
and exchanged. Since, “no production good will ever become the object of exchange,
it will be impossible to determine its monetary value.”10 Without monetary values for
scarce resources, central planners are at a loss to rationally allocate them. “[A]ll production
involving processes stretching well back in time and all the longer roundabout
processes of capitalistic production would be gropings in the dark.”11
Socialism’s main problem concerns the appraisal of factors of production. Appraisement
occurs through monetary calculation, and these calculations are based on exchange
values.
In an exchange economy the objective exchange value of commodities enters as
the unit of economic calculation. This entails a threefold advantage. In the first
place, it renders it possible to base the calculation upon the valuation of all participants
in trade. ... [Secondly,] calculation by exchange value furnishes a control
over the appropriate employment of goods. ... Lastly, calculation by exchange value
makes it possible to refer values back to a unit.12
Monetary calculation allows entrepreneurs to objectively appraise factors of production.
According to Salerno, “each and every type of productive service is objectively appraised
in monetary terms according to its ultimate contribution to the production of consumer
goods.”13 Social appraisement is based on monetary calculation, and monetary calculation
is based on market exchanges made through the medium of money.
The central problem then is that under socialism, factors of production are not privately
owned. Hoppe states the problem in this manner:
10
Mises (1990, p. 6).
11
Ibid., pp. 16-17.
12
Ibid., pp. 12-13.
13
Salerno (1990, p. 54).
54 New Perspectives on Political Economy
If there is no private property in land and other production factors, then there
can also be no market prices for them. Hence, economic calculation, i.e., the comparison,
in light of current prices, of anticipated revenue, and expected cost expressed
in terms of a common medium of exchange–money–(thus permitting cardinal
accounting operations), is literally impossible.14
Economic calculation is impossible without factor prices. Factor prices can only develop
through market exchanges. Markets exchanges for the factors of production must be
based on private property. Socialism seeks to abolish private property. By abolishing private
property, every other mechanism tied to property is abolished: exchange, markets,
prices, calculation, and finally, the economy itself. Here, we see clearly Mises’ contention
that “Socialism is the abolition of rational economy.”15 The rational allocation of prices
and calculation is replaced with chaos. The central planners have no means available to
rationally allocate resources.
Thus, the economic problem is not the pricing of factors per se, but the allocation of
heterogeneous capital resources. Such an allocation requires the speculation and investment
of entrepreneurs. According to Mises:
Our problem does not refer to the managerial activities; it concerns the allocation
of capital to the various branches of industry. The question is: In which
branches should production be increased or restricted, in which branches should
the objective of production be altered, what new branches should be inaugurated?
... One cannot play speculation and investment. The speculators and investors expose
their own wealth, their own destiny. This fact makes them responsible to the
consumers, the ultimate bosses of the capitalist economy.16
Given a certain amount of information, Mises maintains the impossibility of rational
allocation in the Socialist system. Mises gives the central planners knowledge of the
quality and quantity of all factors of production, the latest production techniques, and
the set of all consumer preferences. Even if the planners have such knowledge, they
still do not have factor prices, so they cannot objectify consumer wishes according to
14
Hoppe (1996, p. 143). Emphasis in the original.
15
See Mises (1990, p. 26).
16
Mises (1998, pp. 704-705). See Klein (1996, p 12); and Rothbard (1991, pp. 57-60) for elaborations on this
theme.
Simpson and Kjar: A Diagrammatic Exposition of the Socialist Calculation Argument 55
available resources and technology, i.e., socialism cannot solve the problem of rationally
allocating scarce resources among unlimited wants. The lack of private property renders
socialism useless as an economic system. Socialism can only exist in a world of capitalist
economies, so the socialist planners can make their calculations by using the prices which
form under capitalism. Socialism is able to limp along for a short time period, but its
downfall is inevitable.
Incentive Problems
The calculation argument is far from an incentive argument against socialism. Even if we
stipulate that socialism can overcome the incentive problem and breed altruistic humans
ready to carry out the wishes of the central planners, the planners still face the problem
of calculation.
What exactly would those planners tell [the altruistic humans] to do? How
would they know what products to order their eager slaves to produce, at what
stage of production, how much of the product at each stage, what techniques or raw
materials to use in that production and how much of each, and where specifically
to locate all this production? How would they know their costs, or what process of
production is or is not efficient?17
This argument can be rephrased in terms of the principal/agent problem. The incentive
problem revolves around the agent carrying out the orders of the principal. Again, however,
even if we stipulate that socialism can solve this problem–an unlikely assumption at
best–the problem is not solved. The problem is not how to get the agent to complete his
assigned tasks, but “[h]ow does the principal know what to tell the agent to do?”18 The
calculation argument demonstrates the impossibility of rationally answering such a question
in a socialist economy; any answer not based on economic calculation is nothing
more than the subjective preference of the planner.
17
Rothbard (1991, p. 52).
18
Klein (1996, p. 12). Emphasis in the original.
56 New Perspectives on Political Economy
4 A Diagram of the Socialist Economy
Figures 3 and 4 are diagrams of the Socialist Economy. When juxtaposed with Figures 1
and 2, the diagrams highlight the calculation problem.
Figure 3–Socialism
Subjective valuations
of resources and
consumer goods
Competitive
money bids
based on
consumers’
subjective
valuations
Competitive
money bids
based on
consumers’
subjective
valuations
Current
consumer
good
prices
Figure 3 should be compared to Figure 1. In Figure 3, consumers may exchange
produced consumer goods based on their subjective valuations of those goods. Prices for
consumer goods may form based on the exchanges of consumers. Since resources are
collectively owned, however, they are controlled by central planners. Thus, no markets
exist for the exchange of factors of production. There are no markets for labor, capital
goods, or resources. Pricing of these factors is therefore impossible.
Simpson and Kjar: A Diagrammatic Exposition of the Socialist Calculation Argument 57
Figure 4–Socialist Production
Scarce,
substitutable,
higher-order
goods
Consumer
Goods
P
R
O
D
U
C
T
I
O
N
P
L
A
N
N
I
N
G
Since no prices for factors of production exist, central planners face an insurmountable
problem in rationally allocating scarce resources. In Figure 4, production of consumer
goods occurs, but rather than being based on monetary calculation through an
appraisement process (as seen in Figures 1 and 2), production is based on the subjective
valuations of central planners (as seen in Figure 3). The lack of privately owned resources
means that exchange will not occur for these resources. No exchange means no prices,
and no prices means that central planners have no objective, common units from which
appraisements can be made. There is no profit and loss, so monetary calculation becomes
impossible. Without market selection and appraisement, the central problem of
economics–allocating scarce resources among unlimited wants–cannot occur in a manner
consistent with the wishes of consumers.
58 New Perspectives on Political Economy
5 Conclusion
The calculation argument against socialism has existed since the 1920s. The failure of
socialist economies near the end of the 20th century brought the argument once again
to the fore of economics. The purpose of this article is to build on the pedagogical
foundations of the Austrian school of economics, and to construct a solid didactic to
explain the calculation argument in a diagrammatical fashion.
Without private markets for factors of production, central planners have no common
unit from which to calculate economically feasible production processes. Without
the selective process that occurs during social appraisement, central planners cannot rationally
allocate scarce resources. Socialism cannot solve the economic problem. Data are
not given, and even if they were, no process exists under socialism to adapt to marginal
changes in consumer preferences or the environment. Socialism is, simply, the lack of an
economy.
Bibliography
[1] Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. 1996. “Socialism: A Property or Knowledge Problem?”
The Review of Austrian Economics. Volume 9, number 1, pp. 143-149.
[2] Klein, Peter G. 1996. “Economic Calculation and the Limits of Organization.” The
Review of Austrian Economics. Volume 9, number 2, pp. 3-28.
[3] Kirzner, Israel. 1963. Market Theory and the Price System. Princeton: Van Nostrand.
[4] Menger, Carl. [1871] 1994. Principles of Economics. Translated by James Dingwall
and Bert F. Hoselitz. Grove City: Libertarian Press.
[5] Mises, Ludwig von. [1949] 1998. Human Action. The Scholars Edition. Auburn:
Ludwig von Mises Institute.
[6] Mises, Ludwig von. [1920] 1990. Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth.
Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Simpson and Kjar: A Diagrammatic Exposition of the Socialist Calculation Argument 59
[7] Rothbard, Murray N. 1991. “The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate
Revisited.” The Review of Austrian Economics. Volume 5, number 2, pp. 51-76.
[8] Salerno, Joseph T. 1990. “Postscript: Why A Socialist Economy is ‘Impossible’.”
In Mises. Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth.
[9] Simpson, Barry Dean, and Scott A. Kjar. 2005. “Circular Flow, Austrian Price Theory,
and Social Appraisement.” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. Volume
8, number 4 (Winter), pp. 3-13.
ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 2, Number 1, 2006, pp. 60 – 74
Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky na ˇceských
vysokých školách pˇred rokem 1989
Infiltration of Austrian Economists Ideas into Teaching at
Czech Universities before the Year 1989∗
Jitka Koderová†
JEL Classification: A22, B19, B25
Abstract: The ideas of the founding fathers of the Austrian school and of their initial
followers had influenced the development of the Czech economic thought very strongly
before 1948. After this year the tradition was forcibly interrupted, but it had not been
dismantled completely. Students of some Czech Universities could obtain information
on the existence of Austrian school in courses of “history of economic theories”, even
in totalitarian state. At the beginning of the period of 1948 – 1989 the predominant
form was the critique of Austrian doctrine. In 1970’s the situation began to change
and the positive form of interpretation was predominating. The objective of this paper
consists of a quest for answers to two questions. Firstly, how these courses of “history
of economic thought” look, and how did they develop in time? Secondly, what parts of
these courses were dedicated to the ideas of Austrian school?
∗
This research has been supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grant no. 402/05/0395).
†
Katedra mˇenové teorie a politiky, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, nám W. Churchilla 4, Praha 3.
e-mail: Koderova@vse.cz
Department of Monetary Theory and Policy, University of Economics Prague.
Koderová: Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky pˇred rokem 1989 61
1 Úvod
Je všeobecnˇe známo, že vídeˇnská subjektivnˇe psychologická škola v poˇcáteˇcním stadiu
svého vývoje zcela zásadním zp˚usobem ovlivˇnovala ˇceské ekonomické myšlení, a to nejen
díky tomu, že ˇceské zemˇe byly v období vytváˇrení základ˚u jejího uˇcení, které spadá
do doby od 70. let 19. století do 20. let století dvacátého souˇcástí Rakouska-Uherska.
Všichni tˇri hlavní protagonisté jejího formativního období byli nˇejakým zp˚usobem spjati
s ˇceským územím.
Duchovní otec a dodnes kultovní osobnost celé školy, vídeˇnský univerzitní profesor
Carl Meger studoval práva na univerzitˇe ve Vídni a na nˇemecké ˇcásti Karlo-Ferdinandovy
univerzity v Praze. Innsbrucký a posléze vídeˇnský univerzitní profesor a nˇekolikanásobný
ministr financí rakousko-uherského mocnáˇrství E. von Böhm-Bawerk se narodil v
Brnˇe a pozdˇejší Menger˚uv nástupce na místˇe profesora vídeˇnské univerzity F. von Wieser
p˚usobil pˇredtím dvacet let jako profesor na nˇemecké ˇcásti pražské Karlo-Ferdinanovy
univerzity a byl také jejím dˇekanem.
Byli to právˇe tito ekonomové, kteˇrí ve své dobˇe nejsilnˇeji p˚usobili na ˇceské ekonomické
myšlení, a to zejména svou teorií hodnoty založenou na teorii mezního užitku,
hledáním vztahu mezi teorií hodnoty a teorií ceny a úroku a svým metodologickým
principem hospodáˇrského individualismu a subjektivismu. Silný vliv mˇela i Mengerova a
Wieserova teorie subjektivní hodnoty penˇez se svým d˚urazem na vliv penˇežních d˚uchod˚u
na ceny, silnˇe kontrastujícím s kvantitativní teorií penˇez.1
Tato tradice byla sice v totalitním období silnˇe potlaˇcena, ale nikdy nebyla zcela zlikvidována.
Bylo tomu tak minimálnˇe ze dvou d˚uvod˚u. První z nich souvisel se zájmem K.
Marxe o vývoj ekonomických teorií, který prolínal jeho dílo již od práce Ke kritice politické
ekonomie a vyústil do napsání Teorií o nadhodnotˇe jako závˇereˇcného dílu Kapitálu,
a byl chápán jako vyjádˇrení nezbytné jednoty politické ekonomie a dˇejin ekonomických
uˇcení. Druhým d˚uvodem byla všeobecnˇe zd˚urazˇnovaná nezbytnost spojit výklad marxistické
politické ekonomie s kritikou nemarxistických teorií, která pˇredpokládala alespoˇn
minimální znalost základních smˇer˚u vývoje ekonomického myšlení.
1
Blíže viz Vencovský, F.: Dˇejiny ˇceského ekonomického myšlení do roku 1948. Brno, Nadace Universita
Masarykiana, 1997
62 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Proto byl do výuky na vybraných vysokých školách zaˇrazen pˇredmˇet dˇejiny ekonomických
uˇcení, který na jedné stranˇe sice silnˇe deformoval domácí tradice seznamování
vysokoškolských student˚u s vývojem svˇetové ekonomické vˇedy, na druhé stranˇe však pˇrinášel
alespoˇn ˇcásteˇcné informace o nemarxistických ekonomických teoriích. Prakticky
od samého poˇcátku jeho výuky v nˇem byla vˇenována pozornost uˇcení pˇredstavitel˚u rakouské
(vídeˇnské) subjektivnˇe psychologické školy, a to jak pokud jde o její výraznou
metodologickou odlišnost od historického a dialektického materialismu, tak i pro její
d˚uraz na poptávkovou stranu a subjektivní faktory pˇri výkladu teorie hodnoty.
Cílem pˇredkládaného pˇríspˇevku je pokusit se nalézt odpovˇed’ na dvˇe otázky. Za prvé,
do jaké míry mohli být studenti ˇceských vysokých škol ve druhé polovinˇe dvacátého
století seznamováni s myšlenkami nemarxistických ekonom˚u, a za druhé jaký prostor v
tomto procesu pˇripadl na uˇcení rakouských ekonom˚u.
2 Výuka dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení na ˇceských vysokých školách v pr˚ubˇehu
50. a na poˇcátku 60. let 20. století
Máme-li se pokusit odpovˇedˇet na otázku, do jaké míry byli studenti na ˇceských vysokých
školách2 seznamováni s vývojem západní ekonomie, je tˇreba zd˚uraznit, že hlavním
a snad i jediným zdrojem – pominu-li samostatnou ˇcetbu sice nemnohých, ale pˇreci jen
již dostupných prací tuzemských i zahraniˇcních autor˚u, pˇrípadnˇe exilových ˇceských ekonom˚u
ˇci pˇríslušník˚u domácího disentu – byla výuka pˇredmˇetu dˇejiny ekonomických
uˇcení (jindy byl tento pˇredmˇet oznaˇcován jako dˇejiny ekonomických teorií, dˇejiny a kritika
ekonomických uˇcení, souˇcasné buržoazní teorie ˇci kritika soudobých buržoazních
teorií apod.3).
2
Žádná z informací, které se mi podaˇrilo shromáždit, nehovoˇrí o tom, že by byly ve sledovaném období
do stˇredoškolské výuky nˇejakým zp˚usobem systematicky zaˇrazovány informace o soudobém vývoji nemarxistické
ekonomické teorie.
3
Na slovˇe kritika v názvu pˇredmˇetu ˇci r˚uzných studií a statí byl kladen pomˇernˇe znaˇcný d˚uraz, a to zejména
v pr˚ubˇehu 50. a v první polovinˇe 60. let. Od konce 70. a zejména pak v pr˚ubˇehu 80. let však vlastní výklad
jednotlivých vyuˇcujících ˇci autor˚u v ˇradˇe pˇrípad˚u ztrácel ostˇre polemický ráz. V souvislosti s tím nelze
podle mého názoru všechny výše uvedené názvy de facto téhož pˇredmˇetu výuky a zkoumání považovat
za synonyma, proto jsem se rozhodla v následujícím textu používat obecnˇe termín dˇejiny ekonomických
uˇcení, resp. teorií, nebo nˇekterý další z uvedených výraz˚u podle toho, jak byl r˚uznými autory resp. uˇcebními
plány jednotlivých vysokých škol používán.
Koderová: Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky pˇred rokem 1989 63
I když byly dˇejiny ekonomických teorií definovány tak, že „jsou jako vˇední a pedagogická
disciplina neoddˇelitelnou souˇcástí marxisticko-leninské politické ekonomie a
mají pˇrispívat k jejímu rozvoji a hlubšímu pochopení,“4 staly se významným zdrojem
informací o vývoji nemarxistických ekonomických teorií. To však neplatilo po celou
dobu jejich výuky na ˇceských vysokých školách po únoru 1948. Podle zamˇeˇrení a obsahu
výkladu lze hovoˇrit zhruba o ˇctyˇrech, nikoli však striktnˇe vymezených vývojových
etapách.
První z nich lze zhruba vymezit od pˇrelomu 40. a 50. let do první poloviny let 60.,
kdy snahy o zavádˇení nového obsahu a zamˇeˇrení výuky na ˇceských vysokých školách
ekonomického zamˇeˇrení teprve hledaly jeho vlastní podobu a náplˇn a kdy v této oblasti
docházelo k významným institucionálním zmˇenám.
Druhou etapu je možno spojovat s jistým uvolnˇením v politické oblasti a s nástupem
tendencí k demokratizaci spoleˇcnosti, které se zaˇcalo projevovat ve druhé polovinˇe 60.
let. Toto období pˇrineslo také velmi zajímavou tendenci související s vydáváním jednak
oficiálních pˇreklad˚u nˇekterých významných dˇel svˇetové ekonomické literatury, jednak
jejich interních pˇreklad˚u ˇci výklad˚u jejich obsahu, pˇriˇcemž požadované kritické zamˇeˇrení
nebylo vždy plnˇe respektováno. Tato tendence vycházející paradoxnˇe z l˚una stranického
aparátu5 a posléze zdomácnˇelá i na nˇekterých dalších pracovištích6 byla sice zejména na
poˇcátku následujícího období zmírnˇena, nikdy však již nebyla zcela pˇrerušena.
Tˇretí etapa nastoupila s pˇríchodem normalizace, kdy byly využívány zejména pˇreklady
sovˇetských uˇcebnic, nicménˇe ponˇekud paradoxnˇe zaˇcaly být vydávány i vlastní
ˇceské monografie spojené s d˚urazem na pozitivní výklad základních vývojových trend˚u
v soudobé svˇetové ekonomii.
V 80. letech došlo ve výuce dˇejin ekonomických teorií k významnému zvratu. V
této dobˇe byl zpracován nový, o moderní smˇery ve vývoji svˇetové ekonomické teorie
rozšíˇrený návrh programu výuky dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení na všech vysokých školách
ekonomického zamˇeˇrení a na filozofických fakultách pro jednooborové i dvouoborové
studium politické ekonomie a k zavedení tˇrísemestrálního kurzu dˇejin ekonomických
4
Sitárová, Z. – Kliment, A. a kol.: Dˇejiny ekonomických teorií. Praha, Svoboda 1981, s. 7
5 ˇRada takových materiál˚u vyšla na Vysoké škole politické ÚV KSˇC, jiné byly publikovány v rámci edice
Na pomoc lektor˚um a propagandist˚um vydávané oddˇelením propagandy a agitace ÚV KSˇC.
6
Pˇredevším v Ekonomickém ústavu ˇCSAV.
64 New Perspectives on Political Economy
uˇcení na všech pedagogických fakultách na oboru uˇcitelství všeobecnˇe vzdˇelávacích pˇredmˇet˚u
– aprobaˇcní pˇredmˇet obˇcanská nauka.
Výše uvedená definice – aˇc pocházející z poˇcátku let osmdesátých – je plnˇe platná
právˇe pro poˇcáteˇcní období výuky dˇejin ekonomických teorií, které lze datovat zhruba
od pˇrelomu 40. a 50. let do poloviny 60. let.7 V tomto období mˇela výuka dˇejin ekonomických
teorií ostˇre polemický charakter a byla zamˇeˇrena zcela jednoznaˇcnˇe na prohlubování
marxisticko-leninského svˇetového názoru.
Pozitivní výklad uˇcení nemarxistických autor˚u, pokud se v˚ubec vyskytoval, byl natolik
narušen kritickými výhradami, že bylo prakticky nemožné vytvoˇrit si nˇejakou ucelenou
pˇredstavu o jejich názorech. Jedinou výjimku v tomto smˇeru pˇredstavovalo uˇcení
pˇredstavitel˚u klasické školy D. Ricarda, zejména pokud jde o jeho výklad rozpornosti
mezd a zisk˚u, A. Smitha a F. Quesnaye, jejichž stˇežejní práce vyšly v té dobˇe dokonce v
ˇceském pˇrekladu.8
Protože kurzy zaˇcínaly ekonomickým uˇcením otrokáˇrské a feudální spoleˇcnosti a
merkantilismu, kdy ještˇe nebylo možno hovoˇrit o ucelených teoretických koncepcích,
7
Poˇcátek tohoto období souvisí s výukou dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení na Vysoké škole politických a hospodáˇrských
vˇed, která byla založena od studijního roku 1949/50 se tˇremi fakultami: hospodáˇrskou, politickodiplomatickou
a spoleˇcenských nauk. Kurz dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení byl vyuˇcován pouze na oboru politická
ekonomie, vyuˇcoval jej zpoˇcátku M. Rumler, po jeho nuceném odchodu pak K. Hrubý, který byl
údajnˇe také autorem skripta k danému pˇredmˇetu. To se mi však zatím bohužel také nepodaˇrilo dohledat.
Jako studijní literatura sloužily Rosenbergovy Komentáˇre k I. a II. dílu Marxova Kapitálu, dále pak jeho Istoria
ekonomiˇceskoj mysli a Kritika subjektivno psychologiˇceskoj teorii (názvy poslednˇe uvedených dvou
titul˚u nemusí být zcela pˇresné, knihy se mi bohužel zatím nepodaˇrilo nalézt v nˇekolika knihovnách).
Prof. Petráˇcek, který byl absolventem tohoto kurzu, uvádí, že v Univerzitní knihovnˇe byl v té dobˇe k
dispozici pouze jediný exempláˇr od každého z uvedených titul˚u, pˇriˇcemž Komentáˇre ke III. dílu Marxova
Kapitálu nebyly k dispozici v˚ubec. Podobný kurz byl vyuˇcován také na Vysoké škole politické a sociální
zˇrízené dekretem prezidenta E. Beneše z 26. ˇríjna l945, ta se však postupnˇe rušila a v roce 1949/50 již
nepˇrijímala studenty do 1. roˇcníku. Výuku zde vedl K. Hrubý.
Tento relativnˇe podrobný výˇcet by nemˇel vzbudit dojem, že v pˇred rokem 1948 nebyla vˇenována pozornost
minulému a soudobému vývoji ekonomické vˇedy. O pravém opaku svˇedˇcí pˇreklad Dˇejin nauk
národohospodáˇrských (Gide, Ch., Rist, Ch.: Dˇejiny nauk národohospodáˇrských. I, II. Praha, Jan Leichter
1928. (I. díl – 434 s., II. díl – 487 s.), díla významných ˇceských národohospodáˇr˚u (srv. napˇr. Engliš,
K.: Národní hospodáˇrství. Praha, F. Borový, 1928. 610 s.; A. Bráf – ´Zivot a dílo II. Vydali J. Gruber a
C. Horáˇcek. Praha, Vesmír1923. 197. s) a programy výuky ekonomických disciplin na Právnické fakultˇe
Univerzity Karlovy a na Vysoké škole obchodní. To je však zcela mimo rámec tématu této studie.
8
Ricardo, D.: Zásady politické ekonomie a zdanˇení. Praha, SNPL, 1956. 323 s.; Smith, A.: Pojednání o podstatˇe
a p˚uvodu bohatství národ˚u. Svazek první. Praha, SNPL 1958. 401 s. Svazek druhý. 572 s.; Quesnay,
F.: Praha, SNPL 1958. 129 s.
Koderová: Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky pˇred rokem 1989 65
byl pˇredmˇet oznaˇcován jako dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení.9 Po té navazoval výklad uˇcení
hlavních pˇredstavitel˚u klasické ekonomie.10 Poˇcátky rozvíjení klasické ekonomie byly
spojovány s uˇcením W. Pettyho v Anglii a P. Boisguilleberta ve Francii, završení její éry
pˇredstavovalo v tehdejším pojetí uˇcení D. Ricarda.
Uˇcení ekonom˚u bezprostˇrednˇe navazujících na Ricarda a obhajujících jeho teoretické
závˇery, pˇríslušník˚u tzv. Ricardovy školy – Jamese Milla a Mac Culloche – již bylo považováno
za poˇcátek vulgarizace uˇcení klasických ekonom˚u a proslulí Richardovi souˇcasníci
T. R. Malthus a J. B. Say a jejich pozdˇejší následovníci N. W. Senior a F. Bastiat již byli
oznaˇcováni jako pˇredstavitelé tzv. vulgární buržoazní politické ekonomie, jejíž vyvrcholení
pˇredstavovalo uˇcení J. S. Milla.11 „Vulgarizace“ uˇcení pˇríslušník˚u klasické školy byla
spojována pˇredevším s pˇrechodem od pracovní teorie hodnoty k její nákladové verzi, v
jejímž rámci se na tvorbˇe hodnoty podíleli vedle práce i další výrobní ˇcinitelé – p˚uda a
kapitál, resp. také podnikání, jehož odmˇenu pˇredstavoval zisk (J. B. Say). Monistický pˇrístup
vycházející z determinace hodnoty resp. ceny na stranˇe nabídky však byl zachován.
Následoval výklad maloburžoazního ekonomického uˇcení první poloviny 19. století
(S. Sismondi a J. P. Proudhon), dále pak utopického socialismu (T. More, F. Bacon, T.
Campanella, H. de Saint Simon, Ch. Fourier a R. Owen) a nˇemecké historické (F. List,
W. Fischer, B. Hildebrand, K. Knies, G. Schmoller, L. Brentano a K. Bücher).
Posledním vykládaným smˇerem12 byla zpravidla právˇe kritika uˇcení zakladatel˚u rakouské
(vídeˇnské) subjektivnˇe psychologické školy Carla Megera, Eugena Böhm-Bawerka
a Fridricha von Wiesera, které bylo v pˇríkrém rozporu s marxistickým uˇcením o objektivních
zákonitostech ekonomického vývoje na jedné stranˇe a s pracovní teorií hodnoty
na stranˇe druhé.
Výuka dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení probíhala prakticky na všech studijních oborech
ekonomického zamˇeˇrení13 souˇcasnˇe s výukou politické ekonomie kapitalismu a politické
9
To však nebylo dodržováno zcela jednoznaˇcnˇe, a tak byly termíny dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení a dˇejiny
ekonomických teorií v ˇradˇe pˇrípad˚u používány jako synonyma.
10
Všeobecnˇe byl tehdy používán název klasická buržoazní politická ekonomie.
11
Nemarxistiˇctí ekonomové považovali všechny uvedené ekonomy za pˇríslušníky klasické školy. Toto pojetí
je charakteristické i pro vˇetšinu souˇcasných ekonom˚u.
12
V nˇekterých kurzech byla ještˇe pˇripojena kritika uˇcení teoretik˚u II. internacionály E. Bernsteina, R.
Hilferdinga, A. Kautskeho a R. Luxemburgové.
13
Šlo hlavnˇe o VŠE v Praze založenou v roce 1953, z jejíchž uˇcebních plán˚u pˇredevším vycházejí následující
údaje. Vládním naˇrízením byla v roce 1952 zˇrízena na ˇCVUT Fakulta ekonomicko-inženýrská, která
66 New Perspectives on Political Economy
ekonomie socialismu. I když byl její význam spojován pˇredevším s Marxovým zájmem
o vývoj ekonomické vˇedy: „Klasikové marxismu-leninismu nejednou zd˚urazˇnovali jednotu
politické ekonomie a dˇejin ekonomických teorií. K. Marx ji vyjádˇril i v celkové
koncepci Kapitálu, kde jeho závˇereˇcný ˇctvrtý díl Teorie o nadhodnotˇe je historickým
vyústˇením i prohloubením prvních tˇrí teoretických díl˚u,“14 je nesporné, že velice specifickým
zp˚usobem navazovala na domácí tradice seznamující studenty ekonomických
disciplin s minulým i soudobým vývojem ekonomické vˇedy.
Kromˇe toho bylo zd˚urazˇnováno, že: „Znalost základních smˇer˚u vývoje ekonomického
myšlení a pˇredevším kritické zhodnocení buržoazních, revizionistických a reformistických
ekonomických teorií poskytuje potˇrebnou argumentaci pro vlastní kritiku
nemarxistických názor˚u, teoreticky a ideologicky odvozených z buržoazní politické eko-
nomie.“15
V souvislosti s tím mˇeli pracovníci ˇceského a slovenského ekonomického ústavu
ˇCSAV a zejména pak ti z nich, kteˇrí byli zaˇclenˇeni do mezinárodního výzkumného týmu
ekonom˚u socialistických zemí,16 pomˇernˇe dobrý pˇrístup k zahraniˇcní ekonomické literatuˇre,
a to nejen v domácích knihovnách, ale i v knihovnách v ostatních socialistických
resp. lidovˇe demokratických zemích. Zamˇeˇrovali se na studium soudobého vývoje marxistické
i nemarxistických ekonomických, resp. sociálnˇe ekonomických teorií a hospodáˇrské
politiky. Jednotliví ˇclenové týmu pracovali na dílˇcích výzkumných úkolech, každoroˇcnˇe
byly poˇrádány domácí vˇedecké konference s prezentací výsledk˚u dosavadního
výzkumu a každé ˇctyˇri roky se konala konference na mezinárodní úrovni.
byla zrušena v r. 1960. Její studenti dostali možnost dostudovat na ekonomických oborech jednotlivých
fakult ˇCVUT. Stejným naˇrízením byla zˇrízena Fakulta ekonomicko-inženýrská na Vysoké škole báˇnské
v Ostravˇe v roce 1953. V roce 1952 byla také zˇrízena Ekonomická fakulta na novˇe ustavené Vysoké škole
zemˇedˇelské v Praze, pozdˇeji i v Brnˇe a v ˇCeských Budˇejovicích. Ekonomickou kvalifikaci bylo možno
také získat na Vysoké škole stranické pˇri ÚV KSˇC, která v roce 1953 získala úˇrednˇe postavení vysoké
školy.
14
Sitárová, Z. – Kliment, A. a kol.: Dˇejiny ekonomických teorií. Praha, Svoboda 1981, s. 7
15
tamtéž, s. 8
16 ˇCleny tohoto týmu byli napˇr. Štefan Heretik, Ján Iša, L. Korˇcek, Zdenka Sitárová, Monika Šestáková,
Miroslav Rumler, Kvˇetoslav Roubal, František Peštuka, Josef Závada, a další. Do poˇcátku 70. let v komisi
p˚usobili napˇr. také Václav Klaus, Rita Budínová (pozdˇejší „polistopadová“ velvyslankynˇe ˇCSFR v USA)
a její první manžel Václav Müller. V nˇekterých pˇrípadech byli do týmu zaˇrazování i uˇcitelé poltické
ekonomie kapitalismu a dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení na vysokých školách (napˇr. D. Soukupová a nˇekteˇrí
další), kteˇrí pak svým vlivem pˇrispˇeli k rozšiˇrování a prohlubování výuky o nejnovˇejší trendy ve vývoji
západní ekonomie.
Koderová: Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky pˇred rokem 1989 67
K jistému uvolnˇení došlo v pr˚ubˇehu 60. let, kdy byly vydány další dva významné
pˇreklady – Hobson˚uv Imperialismus a Obecná teorie zamˇestnanosti, úroku a penˇez J.
M. Keynese17 – a kdy zaˇcaly vycházet také p˚uvodní ˇceské monografie.18 Kurzy dˇejin
ekonomických uˇcení zaˇcaly být v tomto období rozšiˇrovány o výklad uˇcení A. Marshalla,
J. B. Clarka a J. M. Keynese.
Ze soudobých teorií pak byla – pˇredevším v navazujících kursech, a tedy ne již plošnˇe
na všech studijních oborech – vˇenována pozornost institucionalismu (Th. Veblen, J. R.
Commons a W. C. Mitchell), teoriím nedokonalé a monopolistické konkurence (F. H.
Knight, J. Robinsonová a E. H. Chamberlin), teoretik˚um ekonomického r˚ustu (R. F.
Harrod, E. D. Domar, N. Kaldor a W. W. Rostow) a rozvíjení myšlenek neoliberalismu
(W. Eucken).
Tuto podobu mˇely kurzy pˇredevším na VŠE, kde bylo základním uˇcebním textem
skriptum Dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení M. Šmejkala, Jaroslava Petráˇcka a Vlasty Šafaˇríkové,
kteˇrí byli zároveˇn vyuˇcujícími tˇechto kurs˚u.19
Na konci 60. let se pak celé ˇradˇe ˇceských ekonom˚u – pˇredevším tˇem, kteˇrí se zabývali
bud’ politickou ekonomií kapitalismu ˇci dˇejinami ekonomických uˇcení – otevˇrela možnost
vycestovat do zahraniˇcí mimo zemˇe tzv. socialistického tábora a studovat p˚uvodní
odbornou literaturu v tamních knihovnách ˇci dokonce v postgraduálních kurzech na
tamních vysokých školách a univerzitách.
Toto relativní uvolnˇení bylo zmraženo v období normalizace, kdy byl opˇet kladen
d˚uraz na jednoznaˇcnˇe kritický pˇrístup, nicménˇe od poˇcátku 80. let docházelo k intenzivnímu
úsilí o zaˇrazení výkladu nejnovˇejších tendencí ve vývoji svˇetové ekonomie, a to
nejen pokud jde o uˇcení hlavního proudu.
Období normalizace však znamenalo nejen naprostou ztrátu podobných možností
vˇcetnˇe omezování již tak nepˇríliš silného pˇrílivu p˚uvodních prací nemarxistických eko-
17
Hobson, J. A.: Imperialismus. Praha, NˇCSAV 1962. 337 s.; Keynes, J. M.: Obecná teorie zamˇestnanosti,
úroku a penˇez. Praha, NˇCSAV 1963. 386 s.
18
Srv. napˇr.: Rumler, M.: J. M. Keynes a soudobý kapitalismus. Praha, NPL, 1965. 255 s.
19
Šmejkal, M. – Petráˇcek, J.: Dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení. ˇCást 1. Praha, SPN 1966; Šmejkal, M. – Petráˇcek,
J. – Šafaˇríková, V.: Dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení. ˇCást II. Praha, SPN 1967. Pˇred vydáním tˇechto skript
sloužily jako základní literatura Heretik, Š.: Dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení. Praha, SPN 1955 a Heretik, Š.:
Náˇcrt dejín politickej ekonómie. Bratislava, 1958
68 New Perspectives on Political Economy
nom˚u, ale i vyˇrazení ˇrady domácích odborník˚u z dalšího výzkumu. Nemálo z nich posléze
emigrovalo, nˇekteˇrí dokonce definitivnˇe opustili svou vˇedecko výzkumnou ˇcinnost,
jiní se jí i nadále vˇenovali ovšem mimo svá stávající – vˇetšinou manuální ˇci úˇrednická –
zamˇestnání.
Jako základní studijní literatura pak byly doporuˇcovány pˇredevším publikace sovˇetských
autor˚u.20 Paradoxnˇe však zaˇcínaly vycházet také první kvalitní ˇceské publikace s
pozitivním výkladem západních teoretických koncepcí, byt’ s nezbytnˇe zd˚urazˇnovanými
kritickými aspekty. Podle mého názoru v˚ubec první zevrubný pozitivní výklad neoklasické
ekonomie v ˇceské ekonomické literatuˇre, z nˇejž bylo možno pochopit základní
myšlenky neoklasické teorie ceny a rozdˇelování, podal J. Petráˇcek,21 který sv˚uj pˇrístup
zd˚uvodnil „známou zkušeností, že protivník, proti nˇemuž nejen není dostatek odpovídající
výzbroje, ale který je zároveˇn v podstatˇe neznám, se jeví mnohem silnˇejší, než ve
skuteˇcnosti je.“22
V souvislosti s tím charakterizoval svou práci jako kritické seznámení a nikoli jako
pouhou kritiku, a to jednak z výše uvedeného d˚uvodu, jednak proto, že „povrchní kritika
je vždy neúˇcinná: úˇcinná kritika pˇredpokládá hlubší poznání jevu a proniknutí pod jeho
povrch.“23 To však bylo zˇrejmˇe hlavní pˇríˇcinou skuteˇcnosti, že se uvedená publikace
zamýšlená jako první díl dvousvazkové práce,24 nedoˇckala svého pokraˇcování, II. ˇcásti,
která mˇela být vˇenována „tzv. makroekonomické ˇcásti soudobé buržoazní ekonomie, tj.
keynesiánské teorii zamˇestnanosti, teoriím ekonomického r˚ustu a interpretaci problém˚u
soudobého kapitalismu a socialismu.“25
První ˇcást však sama o sobˇe výraznˇe obohatila a prohloubila výklad uˇcení neoklasické
ekonomie, který její autor ještˇe dále rozpracoval a zaˇradil do skripta Dˇejiny ekonomických
uˇcení (spoluautor J. Tallerová),26 které bylo vydáno týmž nakladatelstvím o rok
20
srv. napˇr. Milejkovskij, A. G.: Buržoazní ekonomické teorie a hospodáˇrská politika imperialistických
zemí. Praha, Svoboda 1974, 393 s.
21
Petráˇcek, J.: Kritika buržoazní politické ekonomie I. Praha, SPN, 1974. 113 s.
22
výše cit. práce, s. 5
23
tamtéž, s. 5
24
V podtitulu knihy bylo explicite uvedeno: „I – mikroekonomická ˇcást: teorie hodnoty a rozdˇelování“
(tamtéž titulní a následující strana)
25
tamtéž, s. 7
26
Oba autoˇri byli v té dobˇe až do pˇríchodu M. Sojky také jedinými vyuˇcujícími daného pˇredmˇetu s plným
pracovním úvazkem na VŠE. Kromˇe nich vedl výuku externˇe také M. Rumler, vedoucí VI. odboru
Ekonomického ústavu ˇCSAV
Koderová: Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky pˇred rokem 1989 69
pozdˇeji.27 Novˇe byla zaˇrazena teorie ekonomiky blahobytu a teorie „transformace“ kapitalismu,
také výklad „klasicky“ zaˇrazovaných problémových okruh˚u, zejména tˇech, které
se týkaly vývoje soudobé ekonomické teorie, byl v ˇradˇe bod˚u prohlouben.
V 80. letech došlo k významnému zvratu. V této dobˇe byl zpracován nový, o moderní
smˇery ve vývoji svˇetové ekonomické teorie rozšíˇrený návrh programu výuky dˇejin
ekonomických uˇcení na všech vysokých školách ekonomického zamˇeˇrení a na filozofických
fakultách pro jednooborové i dvouoborové studium politické ekonomie. V návrhu
bylo novˇe požadováno také zaˇrazení tˇrísemestrálního kurzu dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení
na všech pedagogických fakultách na oboru uˇcitelství všeobecnˇe vzdˇelávacích pˇredmˇet˚u
– aprobaˇcní pˇredmˇet obˇcanská nauka. K nemalému pˇrekvapení samotného autora návrhu28,
k jeho pˇrijetí skuteˇcnˇe nakonec také došlo.
Pˇri Ministerstvu školství ˇCR byla ustavena samostatná pˇredmˇetová komise pro výuku
dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení. Jejími ˇcleny se stali pˇredevším zástupci vyuˇcujících tohoto
pˇredmˇetu na jednotlivých vysokých školách v republice.
Dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení se tak staly povinným pˇredmˇetem na všech ekonomických
fakultách, na jednooborovém i dvouoborovém studiu politické ekonomie na filozofických
fakultách a na výše uvedeném oboru pedagogických fakult. Uˇcební plány byly
jednotné a byly schvalovány zmínˇenou pˇredmˇetovou komisí ministerstva školství. Stejnˇe
tak byla schvalována i literatura doporuˇcovaná ke studiu, její návrhy však byly do znaˇcné
míry záležitostí jednotlivých vyuˇcujících. Možnosti výbˇeru studijní literatury byly pomˇernˇe
široké, nehledˇe na to, že se v souvislosti s rozšíˇrením výuky objevila i ˇrada nových
titul˚u.29
27
Petráˇcek, J. – Tallerová, J.: Dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení. Praha, SPN, 1975, 2. vydání v roce 1977, 3. v roce
l986. Skriptum bylo pod stejným názvem vydáno také v roce l977 na Vysoké škole báˇnské v Ostravˇe, tedy
po té, co zde byla znovu zˇrízena fakulta inženýrsko ekonomická (založena byla v roce 1953 a zrušena v
roce 1959).
28
L. Hájek, který byl v té dobˇe ˇclenem zmínˇené komise a vyuˇcujícím dˇejin ekonomických teorií na Pedagogické
fakultˇe v Hradci Králové a externím uˇcitelem VŠE v Praze zajišt’ujícím výuku na konzultaˇcním
stˇredisku VŠE pro dálkové studium v Hradci Králové, vzpomíná, jak na prvním setkání uˇcitel˚u dˇejin
ekonomických uˇcení Jaroslav Petráˇcek uvádˇel, že navrhl vícesemestrální výuku s tím, že návrh bude ministerstvem
zkrácen o jednu tˇretinu až jednu polovinu a byl sám velice pˇrekvapen, že tak rozsáhlý program
výuky byl ministerstvem schválen. Jaroslav Petráˇcek byl v té dobˇe vedoucím oddˇelení dˇejin ekonomických
uˇcení na VŠE v Praze a v˚udˇcí osobností výuky tohoto oboru v ˇceských zemích.
29
V této dobˇe vyšly i v ˇCechách hojnˇe používané dvˇe významné slovenské publikace Iša, J.: Koniec „keynesovskej
revolúcie“? Bratislava, Pravda. 442 s. a druhé pˇrepracované a doplnˇené vydání Heretik, Š.: Náˇcrt
70 New Perspectives on Political Economy
3 Uˇcení rakouských ekonom˚u v kurzech dˇejin ekonomických teorií
Jak již bylo uvedeno výše, byla uˇcení pˇríslušník˚u rakouské školy vˇenována pozornost od
samého poˇcátku výuky dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení. Tuto skuteˇcnost lze pˇriˇcítat pˇredevším
dvˇema okolnostem. V první ˇradˇe to byla potˇreba pˇrekonat vliv, který mˇelo uˇcení
zakladatel˚u Rakouské školy na vývoj ekonomického myšlení v ˇceských zemích v období
pˇred druhou svˇetovou válkou, s ˇcímž souvisela i nutnost podrobit zevrubné kritice metodologický
pˇrístup rakouských ekonom˚u ke zkoumání hospodáˇrských jev˚u a proces˚u a
zejména pak jeho vyústˇení do teorie hodnoty, což silnˇe kontrastovalo s metodou dialektického
a historického materialismu a s pracovní teorií hodnoty monisticky vycházející
z nabídkové strany hodnototvorného (cenotvorného) procesu.
Právˇe díky tˇemto výrazným odlišnostem se pozornost vˇenovaná uˇcení pˇríslušník˚u
Rakouské školy neobešla bez obsáhlejšího pozitivního výkladu. Pokud jde o výuku dˇejin
ekonomických uˇcení na VŠE v Praze,30 zatím se mi nepodaˇrilo získat p˚uvodní studijní
materiály z pˇrelomu 40. a 50. a z první poloviny 60. let. Ve výše zmínˇeném skriptu autor˚u
M. Šmejkala a J. Petráˇcka z roku 1966 však již je ekonomickému uˇcení rakouské školy
vˇenována pomˇernˇe znaˇcná pozornost. Autor (M. Šmejkal) se odvolává na p˚uvodní práce
jejích zakladatel˚u a podává pozitivní, avšak souˇcasnˇe s tím i znaˇcnˇe kritický výklad jejich
uˇcení.
Východiskem je charakteristika známého „sporu o metodu“ (Methodenstreit) rakušan˚u
s pˇríslušníky nˇemecké historické školy, zejména pak s v˚udˇcí osobností její mladší
generace G. Schmollerem, který byl vyvolán vydáním Mengerovy práce O metodˇe spodejín
politickém ekonomie (do sedemdesiatych rokov 19. storoˇcia). Bradislava, Pravda, 1988. 428 s. Druhého
vydání se doˇckaly i Teoretické základy súˇcasnej buržoáznej ekonómie téhož autora (Heretik, Š.
1988a). Pomˇernˇe frekventovanou publikací se staly Dejiny ekonomických uˇcení zpracované kolektivem
autor˚u pod vedením Š. Heretika, L. Korˇceka a J. Petráˇcka vydané ES VŠE v Bratislavˇe v roce 1983. Na Vysoké
škole ekonomické bylo vydáno rozsáhlé skriptum kolektivu autor˚u pod vedením J. Petráˇcka Dˇejiny
ekonomických teorií. Praha, SNTL, 1988. 323 s. Další nejˇcastˇeji doporuˇcované a používané tituly budou
uvedeny v následujícím textu a jsou i souˇcástí seznamu literatury.
30
D˚uraz, který kladu na výuku dˇejin ekonomických uˇcení a na pozornost vˇenovanou uˇcení Rakouských
ekonom˚u na VŠE v Praze má nˇekolik d˚uvod˚u. V první ˇradˇe je to skuteˇcnost, že se mi ve vztahu k ní
podaˇrilo shromáždit nejvíce podkladových materiál˚u, dále pak fakt, že uˇcební texty vydávané na VŠE
sloužily jako studijní materiály i na vˇetšinˇe ostatních vysokých škol, a v neposlední ˇradˇe i to, že zde
p˚usobili odborníci, kteˇrí se na studium uˇcení Rakouské školy silnˇe orientovali. V první ˇradˇe to byl J.
Petráˇcek, k nemuž se pozdˇeji pˇripojili jeho aspiranti J. Schwarz a M. Ševˇcík.
Koderová: Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky pˇred rokem 1989 71
leˇcenských vˇed a zvláštˇe politické ekonomie31 vydané poprvé v roce 1871. Pˇritom je
vˇenována pomˇernˇe znaˇcná pozornost metodˇe zkoumání rakouské školy, jejíž pozitivní
výklad je následován kritickými výhradami. Pouze jednou vˇetou jsou zmínˇeny BöhmBawerkovy
výhrady v˚uˇci Marxovi.
Následuje výklad teorie mezního užitku s tím, že se tato teorie „nejvíce rozšíˇrila prostˇrednictvím
uˇcení rakouských ekonom˚u, kteˇrí ji nejd˚uslednˇeji formulovali,“ pˇredevším
Böhm-Bawerka.32 V souvislosti s tím se v textu podávaná charakteristika uˇcení rakouské
školy opírá pˇredevším o jeho názory s tím, že v pˇrístupech jednotlivých pˇredstavitel˚u
existují urˇcité rozdíly, které jsou v textu také místy pˇripomínány.
Pozitivní výklad Böhm-Bawerkovy teorie hodnoty a rozdˇelování je doplnˇen nˇekolika
citáty z jeho p˚uvodních prací, na druhé stranˇe je však následován ˇradou kritických výhrad.
Kladnˇe je naproti tomu hodnocen pˇrínos rakušan˚u ke zkoumání teorie poptávky
a chování spotˇrebitele a jejich upozornˇení „na význam urˇcitých subjektivnˇe psychologických
moment˚u ve spotˇrebˇe, na urˇcitou úlohu hodnocení užiteˇcnosti zboží v cenotvorném
procesu. Rakouská škola dala podnˇet k podrobnˇejší analýze poptávky jako takové a
její úlohy v tvorbˇe tržních cen.“33
Na rozdíl od M. Šmejkala, J. Petráˇcek ve výše zmínˇené práci Kritika buržoazní politické
ekonomie I vykládá teorii mezního užitku na základˇe uˇcení neoklasických ekonom˚u
v interpretaci odpovídající mainstreamovému pojetí. C. Mengera, Böhm-Bawerka
a F. Wiesera pouze uvádí mezi teoretiky mezního užitku a struˇcnˇe se zmiˇnuje o pokraˇcovatelích
rakouské školy L. von Misesovi a F. A. von Hayekovi. K nim pˇriˇrazuje ještˇe
zmínku o H. Mayerovi, P. Rosensteinovi-Rodanovi a L. Schönfeldovi-Illy.
Takto vzniklý „dluh“ v˚uˇci uˇcení rakouské školy však více než vyrovnává v samostatném
skriptu Rakouská (vídeˇnská) subjektivnˇe psychologická škola a její pˇredch˚udci.34
Po kapitole vˇenované F. Galianimu, E. B. Condillacovi, D. Bernoulimu a H. H. Gossenovi
následuje zaˇrazení uˇcení rakouské školy do kontextu doby jejího vzniku, provádí
jeho komparaci s pˇrístupem matematické školy reprezentované jejím zakladatelem W.
31
Menger, C.: Untersuchungen über die Methode der Sozialwissenschaften und der politischem Ökonomie
insbesondere. Leipzig, 1883
32
Šmejkal, M. – Petráˇcek, J.: Dˇejiny ekonomických uˇcení. ˇCást I. Praha, SPN 1966. s. 167
33
tamtéž, s. 180
34
Petráˇcek, J.: Rakouská (vídeˇnská) subjektivnˇe psychologická škola a její pˇredch˚udci. Praha, SPN 1970.
97 s.
72 New Perspectives on Political Economy
S. Jevonsem, pˇriˇcemž zd˚urazˇnuje odmítavý vztah rakušan˚u k používání matematických
metod v ekonomické analýze. Následuje podrobný výklad metody rakouské školy a její
teorie hodnoty a teorie cen, který respektuje odlišné momenty v uˇcení jednotlivých pˇredstavitel˚u
a je hojnˇe doplˇnován citáty z jejich p˚uvodních prací. Kritické poznámky jsou
ˇrazeny pˇrímo do výkladu jednotlivých problém˚u, nijak výraznˇe však nenarušují logiku
výkladu a jeho srozumitelnost. Závˇer vˇenovaný vlivu rakouské školy na další vývoj ekonomické
teorie však vyznívá znaˇcnˇe pesimisticky.35
Na poˇcátku druhé poloviny 80. let vytvoˇril J. Petráˇcek na VŠE v Praze široký
tým spolupracovník˚u a vypracoval rozsáhlou, preciznˇe strukturovanou osnovu skripta,36
které co do hloubky a šíˇre vykládaných problém˚u nemˇelo a dodnes nemá obdobu. Toto
skriptum nejen výraznˇe prohlubovalo a novou strukturou výkladu precizovalo dosud vyuˇcovaná
témata, ale zahrnovalo také nejnovˇejší smˇery vývoje soudobé svˇetové ekonomie,
a to nejen v rámci tzv. hlavního proudu, ale i koncepcí období stojících mimo nˇej.
Zde však již byla teorie hodnoty a rozdˇelování vykládána výluˇcnˇe v pojetí neoklasických
ekonom˚u a uˇcení formativního období rakouské školy zde nebyla vˇenována žádná
pozornost. Na rozdíl od pˇredchozích uˇcebnic zde však již byla obsažena charakteristika
uˇcení L. von Misese a F. A. von Hayeka. Vedle výkladu Misesova liberalismu a praxeologického
pˇrístupu ke zkoumání hospodáˇrských jev˚u a proces˚u je zde vˇenována pozornost
i jeho kritice neracionality fungování centrálnˇe plánovaného hospodáˇrství, které Mises
považoval za pouhý soubor neuspoˇrádaných ˇcinností.37
Výklad uˇcení F. A. von Hayeka obsahuje struˇcnou charakteristiku jeho nejvýznamnˇejších
prací a všechny podstatné momenty jeho uˇcení od liberalismu a kritiky keynesovské
ekonomie až k teorii hospodáˇrského cyklu a požadavku na zrušení monopolu emise
penˇez.
35
Doslova o ztroskotání pokusu rakouské školy o subjektivnˇe-psychologickou pˇrestavbu politické ekonomie
psal ve své práci Teoretické základy súˇcasnej buržoáznej ekonómie Š. Heretik (Bratislava, Pravda 1973. 386
s.
36
Petráˇcek, J. a kol.: Dˇejiny ekonomických teorií. Praha, SNTL, 1988. 323 s.
37
Kritické argumenty rakouské školy v˚uˇci Marxovu ekonomickému uˇcení považoval Š. Heretik za hlavní
zdroj „politickoekonomického antimarxizmu väˇcšiny buržoáznych ekonómov.“ (Heretik, Š.: výše cit.
práce, s. 55).
Koderová: Pronikání myšlenek rakouských ekonom˚u do výuky pˇred rokem 1989 73
4 Závˇer
Studenti ˇceských vysokých škol ekonomického zamˇeˇrení byli seznamováni vývojem nemarxistických
ekonomických teorií i v období po roce 1948. Nebylo tomu tak proto, že
by se tím navazovalo na tradice pˇredchozích období, ale zejména proto, že dˇejiny ekonomického
uˇcení byly chápány jako integrální souˇcást marxistické politické ekonomie,
která má pˇrispˇet ke kritice nemarxistických ekonomických teorií.
Od poˇcáteˇcního pˇrevážnˇe kritického pˇrístupu, který v ˇradˇe pˇrípad˚u neumožˇnoval
v˚ubec pochopit podstatu kritizované teorie, zaˇcala být v pozdˇejších obdobích vˇenována
pozornost také pozitivnímu výkladu, nicménˇe obsahujícímu silné kritické prvky.
Tento pˇrístup byl aplikován i na uˇcení hlavních protagonist˚u formativního období
rakouské školy, informace o jejím dalším vývoji však prakticky chybˇely a teprve až v
roce 1988 byla vˇenována pozornost L. von Misesovi a F. A. von Hayekovi. Na zevrubnou
analýzu uˇcení pˇríslušník˚u pozdˇejších generací rakouské školy si však museli ˇceští
vysokoškoláci poˇckat až po roce l989.
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