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NEW PERSPECTIVES
ON
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Volume 3 Number 1
ARTICLES
2007
Hudík: František Čuhel (1862-1914)
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs
K nauce o potřebách
Ebeling: Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom
Glăvan: Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An
Austrian Critique of the Hausmann-Rodrik New Argument
for Industrial Policy
Popat and
Powell:
Book Review
Bryan Caplan: The Myth of the Rational Voter
ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 3, Number 1, 2007
Editorial
This issue of New Perspectives on Political Economy is devoted to the memory of
an influential, though almost forgotten, Czech economist, František Čuhel, whose
fundamental work “Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen” (On the Theory of Needs) appeared
exactly 100 years ago in 1907. This issue contains Čuhel’s own summary of his
book which has never appeared in English, an article by Marek Hudík about František
Čuhel and the impact of his work on the development of economics, and “Čuhel
Memorial Lecture 2007,” delivered in Prague by Richard Ebeling in which he summarizes
the fundamental insights of the Austrian School whose formation is closely tied
with Čuhel’s work.
Josef Šíma
Dan Šťastný
Language editors: Kitty Dolan, Shelly Gussis
ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 3, Number 1, 2007, pp. 3 – 14
František Čuhel (1862-1914)
Marek Hudík¹
JEL Classification: B19, B31
Abstract: The article deals with the contribution of almost forgotten Czech economist
František Čuhel, whose fundamental work “Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen”
appeared exactly 100 years ago. The article contains biographical facts, summarizes
Čuhel’s major contribution consisting of the formulation of the ordinal utility theory,
and explains his influence on economic thought.
¹ I would like to thank to Dagmar Gregorová, Pavel Chalupníček, Božena Kadeřábková, Ján Pavlík, Josef
Šíma, Věra Škochová and the staff of CIKS at the University of Economics in Prague.
Ing. Marek Hudík, Department of economics, Faculty of Economics and Public Administration, University
of Economics, Prague, hudikm@vse.cz
4 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Introduction
This year we commemorate a small, but significant anniversary: it is exactly 100 years
since František Čuhel, the most influential Czech economist of the early 20th century,
published his most important work, Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen (On the Theory
of Needs).²
It may seem out of place to attribute “most influential” to Cuhel considering that
for a long time even specialists in the history of Czech economic thought were unfamiliar
with his writings. It is therefore worth mentioning that no other Czech economist
of his time can boast of being cited abroad as many times as Čuhel – including by
such economists of stature as Böhm-Bawerk (1912), Slutsky (1915), Mises (1912, 1920,
1922, 1932, 1953, 1969), Mitchell (1914), Robbins (1932) and Machlup (1956). It must
be admitted that Čuhel never constructed a comprehensive economic system, as for
instance was done by Engliš.³ His scholarly work is in fact confined to this one book,
whose anniversary we mark this year.
Moreover, he never succeeded in being appointed to a significant academic position,
which surely contributed to the fact that even during his lifetime he did not
receive the recognition he would and should have deserved. Ludwig von Mises, who
is foremost responsible for seeing that Čuhel’s name was not completely forgotten,
was confident that Čuhel would at some point receive the credit that he deserved;
unfortunately, it never happened.⁴ How then, has František Čuhel secured his place
in the history of economic thought? Above all it was due to his introduction of the
concept of ordinal utility. Indeed, Rothbard later writes of the “Čuhel-Mises theory
of ordinal marginal utility,”⁵ as an alternative to the indifference-curve approach in
the mainstream tradition of Pareto-Slutsky-Hicks-Allen. However, Čuhel’s book con²
Čuhel (1907).
³ Karel Engliš (1880-1961) was a prominent Czech economist best known for his teleological approach
in economics. As far as the acceptance of Engliš’s work abroad see Vencovský (1997). We might add
that Engliš is also quoted by Mises (1949, 1969) and Hayek (1952) and it is surprising that he has
not reached wider recognition within the Austrian School. In spite of Engliš’s fame in his country
of birth, it is Čuhel who seems to be better known among the Austrians, as evidenced by including
Čuhel among the Classics in Austrian Economics edited by Israel Kirzner (1994).
⁴ Mises (1978).
⁵ Rothbard’s foreword to Mises (1912).
Hudík: František Čuhel (1862-1914) 5
tains much more than this. Before we discuss these contributions let us first briefly
review his biography.
2 Life⁶
There is little known about Čuhel’s life. He was born in 1862 in the Moravian town of
Olešnice into an evangelist family. His father, also František, came from the nearby
village of Bolešín, and was a farmer and house owner. He married František’s mother
Josefa (born Hájek) in the year 1861.⁷ František Čuhel Jr. attended grammar school in
Brno and then the faculty of law in Vienna and Prague where he earned his doctoral
degree in 1886. In 1889 he became a clerk in the Prague Chamber of Commerce,
was promoted to vice-secretary in 1894, and then to second secretary in 1898. In the
1890s, he also publicly worked on behalf of small businessmen. In 1896 he proposed
and presented a plan for a “State Anniversary Fund of the Kaiser and King Franz Josef
I.,” to support the community of small businessmen. The fund was established in
1898.
According to Gruber’s⁸ account, Čuhel was of a “deep academic turn, highly gifted
and educated” and wanted to habilitate in the field of Nationalökonomie. However, it
did not happen for a long time, much to the regret of Albín Bráf,⁹ who reputedly saw
Čuhel as his successor. Čuhel’s administrative duties at the Chamber of Commerce
resulted his having less and less time for scientific work in economics. In the late
nineties, he began to show symptoms of an unspecified mental disorder resulting in
his premature retirement in 1903. He moved back to Moravia and later to Vienna.
During that time he returned to scientific work, which resulted in the publication of
Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen in 1907. In 1908 he also returned to administrative
work, becoming a clerk in the General Pension Insurance Company in Vienna.
⁶ This part heavily draws from the obituary written by Josef Gruber (1914) and also from materials kindly
offered to the author by Dagmar Gregorová from the municipal office in Olešnice.
⁷ Josefa, however, died in 1895 and his father married Františka Jílková a year later. He died in 1911.
⁸ Josef Gruber (1865-1925) worked with Čuhel in the Chamber of Commerce and was probably his fellow-
student.
⁹ Albín Bráf (1851-1912), an economist and politician, was (together with T. G. Masaryk) the most outstanding
Czech social scientist of the 19th century.
6 New Perspectives on Political Economy
A year later, Čuhel still had ambitions of becoming Gruber’s successor (who left
for Prague University) in the department of “Judicial and State Sciences.” However,
Bráf is said to have dissuaded him from this idea. Čuhel died in Vienna on the 3rd of
December 1914, without ever attaining the academic position for which he had long
hoped.¹⁰
3 The book Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen
The theme of Čuhel’s book was a natural product of the intellectual climate of his
time. As the subtitle suggests, it is on the borderland between psychology and economics,
and tries to determine the boundaries of the respective disciplines. This field
of study was at the cutting edge of his time: the Austrian School of Economics had
been developing hand-in-hand with parallel trends in psychology and philosophy.
Besides the Austrian economists (Menger, Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser), there was also
a so-called “second Austrian school of value,”¹¹ with Franz Brentano as its leading
figure and which included names such as Alexius Meinong, Oskar Kraus, and the
founder of the Gestalt psychology, Christian von Ehrenfehls.
The mainstream economists of the time concentrated primarily on explaining the
factors behind market demand, i.e., establishing a bridge between marginal utility
theory as the behavioural foundation of economic theory and quantifiable relationships
based on money prices. The Austrian economists (and psychologists) dealt in
more detail with the nature of the laws of marginal utility and the factors determining
their validity. They knew very well that the new theory was more then just a theory
of economic value; for them it was a new approach to the study of human behaviour
in general.¹²
¹⁰ Gruber also mentions that Čuhel attempted some technical inventions that were even patented; they
however never proved themselves in practice. One of these inventions was probably a calculating
machine in the year 1890. See Martin (1925).
¹¹ See Fabian & Simons (1986) who mention that the term “second Austrian school of value” was adopted
from older works of Eaton (1930) and Rescher (1969).
¹² The later “divorce” of economics from psychology that was established in particular in the works of
Mises was not a result of some hatred for psychology: it resulted from interpreting laws of economics
not as empirical generalizations (as are the “laws” of psychology), but rather as logical consequences
following from the axiom of action in concrete circumstances.
Hudík: František Čuhel (1862-1914) 7
Čuhel envisaged his book as an introduction to a more comprehensive economic
treatise, which he seems to have intended to write. He noticed that the concept of
“need,” although widely considered to be at the foundation of economic science, is
rarely analyzed by economists. He set himself the task to develop an elaborate system
full of concepts devised by him, such as “egence,” “other-regarding needs,” and
“self-regarding needs” etc. Here is not the place to deal with Čuhel’s system in more
detail – and, indeed, it is not even necessary, since the author did it in the article
On the Theory of Needs,¹³ which is included in this volume in Pavel Chalupníček’s
English translation. We only mention here that his book has been most frequently
quoted in the following contexts: (1) ordinal concept of utility, (2) the relation between
economics and psychology, (3) the use of mathematics in economics, and (4)
time preference.
Čuhel’s book received some acceptance, but not immediately. In the Czech economic
literature we find a reference to it in Koloušek’s relatively influential textbook
(Koloušek, 1918).¹⁴ Koloušek refers to Čuhel’s arguments against the possibility of
measuring the intensity of needs in the context of his criticism of the marginalist
theory of value. As for the German-speaking world, Gruber mentions positive recognition
of Čuhel’s book in the works of Philippovich (1920) and Tiburtius (1914).
But it is, first of all, the controversy between Böhm-Bawerk (1912) and Čuhel over
marginal utility theory that is most often mentioned. Čuhel criticized the cardinalist
elements in Böhm-Bawerk’s work and offered, instead, a strictly ordinalist conception
of utility. To the question as to whether this debate was significant only within the
Austrian tradition, or in the history of the discipline in general, it seems that the
former is the more correct answer. Although E. Kauder included the controversy in
his history of marginal utility, he had to admit, however, that the “Austrian discussion
was interesting, although not as penetrating as the discussion outside the school.”
(Kauder, 1965, s. 197).
Mainstream economics did not derive the ordinalist conception of utility from
Čuhel, but instead from Pareto (1906) and then subsequently from Hicks and Allen.
¹³ Čuhel (1907b).
¹⁴ It may be interesting to note that it was Jan Koloušek (1859-1921) who was called in to take Gruber’s
place at the department of “Judicial and State Sciences,” instead of Čuhel, in 1910. See Gruber (1914).
8 New Perspectives on Political Economy
(1934a, 1934b). It is interesting to note that Hicks may have been acquainted with
Čuhel’s work while writing his path breaking article. At that time, Hicks was a member
of the “Robbins’ circle” at LSE, and Lionel Robbins surely knew Čuhel’s work.¹⁵
Moreover, Hayek was also at the LSE and – according to his own words – played some
role in influencing Hicks’ views on the subject. He reputedly tried to convince Hicks
to apply the indifference curve apparatus.¹⁶ Hicks, if informed about Čuhel at all,
obviously did not need his arguments because he had already adopted Pareto’s ordinalism.¹⁷
Besides, Pareto’s formalized approach seemed more convenient for his
purposes than Čuhel’s “psychological” approach. Concerning Robbins’ own contributions
to utility theory (namely the issue of interpersonal comparisons of utility),¹⁸
Čuhel’s influence is more likely, whether directly from Čuhel’s book or mediated
through Mises’ writings.
Now we come to the awareness of Čuhel’s book in the English speaking countries.
It was positively reviewed in both the Economic Journal¹⁹ and in the Political Science
Quarterly.²⁰ Wesley Clare Mitchell (1914) also cited it in his survey article on economic
approaches to human behaviour. And there are further references in Williams (1910),
Clark Dickinson (1919) and Surányi-Unger (1948).
In the Italian literature Čuhel is quoted in a famous article by Eugen Slutsky (1915)
on the question of the general validity of the First Law of Gossen.
We reserve the last comment in this section to the greatest influence exercised by
Čuhel’s book. We already have mentioned at the beginning that if not for Ludwig von
Mises our author probably would have been forgotten. It was from Čuhel that Mises
derived the ordinal conception of utility. Čuhel’s book helped Mises when writing his
¹⁵ We recall that he quoted Čuhel in his famous Essay as early as in 1932.
¹⁶ “Though my own preoccupation was mainly with the problems of money and capital, my liveliest
recollections are of the discussions connected with the work of John Hicks which resulted in the
Hicks-Allen article on “A Reconsideration of the Theory of Value” and later Value and Capital. Hicks
had come from Oxford to London as a good Marshallian, and I still remember clearly an early discussion
when, curiously, I, the Austrian, tried to persuade Hicks of the merits of the indifference-curve
approach of which he was so soon to become the acknowledged master.” (Caldwell, 1995, p. 56-57).
¹⁷ Hicks in his memories admitted that thanks to his knowledge of Italian he was even “deep in Pareto,
before [he] got much out of Marshall.” (Hicks, 1983, p. 356).
¹⁸ Robbins (1932, 1938).
¹⁹ Sanger (1908).
²⁰ Mussey (1909).
Hudík: František Čuhel (1862-1914) 9
Theory of Money and Credit, where he demonstrated that money (as well as any other
commodity) cannot be a measure of value. And it is most certainly the case that it
was thanks to Mises that Robbins, Machlup, Kauder and the later members of the
Austrian School came to know about Čuhel’s contribution.
4 Rediscovery
It is not surprising that the rediscovery of Čuhel’s name out of the ashes of history
has resulted from the revived interest in the Austrian School (especially its MisesRothbardian
variation), and following the fall of communism in the Czech Republic
particularly among a group of economists surrounding Josef Šíma.
Nevertheless, the first (and so far the only one) detailed comments on Čuhel
in the post-communist era are to be found not in the work of an economist but a
philosopher, namely in Ján Pavlík’s book F. A. Hayek and the Theory of Spontaneous
Order.²¹ The author reminds us of the Čuhel-Böhm-Bawerk controversy. The attempt
to arouse a general awareness of František Čuhel has resulted in establishing an annual
lecture that bears his name at the Prague Conference on Political Economy.²²
5 Conclusion
František Čuhel should not be viewed as a misunderstood and unheralded genius in
the same sense as was, for example, Gossen. Čuhel’s work is interesting and inspiring,
but not revolutionary. He deserves recognition for his independent elaboration of the
ordinalist version of utility theory, which is by itself a significant achievement. As far
as his real influence is concerned, it has been above all exercised within the Austrian
tradition, where Čuhel has come to occupy a place of honour.
Mainstream economics does not refer to Čuhel as one of the founding fathers of
modern utility theory, though his book had some influence even here – albeit only implicitly
– through the works of Böhm-Bawerk, Slutsky, Mises and Robbins. Whether
²¹ Pavlík (2004) and also Pavlík (2002).
²² So far, this lecture has been delivered by: 2005 – Jörg Guido Hülsmann; 2006 – Jesus Huerta de Soto;
and 2007 – Richard Ebeling.
10 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Čuhel has deserved closer attention by mainstream economists is for the reader to
judge.
Nevertheless, one thing is certain: František Čuhel was a very significant economist,
and he deserves a permanent place in books on the Czech history of economic
thought.
List of František Čuhel’s publications
• Poznámky o právu živnostníků k obchodu s tiskopisy na základě § 3. odst. 5.
zákona o tisku ze dne 17. prosince 1862. Právník, Vol. XXV.
• Úspěchy dělnických společenstev anglických. Osvěta, 1893.
• Účastenství dělníků v zisku podnikatelském. Osvěta, 1893.
• Jak povznést úvěr malého živnostnictva v království Českém. Osvěta, 1896.
• Průmysl a obchod v obvodu obchodní a živnostenské komory pražské r. 1890.
Obzor národohospodářský, Vol. I., 1896, p. 181.
• Několik slov o národním hospodářství. Obzor národohospodářský, Vol. I., 1896,
p. 2. (under pseudonym Dr. E. B. Šimek).
• Obchodní a živnostenské korporace, svépomocná sdružení a obchodní ústavy
vzdělávací, Merkur, Praha, 1899. (together with J. Gruber and R. Hotowetz).
• Osnova stanov pro praemiová společenstva úvěrní dle zákona z 9. dubna 1873, z.
ř. čís. 70. Praha: [Řivnáč, distributor], 1902.
• Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen: Theoretische Untersuchungen über das Grenzgebiet
der Ökonomik und der Psychologie. Innsbruck: Wagner’schen Universitäts
Buchhandung, 1907.
• K nauce o potřebách. Sborník věd právních a státních, Vol. VII. Praha, Bursík &
Kohout, 1907, pp. 1-33.
Hudík: František Čuhel (1862-1914) 11
According to Gruber (1914), Čuhel also published a criticism of Kaizl’s book Finanční
věda (Science of Finance) in the journal Právník in 1888, which was discussed by Kaizl
in the second edition of his book. Shorter reports can be found in the journal Nové
Zprávy and the journal Obzor národohospodářský, including some of Čuhel’s Aforismy
národohospodářské (Economic Aphorisms).
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14 New Perspectives on Political Economy
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ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 3, Number 1, 2007, pp. 15 – 25
František Čuhel (1862-1914)
Marek Hudík¹
JEL Classification: B19, B31
Abstract: Příspěvek se zabývá přínosem polozapomenutého českého ekonoma Františka
Čuhla, jehož stěžejní dílo „Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen“ vyšlo právě před
100 lety. Jsou uvedena některá fakta z jeho života, zmíněn jeho hlavní přínos spočívající
ve formulaci ordinální teorie užitku a ukázán jeho vliv na světové ekonomické
myšlení.
¹ Autor by rád poděkoval Dagmar Gregorové, Pavlu Chalupníčkovi, Boženě Kadeřábkové, Jánu
Pavlíkovi, Josefu Šímovi, Věře Škochové a pracovnicím Centra informačních a knihovnických služeb
VŠE v Praze.
Marek Hudík, Ing., Katedra ekonomie, Národohospodářská fakulta, Vysoká škola ekonomická v
Praze, hudikm@vse.cz
16 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Úvod
Tento rok si připomínáme jedno malé výročí, o kterém se příliš neví: letos uplynulo
právě 100 let od vydání stěžejní knihy nejvlivnějšího předválečného českého ekonoma.
Jde o knihu Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen (K nauce o potřebách)² donedávna téměř
zapomenutého Františka Čuhla.
Může se zdát, že přívlastek „nejvlivnější“ není na místě u někoho, kdo byl dlouho
neznám dokonce i mezi odborníky na české ekonomické myšlení. Proto na obhajobu
tohoto poněkud odvážného tvrzení uveďme, že žádný z tehdejších českých ekonomů
se nemůže pochlubit tím, že by na něj bylo v zahraničí tolik odkazováno jako právě na
Čuhla – a to takovými ekonomy, jako byli Böhm-Bawerk (1912), Slutsky (1915), Mises
(1912, 1920, 1922, 1932, 1953, 1969), Mitchell (1914), Robbins (1932) či Machlup (1956).
Rychle však dodejme, že Čuhel se nemůže pyšnit uceleným ekonomickým systémem
jako třeba Engliš³ a jeho vědecké publikace se v podstatě redukují na zmiňovanou
jednu knihu.
Navíc se mu nikdy nepodařilo dosáhnout významného akademického postavení,
což jistě přispělo k tomu, že ani po dobu jeho života se mu nedostávalo takového
uznání, kterého by si zasluhoval. Ludwig von Mises, který je velkou měrou zodpovědný
za to, že Čuhlovo jméno nebylo zcela zapomenuto, pevně věřil, že Čuhel získá
uznání alespoň později: ale to se, jak víme, nestalo.⁴ Čím se tedy zapsal František
Čuhel do dějin ekonomického myšlení? Šlo především o zavedení ordinálního pojetí
užitku. Rothbard dokonce později mluví o „Čuhel-Misesově teorii mezního užitku“⁵
jako alternativě k pojetí tradice hlavního proudu Pareto-Slutsky-Hicks-Allen založené
na indiferenčních křivkách. Jeho kniha však obsahuje mnohem více než to. Než přejdeme
k jeho dílu, zmíníme se krátce o jeho životě.
² Čuhel (1907).
³ Co se týče ohlasu Englišova díla v zahraničí viz Vencovský (1997). Dodejme, že na Engliše též odkazuje
Mises (1949, 1969) i Hayek (1952) a je s podivem, že nedosáhl většího ohlasu mezi přívrženci Rakouské
školy. Čuhel je, zdá se, mezi rakouskými ekonomy známější než Engliš, o čemž svědčí např. ten fakt,
že byl Kirznerem zahrnut mezi klasiky Rakouské ekonomie. Kirzner (1994).
⁴ Mises (1978).
⁵ Rothbardova předmluva k Mises (1912).
Hudík: František Čuhel (1862-1914) 17
2 Život⁶
O Čuhlově životě toho zatím není známo mnoho. Narodil se roku 1862 v Olešnici na
Moravě do protestantské rodiny. Jeho otec, též František, pocházel z nedalekého Bolešína
a byl rolníkem a domařem. S Františkovou matkou Josefou, rozenou Hájkovou, se
oženil v roce 1861.⁷ František Čuhel ml. vystudoval gymnázium v Brně a práva ve Vídni
a Praze, kde získal roku 1886 doktorát. V roce 1889 se stal koncipistou u obchodní komory
v Praze, roku 1894 náměstkem sekretáře a o čtyři roky později druhým sekretářem.
V devadesátých letech se též veřejně angažoval, zejména ve prospěch drobných
živnostníků: roku 1896 navrhl a vypracoval projekt „Zemského jubilejního fondu císaře
a krále Františka Josefa I.“ na jejich podporu. K jeho zřízení došlo v roce 1898.
Podle Gruberových⁸ vzpomínek byl Čuhel „hluboce spekulativně založen, vysokého
nadání a vzdělání“ a pomýšlel na habilitaci v oboru národní hospodářství. K té
však dlouho nedocházelo, k lítosti Albína Bráfa, který v něm prý viděl svého nástupce.
Čuhlovi pro úřednickou práci zbývalo stále méně času pro vědu. Od konce devadesátých
let devatenáctého století se navíc u něj začala projevovat blíže nespecifikovaná
duševní porucha a Čuhel tak odešel roku 1903 do předčasné výslužby. Přestěhoval se
nejprve zpět na Moravu a poté do Vídně. Během této doby se vrátil opět k vědecké činnosti
a výsledkem bylo roku 1907 vydání knihy Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen. V roce
1908 se vrátil k úřednické činnosti – stal se úředníkem Všeobecné pensijní pojišťovny
ve Vídni.
O rok později ještě pomýšlel na to, stát se nástupcem Grubera (který odešel na
pražskou universitu) na katedře „věd právních a státních“, Bráf mu tento záměr však
údajně rozmluvil. 3. prosince 1914 Čuhel ve Vídni umírá, aniž by kdy dosáhl kýženého
postavení na akademické půdě.⁹
⁶ Tato část čerpá především z nekrologu, jehož autorem je Josef Gruber (1914) a dále z materiálů, které
byly autorovi laskavě poskytnuty Dagmar Gregorovou z městského úřadu v Olešnici.
⁷ Jeho matka však roku 1895 zemřela a otec se o rok později znovu oženil, s Františkou Jílkovou. Otec
zemřel roku 1911.
⁸ Josef Gruber pracoval s Čuhlem v Obchodní a živnostenské komoře a pravděpodobně též spolu sudo-
vali.
⁹ Gruber též zmiňuje, že Čuhel se pokusil o některé technické vynálezy, které dokonce byly patentovány,
avšak v praxi se neosvědčily. Jedním z těch vynálezů pravděpodobně byl počítací stroj z roku 1890. Viz
Martin (1925).
18 New Perspectives on Political Economy
3 Kniha Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen
Téma Čuhlovy knihy je přirozeným plodem intelektuálního klimatu jeho doby. Jak
její podtitul napovídá, pohybuje se na pomezí mezi psychologií a ekonomií a snaží se
též vymezit hranice obou disciplín. Tato oblast byla v jeho době vskutku aktuální –
Rakouská škola se jak známo ve svých počátcích vyvíjela ruku v ruce s psychologií a
filosofií. Vedle skupiny ekonomů Mengera, Böhm-Bawerka a Wiesera existovala ještě
tzv. „druhá Rakouská škola teorie hodnoty“,¹⁰ jejíž vůdčí postavou byl Franz Brentano
a k níž náleželi zejména Alexius Meinong, Oskar Kraus či zakladatel Gestalt psychologie
Christian von Ehrenfehls.
Zatímco ekonomové hlavního proudu se soustředili především na odvození poptávky
– což de facto znamenalo vytvoření spojovacího článku mezi teorií mezního
užitku, jakožto behaviorálního základu ekonomické teorie, a kvantifikovatelných
vztahů založených na peněžních cenách – rakouští ekonomové (a psychologové)
se podrobněji zabývali charakterem zákonů mezního užitku a podmínkami jejich
platnosti. Dobře chápali, že nová teorie je více než pouhou teorií hodnoty: že jde
také o nový přístup ke studiu lidského chování obecně.¹¹
Čuhel pojal svoji knihu jako úvod k systematickému ekonomickému pojednání,
které, zdá se, zamýšlel později napsat. Všiml si, že pojem potřeby, ač považován za základní
pojem ekonomické vědy, je zřídka ekonomy analyzován. Sám se tohoto úkolu
ujal a vytvořil propracovaný, avšak poměrně komplikovaný systém plný jím vytvořených
pojmů, jako „egence“, „alterilné“ a „ipsilné“ potřeby apod. Není zde místo,
abychom shrnuli závěry Čuhlovy knihy – a není to ani příliš třeba, neboť autor tak
sám přehledně učinil v článku K nauce o potřebách,¹² jenž je přetištěn dále v tomto
čísle. Uveďme pouze, že na jeho knihu bylo odkazováno především v souvislostech
(1) ordinálního pojetí užitku, (2) vztahu psychologie a ekonomie, (3) použití matematiky
v ekonomii a (4) časové preference.
¹⁰ Viz Fabian & Simons (1986), kteří uvádějí, že název „druhá Rakouská škola teorie hodnoty“ převzali
ze starších publikací Eatona (1930) a Reschera (1969).
¹¹ Pozdější „rozchod“ ekonomie a psychologie realizovaný především v díle Misese je výsledkem nikoli
jakési nenávisti vůči psychologii jako takové: jedná se o důsledek interpretace ekonomických zákonů
už ne jako empirických generalizací (kterýžto charakter mají „zákony“ psychologické), nýbrž jako
logických důsledků axiomu jednání v konkrétních podmínkách.
¹² Čuhel (1907b).
Hudík: František Čuhel (1862-1914) 19
Čuhlova kniha se dočkala některých ohlasů, i když ne okamžitě. V české ekonomické
literatuře najdeme odkaz v poměrně vlivné učebnici Kolouškově (1918).¹³ Koloušek
zmiňuje Čuhlovy argumenty proti měření intensity potřeb v kontextu kritiky
teorie hodnoty postavené na koncepci mezního užitku. Co se týče německy mluvící
oblasti, Gruber zmiňuje pozitivní odkazy na Čuhla v dílech Philippoviche (1920) a
Tiburtia (1914).
Především je však na tomto místě nutno uvést Böhm-Bawerkovu (1912) obšírnou
odpověď na Čuhlovu polemiku. Čuhel kritizoval kardinalistické prvky v BöhmBawerkově
učení a předložil striktně ordinalistické pojetí užitku. Právě tento spor je
v souvislosti s Čuhlovým jménem nejčastěji připomínán. Na otázku, zda je tento spor
významný pouze v rámci rakouské tradice či současně pro dějiny ekonomického myšlení
jako takové, je však zřejmě nutné přiklonit se k prvnímu tvrzení. E. Kauder jej sice
zahrnul do svých dějin teorie mezního užitku, avšak, i když sám sympatizoval s Rakouskou
školou, musel uznat, že „Rakouská diskuse byla zajímavá, avšak nikoli tak
pronikavá jako diskuse mimo tuto školu.“ (Kauder, 1965, s. 197).
Ekonomie hlavního proudu totiž neodvozuje ordinalistické pojetí od Čuhla, nýbrž
od Pareta (1906) a následně Hickse a Allena (1934a, 1934b). Zajímavé však je, že Hicks
při psaní své průlomové práce mohl být s Čuhlovou prací obeznámen. Hicks byl v té
době na LSE členem „Robbinsova kroužku“ a Lionel Robbins v té době Čuhla zcela
jistě znal.¹⁴ Navíc zde působil také Hayek, který dokonce podle svých slov sehrál
určitou roli při formování Hicksových myšlenek v této věci, když prý přesvědčoval
Hickse, aby použil aparát indiferenčních křivek.¹⁵ Hicks, pokud byl na Čuhla upozorněn,
zřejmě jeho argumenty nepotřeboval, neboť již dávno přijal ordinalismus Paretův.¹⁶
Navíc pro jeho účely bylo Paterovo formalizované pojetí vhodnější než „psy¹³
Pro zajímavost uveďme, že to byl právě Jan Koloušek, kdo byl v roce 1910 místo Čuhla povolán na
uvolněné místo na české technice po Gruberovi. Viz Gruber (1914).
¹⁴ Připomeňme, že ho citoval ho ve svém slavném Eseji již v roce 1932.
¹⁵ “Though my own preoccupation was mainly with the problems of money and capital, my liveliest
recollections are of the discussions connected with the work of John Hicks which resulted in the
Hicks-Allen article on “A Reconsideration of the Theory of Value” and later Value and Capital. Hicks
had come from Oxford to London as a good Marshalian, and I still remember clearly an early discussion
when, curiously, I, the Austrian, tried to persuade Hicks of the merits of the indifference-curve
approach of which he was so soon to become the acknowledged master.” (Caldwell, 1995, s. 56-57).
¹⁶ Hicks ve svých vzpomínkách dokonce přiznal, že díky své znalosti italštiny studoval Pareta dříve než
Marshalla. (Hicks, 1983, s. 356).
20 New Perspectives on Political Economy
chologické“ pojetí Čuhlovo. Co se týče významných příspěvků samotného Robbinse
k teorii užitku (konkrétně k otázce meziosobního srovnávání užitku),¹⁷ zde lze pravděpodobně
mluvit o Čuhlově vlivu, ať již přímém, či zprostředkovaném skrze Misese.
Tímto jsme se již dostali k ohlasům na Čuhlovu knihu v anglicky mluvících zemích.
Uveďme, že byla příznivě recenzována v Economic Journal¹⁸ a v Political Science
Quarterly.¹⁹ Dále se o ní zmiňuje Wessley Clark Mitchell (1914) ve svém přehledovém
článku o přístupu k lidskému chování v ekonomii. Odkazy najdeme také u Williamse
(1910), Clark Dickinsona (1919) a u Surányi-Ungera (1948). V Itálii na Čuhla potom odkazuje
ve svém slavném článku Eugen Slutsky (1915) v souvislosti s problémem všeobecné
platnosti I. Gossenova zákona.
Na závěr této části jsme ponechali zmínku o nejpodstatnějším vlivu, který Čuhlova
kniha vykonala. Jak jsme uvedli v úvodu, bez Misese by byl náš autor pravděpodobně
zapomenut. Byl to totiž právě Čuhel, komu Mises vděčil za ordinální pojetí
užitku. Je téměř jisté, že Robbins, Machlup či Kauder znali Čuhla právě díky Misesovi,
nemluvě o pozdějších reprezentantech Rakouské školy. Misesovi byla Čuhlova
kniha nápomocna především při psaní jeho Theory of Money and Credit z roku 1912,
kde ukázal, že peníze (stejně jako jakákoliv jiná komodita) nemohou být měřítkem
hodnoty.
4 Znovuobjevení
Nyní tedy není divu, že povznesení Čuhlova jména z propadliště dějin na výsluní je
výsledkem oživení zájmu o Rakouskou školu (konkrétně její Misesovsko-Rothbardovskou
větev) po pádu komunismu, které je spojeno se skupinou ekonomů kolem
Josefa Šímy. Přesto však první (a zatím jedinou) porevoluční podrobnější zmínku o
Čuhlovi nalezneme v díle nikoli ekonoma, nýbrž filosofa, a sice v knize Jána Pavlíka
F. A. Hayek a teorie spontánního řádu.²⁰ Autor zde připomíná zmiňovaný spor ČuhelBöhm-Bawerk.
Vyvrcholením snah o to, dostat Františka Čuhla do obecného pově¹⁷
Robbins (1932, 1938).
¹⁸ Sanger (1908).
¹⁹ Mussey (1909).
²⁰ Pavlík (2004) a též Pavlík (2002).
Hudík: František Čuhel (1862-1914) 21
domí, je potom ustanovení výroční přednášky v rámci Prague Conference on Political
Economy nesoucí jeho jméno.²¹
5 Závěr
Františka Čuhla nelze chápat jako jakéhosi nepochopeného a neuznaného genia ve
stejném smyslu, jakým byl třeba Gossen. Jeho dílo je zajímavé a inspirativní, nikoli
však revoluční. Budiž mu přiznáno, že nezávisle rozpracoval ordinalistickou verzi teorie
užitku, což je samo o sobě významným počinem. Co se týče jeho skutečného
vlivu, je pravdou, že je prakticky omezen „pouze“ na Rakouskou tradici. V té však Čuhel
zaujímá čestné místo. Ekonomie hlavního proudu se na Čuhla neodvolává jako
na jednoho z otců moderní teorie užitku, i když jeho kniha zde vliv měla – byť pouze
zprostředkovaně – skrze Böhm-Bawerka, Slutského, Misese a Robbinse. Zda by si býval
Čuhel zasluhoval větší pozornost ekonomů hlavního proudu, to necháme na posouzení
současného čtenáře. Nicméně jedno je jisté: František Čuhel byl natolik významným
ekonomem, že si zaslouží, aby byl v knihách dějin českého ekonomického
myšlení navždy zmiňován.
Seznam publikací Františka Čuhla
• Poznámky o právu živnostníků k obchodu s tiskopisy na základě § 3. odst. 5. zákona
o tisku ze dne 17. prosince 1862. Právník, ročník XXV.
• Úspěchy dělnických společenstev anglických. Osvěta, 1893.
• Účastenství dělníků v zisku podnikatelském. Osvěta, 1893.
• Jak povznést úvěr malého živnostnictva v království Českém. Osvěta, 1896.
• Průmysl a obchod v obvodu obchodní a živnostenské komory pražské r. 1890. Obzor
národohospodářský, ročník I., 1896, s. 181.
²¹ Tuto přednášku zatím pronesli: 2005 – Jörg Guido Hülsmann, 2006 – Jesus Huerta de Soto a 2007 –
Richard Ebeling.
22 New Perspectives on Political Economy
• Několik slov o národním hospodářství. Obzor národohospodářský, ročník I.,
1896, s. 2. (pod pseudonymem Dr. E. B. Šimek).
• Obchodní a živnostenské korporace, svépomocná sdružení a obchodní ústavy
vzdělávací, Merkur, Praha, 1899. (společně s J. Gruberem a R. Hotowetzem).
• Osnova stanov pro praemiová společenstva úvěrní dle zákona z 9. dubna 1873, z.
ř. čís. 70. Praha: [Řivnáč, distributor], 1902.
• Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen: Theoretische Untersuchungen über das Grenzgebiet
der Ökonomik und der Psychologie. Innsbruck: Wagner’schen Universitäts
Buchhandung, 1907.
• K nauce o potřebách. Sborník věd právních a státních, ročník VII. Praha, Bursík
& Kohout, 1907, s. 1-33.
Dále podle Grubera (1914) Čuhel uveřejnil v roce 1888 v Právníku kritiku Kaizlovy Finanční
vědy, na kterou její autor odpověděl ve druhém vydání. Kratší zprávy lze potom
nalézt v Nových Zprávách a Obzor národohospodářský obsahuje některé jeho Aforismy
národohospodářské.
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ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 3, Number 1, 2007, pp. 27 – 56
On the Theory of Needs¹
František (Franz) Čuhel
JEL Classification: B41, B53
Abstract: This text is Čuhel’s own summary of his book Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen
which was published in 1907 and has never appeared in English. His book has
been most frequently quoted in the following contexts: (1) ordinal concept of utility,
(2) the relation between economics and psychology, (3) the use of mathematics in
economics, and (4) time preference.
¹ Originally published in Czech as “K nauce o potřebách”, Sborník věd právních a státních, Vol. VII,
Prague 1907, pp. 1-33. Translated by Pavel Chalupníček [Translator’s note]
28 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Introduction
1. Anyone who has dealt thoroughly with the basic teachings of economic science cannot
overlook the fact that the term needs receives relatively little attention in the existing
economic literature, even though some authors consider it to be the first basic
notion of economic science upon which all other terms of this science are built. The
clearest illustration of this assertion is the fact that the most elaborate German Encyclopedia
of State Sciences (“Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften”) provides
only a short treatise on this subject, which is described in eight brief lines inserted
into an article about “Gut”. This is not to claim that no economic author has addressed
the theory of needs so far; we may find remarkable treatises about the classification of
needs in the work of Hermann, about collective needs in the work of Wagner, about
intensity of needs in the writings of many members of the economic school that has
gained its good reputation particularly via Austrian proponents of the theory of value
based on marginal utility. But if we want to learn about what has been explored about
needs up to the present time we have to gather all the relevant pieces of knowledge
from different authors, and when we finish this task we find that the opinions of even
the most prominent economic authors about the nature and notion of needs in the
sense of economic science are very inadequate. The reader may find persuasive arguments
for this statement on pages 78-92 of my book.²
2. The greatest part of the blame for this unsatisfactory state of the existing economic
literature is to be laid, in my opinion, on the fact that the term and notion of
need is taken from the common language in which, as shown on pages 61-64 of my
book, this word has more than 12 different meanings and that the previous authors
assumed that they would recognize the nature of need if they analyzed general notions
corresponding to the word “need”. In order to reach the right opinion about the
nature and notion of need in the sense of economic science it is necessary, I believe,
to abandon the present method and take the same path that the natural sciences fol²
Čuhel, Franz: “Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen, Theoretische Untersuchungen über das Grenzgebiet
der Ökonomik und der Psychologie”, Wagner, Insbruck, 1907, of which this article is a summary. This
translation draws from previous English translation of a part of this book by William Kirby (esp. in
part VI of the present text) published in: Israel M. Kirzner (ed.): Classics in Austrian Economics, Vol.
1, William Pickering, London 1994, pp. 305-338. [Translator’s note]
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 29
low so successfully as they deal with a phenomenon, not paying any attention to the
opinions held about it by common language.
2 The notion of needs in the sense of economic science
3. Phenomena that are the subject of economic science are a certain kind of human
actions and their results. Each action is caused by one or more desires. A brief explication
about how human desires emerge is contained in the first chapter of my book,
of which I extract the following:
Human life seems to be a continuous chain of various states of the bodily organism
and its various relationships to its environment, as well as various states of
mind. If we summarize these states and relationships, of which some are favorable
to maintaining and developing life (vital functions), and some unfavorable, under a
common name, we get the notion of objective states of welfare. Their totality at a certain
moment creates the total state of welfare. If we arrange various states of welfare
according to the degree they contribute to the overall maintenance and development
of a human being on one integrated scale, we get an objective scale of welfare in which
the absolute zero point is the state of immediate death of that particular individual.
The states unfavorable to life causing lesser failures of vital functions than death are
aligned above this point, followed by states favorable to life. There is a relative zero
point between these two kinds of states, similar to the freezing point on our thermometers.
Similarly, as in the case of the thermometer, we may call the states of
welfare under the zero point negative and those above zero positive. If one of the objective
states of welfare is followed by another that is standing higher on the objective
scale of welfare, we speak of an increase in objective welfare. In the opposite case we
speak of a decrease in objective welfare.
4. Any time we come to realize that we are in a certain state of welfare we simultaneously
recognize whether it is a positive or a negative one, because this recognition
is in the first case usually accompanied by a pleasant feeling, in the second case by a
unpleasant feeling. Based on these feelings we form our judgments about the positive
30 New Perspectives on Political Economy
or negative nature of the given objective state of welfare. This mentioned basis of our
judgments is not necessarily reliable in each single case, but if we use the corrections
provided by subsequent feelings properly, we can recognize in most cases whether
our various objective states of welfare are positive or negative.
5. The importance of feelings lies not only in the fact they are the last source of our
knowledge of what the character our objective states of welfare is, but even more in
that they are decisive regulators of our desires. For example, if a person is in a certain
state of welfare and as he becomes aware of it, this is accompanied by an unpleasant
feeling, this feeling arouses an endeavor in him. If this feeling is joined by the idea of
a state which is, according to his belief, not accompanied by this unpleasant feeling,
the endeavor is transformed into a desire to attain this envisaged state of welfare. But
even if we are in a state of welfare accompanied by a pleasant feeling, a desire can be
aroused aimed either at averting a state we believe would be accompanied by a less
pleasant feeling, or at attaining a state we believe would be accompanied by a more
pleasant feeling.
6. It is impossible to draw the conclusion based on this relationship between feelings
and desires, as the proponents of hedonism do, that the true goal of all human
desires and actions is a state of bliss, that is, a totality of all the states of mind accompanied
by pleasant feelings and free of any unpleasant ones. In actuality, the desire
to attain more pleasant feelings and eliminate unpleasant ones is merely a mechanism
by which either the Creator, or nature, tries to bring animals from lower states
of objective welfare to higher ones on this scale; in other words, to make them do
what serves the maintenance and development of their life as individuals and species.
Nevertheless, the objective states of welfare in which animals find themselves have
as such no impact on will. Only their subjective correlates, that is, feelings, play this
role. For this reason, it is possible to call feelings subjective states of welfare – pleasant
feelings as a positive, unpleasant feelings as a negative subjective state of welfare. If
a particular feeling is followed by a more pleasant feeling, we call this change an increase
in subjective welfare; whereas in the opposite case we talk about a decrease in
subjective welfare.
7. The previous exploration has explained that the ultimate goal of each human’s
desire is either to achieve an increase, or to avert a decrease in subjective welfare. But
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 31
this ultimate goal is often not the immediate goal of human desires. When it is, it is
called a welfare desire.
8. A change in our state of mind and usually also a change in the external world
are necessary to satisfy each such desire. However, every such change is conditioned
by the effect of an additional cause. If we are aware of the connection between the
desired change and its cause, the welfare desire is assigned a further goal, which is to
put this cause into effect. This intentional implementing of forces in order to achieve
this result, which we consider to be the cause of the desired result, we call the use or
utilization of these forces or of their material medium (means of satisfaction); we call
the desires with such further goals desires leading to use or use desires.
9. For this kind of desire to be aroused inside a person, it is necessary that the
person have 1. an effective welfare desire and; 2. a judgment that this desire can be
satisfied by the use of certain means of satisfaction.
Ad 1. A person who has does not have for example the (welfare) desire to hear
better, cannot have the (use) desire to use a hearing aid. A welfare desire cannot
arise in somebody who is convinced that the envisaged increase in welfare can be accomplished
without his intentional endeavor, for example via reflexive or instinctual
motions; or, on the contrary, that all his endeavors to achieve the envisaged increase
in welfare are in vain.
A welfare desire can become ineffective if there is a stronger welfare desire competing
with it, so that if one is satisfied, the other must remain unsatisfied, because
both needs must be satisfied at the same time. One who wants, for example, to show
his devotion to God by fasting on a certain day would not have the (use) desire to eat
on that day.
Ad 2. The next condition for arousing use desire is a judgment that certain means
of satisfaction are suitable for accomplishing the desired increase in welfare. One
who, for example, considers certain mushrooms poisonous would have no (use) desire
to eat them. The judgment does not have to be absolute; it is sufficient if it is probable
to a certain degree. It is also not necessary for it to be objectively correct. There are
a great number of use desires leading to utilization of various items (for example
various mystic means) that cannot actually cause any increase in welfare.
32 New Perspectives on Political Economy
10. The same conditions, on which the formation of use desires depend, are also
decisive for the continuation of such desires. Thus, when a particular welfare desire
ceases, for example, because it has been fully satisfied, or when it is supplanted by a
stronger competing desire, or when the person with this desire changes his judgment
about the suitability of the means used to satisfy it, the desire also ceases.
Desires aimed at the use of certain means of satisfaction can become ineffective
if there are some stronger competing desires to use the same means of satisfaction or
needs to be satisfied at the same moment.
11. If we want to use some means of satisfaction, we have to have it in our possession
first. This means such a relation of the means of satisfaction to the needing
person that his desire aimed at the use of this means of satisfaction, whenever it arises,
can be satisfied without any delay. Only a few means of satisfaction exist in which it
is not necessary to exert any effort, such as for example, breathing. Almost any other
means of satisfaction in order to be usable must first be brought into this relation
through human activity. This activity presupposes special desires aimed at this goal.
We may call these desires possession desires. Considering that the possessions we
have acquired may be taken away from us again by the action of natural forces or the
activity of other people, these desires aim not only at acquiring but also at keeping
the possession.
12. In order for a possession desire to arise one has to have:
1. either a) a present welfare desire or b) a judgment that he will have such a desire
in the future;
2. a) in the case of acquisitive desires, a judgment that the person does not possess
or will not possess the means of satisfaction when he wants them; b) in the case of the
desire to keep possessions, a judgment that the possession of the means of satisfaction
will be forfeited if the person needing them remains inactive;
3. a judgment that acquiring or keeping possession of the means of satisfaction is
not impossible.
Ad 1. Regarding the possession desires that are aroused by present use desires,
it is sufficient to refer to what was said in § 9. A possession desire concerning cer-
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 33
tain means of satisfaction can be aroused even if the given person does not have any
present use desire related to this means of satisfaction. It is enough that he has either
a certain or at least to some degree probable judgment that this desire will exist in
the future.
Thus, merely the idea of future use desire is not enough to create a possession
desire at present; there also has to be the aforementioned judgment, or, even without
formulating a formal judgment, an opinion that the use desire for the satisfaction of
which the means of satisfaction shall be used, will arise in the future. Likewise, some
authors are not correct in their consideration that the present psychic reflection of a
future use desire is a preliminary feeling.
Ad 2 and 3. The aforementioned judgments do not have to be certain; it is sufficient
they are probable to some degree. But if the person with needs is fully convinced
that he possesses or will possess the necessary means of satisfaction when he needs
them, or that these means of satisfaction cannot be taken away from him, or that any
endeavor to acquire them is in vain, then the possession desire related to such means
of satisfaction cannot arise.
The same conditions on which the arousal of the possession desire depends, are
also required for its continuation. If there is a conflict among several possession desires,
such that only one of them can be satisfied, the strongest one suppresses the
weaker ones.
13. The trinity of desires that has been discussed in the preceding paragraphs is
very significant for economic science. We said at the beginning that economic science
deals with a certain kind of human actions and their outcomes. Now we may
be more precise and state that the actions and their outcomes with which economic
science deals aim at acquiring and sustaining possession of certain means of satisfaction
that are considered necessary for the satisfaction of use desires. Economic
science cannot content itself merely with exploring, describing, and classifying these
actions and their outcomes; its duty is also to interpret them, that is, to explore their
causes and reduce them to the smallest number of notions and laws possible. This
duty would not be fulfilled if it only limited itself to pointing out that economic phenomena
are the outcomes of certain kinds of desires we labeled possession desires.
34 New Perspectives on Political Economy
If it is a theoretical science, it must also answer questions as to why people treat different
parts of the physical world surrounding them in such distinct ways, desiring
possession of some parts and not of others, and why desires to possess different goods
or the same goods by different people, at different places, and in different times vary
in their intensity so much. But if it is a practical science, it should explain and substantiate
what parts of the physical world around us we require and what the intensity
of the desires for various goods by different people, at different places, and in different
times is; in other words, what possession desires and what intensity of such desires
are purposeful, reasonable.
These answers can be provided by economic science only if it takes notice of use
desires as well, because the existence and intensity of possession desires is conditioned
by the existence and intensity of use desires in the first place.
14. Once we know that every use desire has its origin in a welfare desire, we may
assume that economic science, in order to explain economic actions perfectly, has
to return to welfare desires. But this assumption is not correct. Human knowledge
does not constitute one single science, but breaks down into a number of separate
disciplines, within which there is a certain division of labor. Due to this division of
labor those disciplines do not have to trace the causal relations of the phenomena
under scrutiny back to the ultimate causes, but can stop at some intermediate causes
which do require further explication in other sciences, but which are given facts and
quantities for this particular science.
Then it is necessary to keep in mind that the existence of a welfare desire is not
enough for a use desire to arise, but there must also be present a judgment that certain
means of satisfaction can cause a change that will satisfy this desire. Such judgments
have long been a generally accepted domain of technological, medical and similar
sciences. If economic science would like to go so far as to use welfare desires in its
explication of causes of economic phenomena, the border between it and the mentioned
sciences would disappear.
15. Thus, use desires are given facts and their intensities are given quantities for
economic science. The investigation of what welfare desires people have, from which
causes these desires arise, what intensity they have, and what things are suitable for
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 35
their satisfaction does not belong to economic science, but to related sciences.
The foundation of economic science may yet to a lesser extent than in case of
welfare desires be comprised of emotions that cause these desires and thus lie even
one station further behind them. The border station where economic science takes
over the vehicle of exploratory work from the neighboring sciences is use desires. This
notion, as can be easily shown, creates the basis for the notion of a good; both notions
then create the substantive foundation for the notions of economy and economic
value. So it is possible to build, either directly or indirectly, all the other basic notions
of economic science on the notion of use desire, whereas these other notions are not
necessary for defining this notion itself. For this reason, the notion of use desire
should be considered the first basic notion of economic science, or, more correctly,
the most important part of this notion.
16. The human mind, as is well known, is very limited. As we can perceive only
a few things at a time and imagine only a few things at a time, we can have only a
small number of present needs at a given moment. But if we can say that someone
knows something at a particular moment, even though he is neither presenting this
judgment nor thinking of it at that moment, when one has the capability (disposition)
to present such a judgment as soon as his attention turns to an inducement of this
judgment, then we can certainly also claim that someone has a desire at a moment
when he is not aware of the respective endeavor to satisfy it, but simply when he has
the disposition to become aware of this desire as soon as his attention turns to the
goal of this desire.
Such dispositions to desires are of the same importance to economic science as
present desires and therefore we have to take into account – besides welfare, use and
possession desires – also the dispositions to all these desires. If we merge the notion
of use desire with the notion of disposition to this desire, we obtain one notion that
should be considered the first basic notion of economic science and that we may call
use need. We can come to the notions of welfare need and possession need in a similar
manner.
17. Considering the numerous meanings of the word need in common language,
it would, of course, be better if economic science abandoned this word. But until
36 New Perspectives on Political Economy
a better term is suggested by a more competent person, it is necessary to keep in
mind that in the preceding cases the word need was used without any reference to
the meaning it holds in common language, as if it were deliberately created for the
notions above. Thus, no objections can be raised against the correctness of these
notions from the point of view that they contradict the existing common language
meaning of the word.
Because the theory of needs constitutes a substantial part not only of economic
science but also of many other sciences, particularly ethics and cultural history, it is
probable that it will dissociate itself from these sciences later as a separate science for
which the name chreonomics (from χρέος = need) seems appropriate. Considering
this we can call the three notions of need in question chreonomic notions.
18. It is an attribute of many welfare and use desires that after being satisfied
once they do not pass off absolutely, but recur after some time; this alternation of
desire and satisfaction repeats for one’s whole life in the case of some desires, such
as the desire to eat. Hence, it is necessary to distinguish between one manifestation
of welfare and use desire from the moment they enter one’s mind until the moment
they disappear as a consequence of satisfaction or other reason, not only as present
desire, but also as a disposition to desire; and the totality of all such manifestations
in a certain period. The first notion may be called the manifestation of desire, the
second one as welfare or use or possession desire in a narrower sense. Desire goes
through various stages that differ in intensity during each manifestation of the drive
for satisfaction. These stages may be called phases of need. If we depict an individual
manifestation of desire with a refracted line, each phase corresponds to the straight
lines this refracted line consists of. The phases that occur during the act of satisfaction
are of special importance to economic science; thus, we shall give them a special name
– phases of satisfaction. Manifestation of need and phase of need are then similar
notions as beat and phase of beat in the case of a pendulum.
If we sum up the use needs of different people concerning the same kind of good,
for example bread, we get the notion of a class of use needs; we could arrive at the
notions of a class of welfare and possession needs in a similar way.
If we sum up all the use needs of different people concerning the same family of
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 37
goods, for example eatables, we create the notion of a family of use needs, to which
the notions of families of welfare and possession needs are similar.
19. Thus, in the preceding paragraphs we have identified eight different notions
that are in the common language and also in economic science hitherto labeled with
the same name – need. Three of them are paratactic – welfare, use and possession
need; and five of them are hierarchical, in order from the narrowest to the broadest
– phase of need, manifestation of need, need in a narrower sense, class of needs,
and family of needs. It is surely in the interest of further development of economic
science to become properly aware of the differences between these various notions
and to examine them carefully while using various terms for them.
3 Self-regarding, other-regarding and mutual needs
20. Our feelings do not signal only the positive or negative character of our own
objective states of welfare, but also those of other people, for example of our children,
parents, spouses, siblings etc. In the latter case we may call them other-regarding
feelings; in the former, they should be called self-regarding feelings. An unpleasant
feeling (sympathy) arises very often inside us if we realize that somebody is suffering.
Similarly, but more rarely, because only a few people are free of all envy, a pleasant
feeling arises inside of us when we realize that someone else has a pleasant feeling.
Both of these feelings should be ranked among the subjective states of welfare, but
they are induced states as opposed to the original states discussed in § 6.
21. On the basis of what has been said about the mechanism of our will, we may
conclude that realizing or averting induced states of welfare can also be the aim of welfare
desires. Because the satisfaction of such desires leads to immediately increasing
or averting the decrease in others’ objective or subjective welfare, it is possible to call
them other-regarding, whereas the desires mentioned in § 7 are called self-regarding.
22. We avoid using the notions of altruistic and egoistic feelings and desires here,
because they have a moral undertone. By egoism is meant a direction of will that
prefers one’s own desires, which are objectively less important, to other desires which
are objectively far more important. Altruism, on the other hand, stands for a direction
38 New Perspectives on Political Economy
of will that prefers other desires which are objectively equally or less important, to
one’s own desires. These notions thus refer to the relative intensity of two desires,
but we need a term to label the direction of single desires.
23. A case often occurs that for a particular person A, realizing an increase in his
own welfare is not possible either at all or as perfectly or as cheaply unless there is
a simultaneous increase in the subjective or objective welfare of one or several other
persons M, N, O etc. It may happen, for example, that protecting person A’s property
from flooding with a dam cannot be done without building a dam that also protects
the property of persons M, N, O etc. Therefore, if A wants to achieve the desired
increase in his welfare, he must desire the realization of a similar increase in welfare
for persons M, N, O etc. Such welfare desires are called mutual.
24. By combining these desires with dispositions for them we obtain the notions
of self-regarding, other-regarding and mutual needs.
Use desires and needs may also be divided into self-regarding, other-regarding
and mutual, according to which category the welfare desires or needs that arouse
them belong.
If somebody desires to achieve or sustain the possession of certain means of satisfaction
for himself, it is a self-regarding possession desire; if the aim of his desire is
that someone else achieves or sustains this possession, it is an other-regarding possession
desire; and if the latter desire is a condition for satisfaction of the former
desire, it is a mutual possession desire.
4 Individual and collective needs
25. Human society, as is known, consists of a great number of varied groups, which
comprise a greater or smaller number of individuals, living either at the same time
or sequentially. Among these groups, special attention is required for those whose
members share a certain characteristic that creates a substantial part of their personality
(nationality, religion, occupation, etc.). Because of this, there is such a relation-
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 39
ship among them that certain subjective or objective states of welfare, in which some
of them find themselves, are signaled to others as well, if those are aware of this aforementioned
common characteristic. This happens through feelings that, as opposed
to the personal or individual feelings that we dealt with in the previous two chapters,
may be called communal or collective. If for example some individual members
of one nationality or confession, while manifesting their nationality or confession,
or because of their affiliation to it, acknowledge some injustice or detriment, an unpleasant
feeling is also awakened inside of other compatriots or co-religionists. Such
a feeling arises only if these persons consider themselves to be of the same nationality
or confession (if they, as it is said, “feel” that they belong). As soon as they cease to
feel that they belong, this unpleasant feeling does not appear any more. In fact, they
could even have the opposite feeling on these occasions.
26. It is not the task of economic science to investigate what characteristic the
members of such groups must have in common. Therefore, we limit ourselves to
the observation of the fact that these groups do exist. They have been given various
names in common and scientific language; in order to use one term for them all, we
shall call them communities or collectivities.
27. Both individual and collective feelings seem to have a pair of teleological
functions: first, they allow us to distinguish the positive and negative nature of the
collectivities’ objective states of welfare; and second, they induce instinctive and intentional
activities aimed at replacing the present states of the collectivities’ lower
standing on the objective scale of welfare with a higher one. Among the states and
relations in which members of some collectivities exist, there are not only states that
contribute to maintenance and development, but also those that lead to the weakening
and destruction of the lives of the entire membership of the given collectivity. By
analogy to § 3, we may call the former states positive, the latter, negative collective
states of welfare.
28. I do not dare to provide a fully satisfactory general answer to the question
as to what the difference is between collective and individual states of welfare. But
I am willing to try to elucidate this difference using a special example. There is, as
is known, a more or less fierce struggle for survival among all animals. This struggle
can be observed among members of diverse human collectivities as well. Victory in
40 New Perspectives on Political Economy
this struggle will usually be obtained by the members of the collectivity that is led by
these members jointly and that has a better adapted organization for this purpose.
Single individuals whose welfare is under threat just because of their membership in
this collectivity thus have a better prospect of avoiding this impending detriment the
greater the extent to which all the members’ power is allowed full play. So everything
that magnifies the power of all members of a given collectivity is of the same importance
as increasing each member’s own welfare; contrariwise, everything reducing the
power of the whole means decreasing each member’s own welfare, if this welfare is
conditioned by affiliation with the collectivity. Consequently we may assume a positive
collective state of welfare if this collectivity is well organized and disciplined, if it
has a large number of members and each member by himself is strong; the opposite
circumstances is considered as a negative collective state of welfare.
29. Our will is influenced by objective collective states of welfare to a similarly
small extent as by individual ones. A direct goal of our desires is usually the realization
of collective pleasant feelings and eliminating or averting collective unpleasant
feelings, which are subjective correlates corresponding to objective collective states
of welfare, either positive or negative ones.
30. Collective states of welfare are without any question the states of the individual
members of the given collectivity, because there are no other beings apart
from them to whom we could ascribe these states and who would have minds through
which to feel them. In spite of this, these states cannot be considered to be individual
states of welfare, because the persons that are members of the given collectivity do
not have and are not aware of these states as individuals, but only as members of the
given collectivity. For as soon as they cease to be members of the collectivity, these
states of welfare no longer apply to them, and their feelings no longer signal these
states to them. We should not be misled by legal science that regards collectivities as
independent persons, so called corporate bodies/artificial persons, because these are
only fictions for which there is no place outside of this science. After all, every independent
personality presupposes an independent mind, which collectivities without
any doubt do not possess.
31. The desires that have as a direct aim the realization of pleasant collective feelings
or the elimination of unpleasant collective feelings are called collective welfare
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 41
desires. These desires are also the desires of those individuals of which the collectivity
consists, because there is no other being blessed with a mind in which the desire
could arise. Hence, there could be a conjecture that collective desires do not even
exist. This opinion would be wrong, because the persons who are aware of such desires
do not have them as individuals, but as members of the given collectivity, not
as a consequence of their individual feelings, but as a consequence of their collective
feelings. It is not necessary for all members of a collectivity to have such feelings and
desires; it suffices if only the members whose will represents the collective have them.
Other members may be forced to have such desires, which is absolutely in order in
case the positive or negative character of the objective states of welfare of their own
collectivity is improperly signaled to them because of their wrong feeling endowment.
Collectivities as well as individuals may authorize other persons, even non-members,
to become aware of certain collective desires and thereby arrange their realization.
32. In instincts and desires caused by collective feelings one must see the psychic
cohesive power that maintains collectivities as formations different from other
individuals and human groups; this should be ascribed to the fact that collectivities
such as state, community, church, nation, etc. are not only logical names of a class
of elements, mere abstracts, but real phenomena, kinds of superindividual organisms,
towards which individual members are in the same relation as individual cells
towards the whole organism of an individual.
33. By merging the notions of collective welfare desire and disposition to such a
desire, we obtain the higher notion of collective welfare need.
We can get to the notions of collective use and possession desire and need in a
similar way as that in which we arrived at the notions of individual use and possession
desire and need in §§ 8 and following.
All these collective desires and needs may be divided into self-regarding, otherregarding,
and mutual desires and needs.
34. Combinations of collective and individual needs are very common, and many
of them are of great significance to economic science, especially financial science.
If, for example, wastewater from a factory pollutes a creek to such an extent that
near-by residents are considerably annoyed by its fetid vapors, this state would be
42 New Perspectives on Political Economy
considered as a negative state of welfare for those persons, and their awareness of
this state would arouse a welfare need aimed at its elimination. If such an impropriety
concerned only a small part of the collectivity, it would be regarded as an individual
negative state of welfare of these members. But if the number of members affected
by such an impropriety is large enough to substantially impair or endanger the power
and prosperity of all the members, the individual negative states of welfare of the
concerned members are accompanied by a collective negative state of welfare. Then
eliminating this state becomes an aim of a collective welfare need, manifested in a law
ordering the owners of the factory to acquire equipment for proper treatment of the
wastewater before it is discharged into the creek. After this collective need arises, the
individual needs do not cease to exist, but the collective need arises alongside them.
Thus we can call it an accessory collective need.
35. In the case presented, all individual needs belong to the category of selfregarding
needs. But they can also belong to categories of other-regarding or mutual
needs. Taking care of children born out of wedlock is at first an other-regarding individual
need of their mothers. But if a law were passed imposing a child support obligation
on fathers, this law would be a manifestation of an accessory collective need
related to those other-regarding individual needs. If properties of a bigger number
of owners are subject to more frequent flooding, their need to eliminate this negative
state of welfare is primarily the mutual individual need of these owners. But if a law
is passed forcing the minority to submit to the decision of the majority to build a protective
levee, it demonstrates that the collectivity whose authorities passed this law
considers the state of the owners threatened by flooding to be a collective negative
state of welfare. As a result, the individual mutual needs of the property owners are
joined by an accessory need of the collectivity of which they are members.
36. In the cases discussed so far the collective needs were at first welfare needs.
But if an administrative authority needs to enforce the decision that the factory owners
use waste-treatment equipment, such enforcement is preceded by a need to use
certain administrative procedures and suitable clean-up methods. This accessory
need is thus a collective use need.
If the authorities do not possess the goods necessary to carry out the operation
(for example, the material to build the water treatment equipment to be installed at
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 43
the expenses of the factory owners), then the satisfaction of the aforementioned need
is conditioned by the satisfaction of the collective possession need, which is also only
an accessory need.
Sax called the activity of the collective authorities in response to the aforementioned
collective needs regulative activity, which can be either proscribed or arranged.
37. In the cases we have mentioned, accessory collective needs are only rarely use
or possession needs. This happens only if the directives in which welfare needs are
manifested are not fulfilled. But there are many other cases in which it is obvious
from the very beginning that in order to satisfy an accessory collective welfare need,
there must be a collective use need as well. This would be true, for instance, if the
state limited itself only to passing the aforementioned law and, as a result, a great
number of children born out of wedlock were very poorly taken care of. Therefore, in
our times, the states or autonomous authorities found institutions for fostering these
children; but this decision had to be preceded by a collective use need aimed at utilizing
the power of appropriate public servants relevant goods (buildings, furniture,
food provisions), etc. And to satisfy this need there must be a collective possession
need aimed at acquisition and possession of these powers and goods.
38. A need for city inhabitants to acquire a sufficient supply of potable water is
certainly first and foremost an individual possession need. If there is an abundance
of potable well water or if there is a private entrepreneur willing to lay the duct and
supply the inhabitants with potable water for a reasonable price, the community has
nothing to do with this need. But if the well water is contaminated, and if there is no
such entrepreneur, then, because drinking contaminated water is a source of communicable
diseases, which must be considered as negative collective state of welfare,
there arises an accessory collective welfare need aimed at eliminating this negative
state. This need can be satisfied by laying the duct at communal expense, which has
to be preceded by a collective possession need aimed at acquiring a sufficient supply
of potable water to distribute to the inhabitants.
39. So in this case the collective need standing in the forefront is a possession
need, whereas in the case mentioned in § 37 this place seems to be occupied by a
collective use need. The difference can be explained by the fact that in this case the
44 New Perspectives on Political Economy
collective welfare need is satisfied if the authorities simply give the inhabitants the
chance to acquire an adequate supply of potable water, while in the previous case the
desired state of welfare for children born out of wedlock, which seems to be altogether
a collective state of welfare, could not be achieved if these children, or their mothers
as the case may be, were left to decide by themselves whether and how they would use
the institutions founded for them. In such cases the collectivity must also leave the
implementation to its authorities, and thus must also have the respective use needs.
40. The collective use and possession needs that we dealt with in the last two
paragraphs give rise to an activity by the collective authorities which Sax calls direct
own activity. This activity is appropriate only if a regulative activity is unable to bring
about the increases in collective welfare or avert the decreases in welfare that are the
aim of the collective needs, either because the orders and punishments do not seem
to be effective enough to reconcile the individual needs of the collectivity’s members
with collective needs, or because the physical, mental or economic powers of the
members are not sufficient to carry out the activities necessary for the satisfaction of
the collective needs.
41. This direct activity by collective authorities is carried out by means of either
public companies or public institutions. It is possible to talk about a public company
if the foremost collective needs to be satisfied are possession needs; and we talk about
a public institution if these needs are use needs. I believe this sentence explains the
difference between a public company and a public institution much more accurately
and clearly than other economic authors have been able to do, since they did not
realize the difference between collective use needs and collective possession needs.
42. We shall not confuse combinations of the individual and collective needs that
we have just discussed with such cases in which the same means of satisfaction serve
both individual and collective needs that in other respects have nothing else in common.
In these cases we talk about the competition of individual and collective needs.
An example of this competition is railroads, that are used not only for transportation
of persons and private goods, i.e. for the satisfaction of individual needs, but also
for transportation of military and war material, i.e. for the satisfaction of collective
needs.
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 45
5 Some other classifications of needs
43. As we have distinguished two classifications of needs in the previous two chapters,
in this chapter I want to show as concisely as possible only those of 27 other
classifications introduced in the fifth chapter of the aforementioned book that have
the greatest importance for economic science.
a) Because economic science deals solely with economic needs, it is first necessary
to determine the difference between them and non-economic needs. To do so, it
is necessary to understand the terms economy and economic good. However, the
exploration of these terms was not an aim of the aforementioned book. Thus we
have to content ourselves with this sentence: Possession economic needs are those
needs whose direct goal is acquiring or sustaining possession; use economic needs
are those needs whose direct goal is the use of economic goods. Other needs have to
be considered non-economic, and they do not come into economic science.
b) Welfare needs aimed at achieving an increase or averting a decrease in objective
welfare are called objective; those welfare needs aimed only at achieving an increase
or averting a decrease in subjective welfare are called subjective needs.
If the judgment about the fitness of the means of satisfaction of a use need is
objectively true, we call this need a correct need. If this judgment is only subjectively
true, we call this need incorrect.
Correct needs aroused by objective welfare needs are called real needs in common
language; other needs are putative needs.
c) Welfare needs are positive if their direct goal is to achieve an increase in welfare;
negative if their direct goal is to avert a decrease in welfare.
It is possible to distinguish in a similar way between positive use needs, whose
direct goal is to utilize some means of satisfaction, and negative use needs, which
seem to be resistant to the utilization of some means of satisfaction, because – besides
pleasant effects – they cause some unpleasant effects as well.
Possession needs can also be positive or negative. But the latter category does
not include resistance to the loss of possession of good B, which one has to give up
46 New Perspectives on Political Economy
in order to obtain good A, because this resistance is in fact a maintaining possession
need. We may include there, for example, resistance to possession of a stolen good or
resistance to an effort one has to undergo to obtain or maintain possession of a good.
d) The goal of a welfare need is not always achieving one increase or averting
one decrease in welfare. It is very common to want to achieve several increases or
avert several decreases in welfare at the same time, as is the case, for example when
such effects are caused simultaneously by the use of certain means of satisfaction.
Considering this, it is possible to classify both welfare and use needs into simple needs
and complex needs. In the latter case, one of the needs is usually a main need and
the others are secondary needs.
We should distinguish between complex use needs, aimed at utilizing the means
of satisfaction existing as a single unit, parts of which cannot be the subject of special
use needs, and complementary use needs, each related to a different means of satisfaction
if these needs create together a sort of a whole because their simultaneous or
near simultaneous satisfaction is called for with greater intensity than is the sum of
the intensities of all these desires satisfied separately.
A similar distinction between simple, complex and complementary needs may be
made in the case of possession needs. Complex possession needs relate to several
goods, possession of which is acquired simultaneously, as, for example during the
production of corn and straw, flour and bran etc. Complementary possession needs
arise from similar use needs, as, for example, needs related to factors of production
of the same good.
e) Given the diversity of effects of acts of satisfaction, it is possible to divide welfare
and use needs into needs aroused by pain and needs leading to pleasure. In
the first case, the effect of the act of satisfaction lies in neutralizing the incitements
arousing the need with the incitements resulting from the act. In the second case,
the incitements resulting from the act of satisfaction and the incitements by which
– or by the idea of which – the need was aroused are identical. Needs consisting of
both categories are called mixed needs.
f) Activities necessary for the satisfaction of an economic need, i.e. for bringing
the means of satisfaction from its natural conditions into the state that we call pos-
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 47
session for immediate use, are usually not done uno tractu, but in several stages. In
each of these stages, the particular means of satisfaction is in the possession of a particular
person, but each of these possessions has, so to speak, a different degree of
ripeness. If we call the stage in which the economic activity ends and the consumption
activity begins economic possession of the first order, it is possible to call such
possession needs aimed directly at acquisition or maintenance of the possession “possession
economic needs of the first order”. Similarly, we call the stage immediately
before the possession of the first order economic possession of second order, and
the needs aimed at the acquisition or maintenance of this possession “possession
economic needs of second order”. In an analogous way we can come to possession
economic needs of the third, fourth order, etc. All these needs with the exception
of needs of first order can be summarized by the term possession economic needs of
higher orders.
Use needs may also be classified by order.
g) If person B, possessing a certain good, is legally obliged to transfer the possession
of the good after a request from person A to this person, and if there is some
probability that person B will fulfill this obligation, it is also possible to say that person
A possesses the good. As opposed to the mode of possession we have been dealing
with so far (direct possession), we may call this possession indirect. Thus we may also
distinguish between direct and indirect possession needs, whose immediate goal is
to acquire or maintain direct or indirect possession.
h) If the one who is making up an economic balance sheet is aware of use needs at
this particular moment as present desires or dispositions to such desires (§ 10), these
needs may be called present needs. Those needs which he at this particular moment
considers likely or certainly to appear in the future, resulting in the emergence of
possession needs in the present time, are in the sense of economic science future
needs. If someone used goods bought on credit to satisfy use needs in the past and if
he has possession needs in the present time aimed at acquiring these goods in order
to repay them, we say that he has a past need.
i) The classification of needs into collective and individual is related to the classification
into public and private needs, which takes into account whether these needs
48 New Perspectives on Political Economy
are satisfied through public law corporations, entitled to carry out governmental matters,
or individual persons or companies and corporations created under private law.
j) This classification must not be confused with the differentiation between joint
and separated needs. Both are the same needs of different persons, but the former
are satisfied through a joint act of satisfaction.
k) We should also distinguish this classification from the differentiation between
societal and non-societal needs. Both are individual needs, but the former occur only
among people in a society; the latter, when people are living in isolation.
l) Because the term needs includes not only present desires, but also dispositions
to such desires, it is possible to divide welfare, use and possession needs into present
needs, and prospective or potential needs.
m) If there is a conflict of two use needs both requiring the use of the same means
to be satisfied, only one of them – that is the stronger one – can be satisfied. The
repressed need does not disappear from one’s mind immediately; rather, as soon as
there is a chance to satisfy it within a certain period of time, it will reappear. Such
repressed needs may be called latent needs; the others, manifested in economic or
consumer action, are effective needs.
n) Needs having several manifestations, characterized by the fact that whenever
one is satisfied it reappears after a certain period of time, are called periodical. Other
needs, composed of only one manifestation after the satisfaction of which it disappears
permanently, can be called non-periodical.
o) Some manifestations of needs can be satisfied bit by bit. If I am hungry, for
example, I am not bound by only two alternatives – fill myself up, or stay completely
hungry. I could also appease my hunger partly by eating a smaller amount of food.
Needs of this kind can be called divisible; those not allowing partial, bit-by-bit satisfaction
are called indivisible.
p) Absolute individual needs are those manifestations or phases of need manifestations,
which, if left unsatisfied, lead immediately to death or substantial disturbances
of or threats to a person’s physical or mental health; absolute collective needs
are those manifestations or phases of manifestations of collective needs, which, if left
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 49
unsatisfied, result in the extinction of a particular collectivity, especially of a nationstate,
or substantial disturbance of or threat to its welfare. Other manifestations or
phases of manifestations of needs may be called relative.
q) The needs that we have just labeled as absolute correspond to those which
Wagner calls existential needs of the first order. The needs that he calls existential
needs of the second order are those relative needs whose satisfaction is “according
to the custom and tradition” of certain regions and certain epochs considered necessary
for each person aspiring to be a member of a certain social-class. The quantity
and quality of goods the consumption of which is conditioned by the kind of needs
characteristic of a certain class, region or epoch constitutes the so-called standard of
living for this class, region or epoch.
Comfort needs aim at achieving certain more refined material enjoyments without
any regard as to whether their satisfaction requires membership in certain socialclass
or not, whereas cultural needs aim at achieving more refined mental enjoyments,
particularly aesthetic or intellectual. Finally, we should mention also luxury
needs, aimed only at parading real or ostensible wealth; satisfying these needs
requires a greater amount or higher quality of goods than otherwise would be necessary,
for technical reasons. Such needs belong together with extravagant needs in
the category of subjective (irrational) needs.
6 On the commensurability of needs
44. In the case of every welfare desire – besides the feeling or idea of this feeling,
through which this desire is evoked – it is also possible to distinguish particularly between
a drive for satisfaction and the idea of an increase in welfare, the achievement
of which is the goal of the drive for satisfaction. It is well known that two welfare
desires, even if they are aimed at achieving increases in welfare of the same kind and
duration, are not always equally strong; and also that – ceteris paribus – the stronger
of the two welfare desires usually is the one which aims at the achievement of a more
prolonged increase in welfare. Thus the welfare desire is a two-dimensional quantity,
depending on the duration of the increase in welfare which is to be achieved and the
intensity of the drive for satisfaction. This quantity may be compared with the attrac-
50 New Perspectives on Political Economy
tion which the earth exerts on the bodies on its surface and which depends first on
the mass of the body concerned and second on the intensity of the force of gravity.
As a result of this attraction, the bodies exert pressure on the surface they rest on,
which we call weight, and the cause of which general opinion seeks in the properties
of the bodies themselves. Similarly, common language seeks the cause of the fact
that certain states of welfare are the goals of welfare desires and that certain bodies
are objects of use desires in the properties of the desires in question, and uses analogous
terms: importance, significance, utility and suchlike. Economic science has so
far followed this common language use, even if it has recognized that the immediate
cause of the aforementioned phenomenon does not inhere in the given states of
welfare or bodies, but in our welfare and use desires.
45. As I wish to show that the theory of needs can be explained in a way formally
corresponding to the contemporary state of factual economic knowledge, I term this
two-dimensional quantity, manifesting itself in present welfare desires and dependent
on the intensity of the drive for satisfaction and the duration of the increase in
welfare, as welfare egence. If the welfare desire is positive, its egence is positive as
well; if the welfare desire is negative, its egence is negative too. Instead of the latter
term we may also use the word disegence.
The two-dimensional quantity, dependent on the intensity of the drive for satisfaction
and the amount of means of satisfaction, is manifested also in the case of
use desires. This quantity can be called use egence, either positive, or negative (disegence).
Instead of this word, economic science has so far been using the term utility.
We can get to the term of possession egence in a similar way. By this we mean
a two-dimensional quantity dependent on the intensity of the drive for satisfaction
and on the amount of the means of satisfaction, the possession of which is to be
acquired or sustained. The latter term corresponds to the existing notion of economic
subjective value.
46. It is possible to maintain as an a priori fact that the egences of all welfare
desires that a particular person feels actually or potentially at a given moment are
not equal. For if they were equal, there could be no decision reached, since human
will-power is so organized that only the desire which surpasses all others existing
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 51
simultaneously can become a person’s will. However, since numerous decisions of
the will regarding the satisfaction of desires are made every day, the desire which
becomes a person’s will must have been stronger than the competing desires. This
way of constituting the decisions of our will is the best means of recognizing which
of two given desires has a large egence.
47. Based on what has been said, it will not be hard to answer the question of
whether different needs are commensurable with each other. If the needs to be compared
are understood as several present manifestations or phases of manifestations
of welfare desires which still await satisfaction, and if commensurability is taken to
mean the possibility of determining which of these needs has the larger egence or
disegence, such needs definitely are commensurable.
The criterion for comparing the commensurability of needs, however, is not – as
some authors say – the intensity of the accompanying feelings, but the size of their
egences.
Not only positive welfare desires but also negative welfare desires are commensurable;
not only self-regarding, but also other-regarding and mutual; not only individual,
but also collective welfare desires. Our experience also teaches us that even
use and possession desires are commensurable, not only with each other, but with
welfare desires as well.
48. Comparing two egences is very similar to weighing two objects using a balance,
if each object is placed on one of its two scales. Such a balance can be used not only
to determine which of the two objects is heavier, or if they have the same weight, but
also what multiple of some other object’s weight, accepted as a unit of weight, each
object’s weight is equal to. This operation is called measurement. It is only possible to
measure quantities for which there is a unit of measurement which is available in so
many completely identical and constant examples that a quantity which matches the
quantity to be measured can be assembled from it (direct measurement), or matches
some other quantity whose quantitative relation to the quantity to be measured is
known (indirect measurement).
49. But is it possible to state that welfare desires, or their egences, are commensurable
if by commensurability we mean the possibility of measuring them in the
52 New Perspectives on Political Economy
aforementioned sense? Since it is possible to ascertain that the egence of a welfare
desire aimed at an increase in welfare caused by the consumption of an apple (briefly:
the welfare egence in respect of an apple) is equal to the welfare egence in respect of 15
plums, and that the welfare egence in respect of a pear is equal to the welfare egence
in respect of 10 plums, it would also seem that the egences in respect of an apple and
a pear are measurable with the use of the egence in respect of a plum. However, this
conclusion is false, for – as will be shown later (§ 58) – the egence in respect of 10 or 15
plums, if consumed immediately one after the other, is not 10 or 15 times higher than
the egence in respect of a plum of the same quality, but only perhaps 9 or 8 times, or
13 or 12 times, higher and we are not able to determine the exact number. Even if we
wanted to avoid the difficulty caused by Gossen’s first law and stipulated the egences
in respect of apples and pears with the help of the egences in respect of plums consumed
in extended intervals of time, for example with a gap of one day, we still could
not be sure that the egence in respect of a plum eaten today has the same intensity
as the egence in respect of a plum eaten yesterday. We cannot avoid the disruptive
effects of Gossen’s first law even if we find, for example, seven different goods S1 to
S7 and we find out that the welfare egence in respect of each of the goods S2 to S7
is equal to the welfare egence in respect of good S1, and that the welfare egence in
respect of good Sn is equal to the sum of the egences in respect of goods S1 to S7. First
of all, this procedure is so lengthy that it is unsuitable for determining large egences.
If anyone believes that in the modern exchange-based economy this statement does
not apply, because it is very easy to find which goods have the same price, for example
of one crown,³ it may be said in reply that the welfare egences in respect of various
kinds of goods obtainable for the same price are not necessarily equal, because these
egences – as is known – are only the determinants of the exchange value of goods. But
besides that, this way of determining egences is substantially flawed in the following
way: If we compare the egence in respect of good S3, or S4 etc. with the egence in respect
of good S1, we cannot be certain that the latter egence is still the same as it was
when we compared it with the egence in respect of good S2. Furthermore, we have
to keep in mind that the more goods we take into account while determining some
larger egence, the greater is the probability that some of these goods will be more or
less perfect substitutes. As a result, the sum of the egences in respect of these two
³ Crown (in Czech “koruna”) was an Austro-Hungarian currency. [Note of the translator]
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 53
goods is no longer equal to double the egence in respect of each of these goods by
itself.
So we see that the measurement of welfare egences is not practicable because,
if several egence units are taken together, their complete equality with one another
cannot be verified.
This applies to use and possession egences as well.
50. If it is not possible to measure egences, it does not necessarily imply that there
is no way to determine them numerically. It is possible, for example, to determine by
means of Mohs’ scale if a certain mineral has a second or third or tenth degree of
hardness, even if the measurement of hardness is impracticable. We can find similar
numerical representations for egences too if we establish a scale of egences, and if we
determine what degree on this scale a particular egence is equal to.
The formation of ideal welfare and use egence scales is dealt with in detail in §§
276-279 of the aforementioned book.
51. In order to determine possession egences, economic relations have been using
since time immemorial a range of scales, the individual steps of which are created
by the egences in respect of various multiples of a monetary unit. If this unit is for
example one heller,⁴ the possession egence in respect of the first heller is the first
degree of this possession egence scale (1v), the possession egence in respect of the first
two hellers is the second degree (2v), the egence in respect of the first three hellers is
the third degree (3v) and so on.
The numbers 1, 2, 3, etc. are ordinal numbers, not cardinal numbers. Thus, they
do not show multiples of the egence in respect of one heller, as is usually taken for
granted in their general use and also in their use by economic authors, because all we
know about the egence 2v is that it is greater than the egence 1v, but not that it would
be exactly two times greater than the egence 1v.
52. Our own experience tells us that the disegence in respect of 2-, 3-, 10- or n-hour
job is not 2-, 3-, 10- or n-times greater than the disegence in respect of a one-hour job,
because this disegence varies depending on the length of the work that preceded it.
⁴ Heller (in Czech “haléř”) is one hundredth of a crown. [Note of the translator]
54 New Perspectives on Political Economy
If we want to compare the disegence in respect of a 2-, 3-, 10- or n-hour job with 2,
3, 10 or n disegences in respect of a one-hour job done on different days, we lack any
means of determining whether the disegence in respect of a one-hour job done today
is perfectly equal to the disegence in respect of a one-hour job done yesterday.
From this we can conclude that disegences also cannot be measured, but only
determined by way of scaling. An ideal scale of welfare disegences can be established
in a similar way to the scale of welfare egences.
53. Because egences and disegences are quantities of the same kind, only bearing
an inverse sign, disegence scales can also be used indirectly to determine the size
of positive egences in the same way as, for example, the power of a steam engine is
measured by the resistance which it is able to overcome. This mode has the advantage
of providing the possibility of recognizing changes in all of a person’s egences.
54. While speaking about the commensurability of needs, we have had in mind
so far only the needs of one given person. Now we should examine the question of
whether the egences of different people are commensurable as well. Here, above all,
we encounter the obstacle caused by the fact that person A cannot recognize the
existence and intensity of person B’s needs directly, but merely through particular
attendant circumstances or effects, and such inferences are prone to many errors.
But even if we were able to recognize the egences of needs of the different people to
be compared, we would not be able to establish the relation between their respective
sizes with certainty, because in this case we lack the tool for recognizing which of a
person’s egences is stronger, that is, the actual decision of will. Thus, the comparison
of egences of different people is definitely impracticable.
55. This claim seems to be in contradiction with the experience that exchanges
of goods take place every day among different people which seem to suppose the
commensurability of the respective egences. However, this supposition is incorrect.
If, for instance, person A has a horse and if his egence in respect of the horse is as great
as his egence in respect of 40 quintals of wheat of a particular kind and quality, and
if person B has wheat of this kind and quality and his egence in respect of 50 quintals
of wheat is as great as for the specific horse owned by A, it is completely irrelevant
for the transaction between these two persons what degrees their egences in respect
Čuhel: On the Theory of Needs 55
of the horse or in respect of 40 or 50 quintals of the wheat are. The barter exchange
will take place just as if A’s and B’s egences were of the same degree and thus as if the
relationship of A’s egence in respect of the horse to B’s egence in respect of the same
horse were the same as the egence in respect of 40 quintals of wheat relative to the
egence in respect of 50 quintals.
What has been said about the impracticability of commensurability of egences
applies also to the impracticability of commensurability of disegences of different
people.
56. We have considered only present needs so far. However, the necessity of
comparing present use needs with future needs arises almost every day in practical
economic life, and the latter often predominate over the former. But how is this possible,
if there is no drive for satisfaction of future use needs in the present, and hence
also no egences? Here we should recall that future needs in the sense of economic
science are those use needs capable of arousing possession needs in the present. Such
needs have a specific possession egence, which can be weighed against the egence of
present use needs. Therefore, when speaking about the commensurability of present
and future use needs, or of these needs with each other, what is meant is this weighing
of the possession egences brought about by future use needs against the egences
of present use needs, or of the possession egences of future use needs with each other.
7 On changes of intensity and egence of needs
57. Our everyday experience tells us that if we consume equally sized bites of the
same dish immediately one after the other, our appetite diminishes with each bite
until a moment is reached when we have no appetite for consuming any more bites.
If we were forced to eat any more bites of the dish, we would start feeling a distaste
for them. In other words, the intensity and thus also the egence of the welfare desire
aimed at achieving an increase in welfare caused by the consumption of one bite is in
the course of its manifestation smaller with each increase, until it finally reaches zero.
If we still continue with the satisfaction of this welfare need, it becomes negative. We
can observe a similar decrease in intensity and egence of a welfare desire aimed at
achieving an increase in welfare caused by wearing clothes after putting on each ad-
56 New Perspectives on Political Economy
ditional layer; or of welfare caused by our staying in a warm room as the temperature
increases degree by degree.
58. Based on such experiences, a list of which can be extended endlessly, Gossen
formulated his first law of diminishing utility saying the following: “If we continuously
induce the same utility, its size decreases until finally a state of saturation is
reached.” In our terminology, this law would go as follows: “If we satisfy several phases
of a divisible manifestation of some welfare desire one after the other, the egence in
the course of this manifestation becomes smaller from one phase to the next, until
it finally reaches zero.” I show in §§ 316-320 of my book that such shrinking of the
welfare egence can be observed only in cases of manifestations of welfare desires that
belong to the category of self-regarding simple needs aroused by pain (§ 43, letter
e) which do not undergo any increases in intensity during the course of the act of
satisfaction; whereas in the case of needs leading to pleasure this law starts to hold
true with the phase in which the intensity of the particular manifestation reached its
culmination point.
A similar restriction applies to the law of saturation of needs formulated by Wieser,
which refers to decrease of use egence.
59. Gossen also articulated a second law of diminishing utility, according to which
the maximum egence of each additional manifestation of periodical welfare needs will
be smaller than the maximum egence of previous manifestations. But if we examine
a larger number of periodical needs, we can find no such regularity between their
recurrence and the maximum egence of their individual manifestations that would
deserve the name “law”.
60. In the last chapter of the aforementioned book I deal with the relation between
the size of possession and use egences regarding either single goods, or stocks
of goods of the same kind and quality, that are suitable only for satisfaction of one divisible
or indivisible manifestation of use need. In other words, with elementary laws
of subjective economic value, about the relation of the size of a possession egence
aroused by a future use need to the size of the actual egence of this need. I determine
more precisely than has been done hitherto the reasons for so-called “discounting of
the future”, as well as the rate of its effectiveness, and I uncover a tiny grain of truth
hidden in the so-called abstinence or waiting theory of capital interest.
ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 3, Number 1, 2007, pp. 57 – 85
K nauce o potřebách¹
František (Franz) Čuhel
JEL Classification: B41, B53
Abstract: Tento text je Čuhlovým vlastním shrnutím jeho knihy Zur Lehre von den
Bedürfnissen, vydané roku 1907, v níž rozvíjí několik v té době velmi aktuálních témat.
Na knihu bylo odkazováno především v souvislostech (1) ordinálního pojetí užitku,
(2) vztahu psychologie a ekonomie, (3) použití matematiky v ekonomii a (4) časové
preference. Více k Františku Čuhlovi a vlivu jeho díla na vývoj ekonomie lze nalézt v
tomto čísle v článku Marka Hudíka.
¹ Původně publikováno ve Sborníku věd právních a státních, roč. VII, Praha 1907, s. 1-33. [Pozn. ed.]
58 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Úvod
1. Kdokoli se zabýval zevrubněji základními naukami vědy hospodářské, tomu nemohlo
ujíti, že pojmu potřeby, ačkoliv jej někteří spisovatelé pokládají za první základní
pojem vědy hospodářské, na němž všecky ostatní pojmy základní této vědy
se mají budovati, v dosavadní literatuře národohospodářské věnováno bylo poměrně
málo pozornosti. Nejzřetelnější illustrací tohoto tvrzení poskytuje ta okolnost, že
v nejdůkladnější německé encyklopaedii věd státních („Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften”)
předmět tento odbyt jest osmi krátkými řádky vsunutými do článku
„Gut“. Tím nemá býti řečeno, že by se naukou o potřebách dosud nikdo z národohospodářských
spisovatelů byl nezabýval; naleznemeť pozoruhodné stati o rozdělení
potřeb u Hermanna, o kollektivných potřebách u Wagnera, o síle potřeb u mnohých
příslušníků oné školy národopospodářské, kteréž zejména rakouští hlasatelé theorie
hodnoty na hraničném užitku zbudované zvučné jméno získali. Avšak chceme-li se
o tom, co dosud o potřebách bylo vybádáno, poučiti, musíme si dotyčné poznatky
u různých spisovatelů shledávati, a když práci tuto vykonáme, poznáme, že názory i
nejčelnějších spisovatelů národohospodářských o podstatě a pojmu potřeby ve smyslu
vědy hospodářské jsou velice nedostatečné. Přesvědčivé důkazy pro toto tvrzení nalezne
čtenář na str. 78-92 mého spisu.²
2. Největší část viny na tomto neuspokojujícím stavu dosavadního vědění národohospodářského
nese po mém soudu ta okolnost, že název i pojem potřeby vzaty jsou
z obecné mluvy, ve které, jak na str. 61-64 jest ukázáno, slovo to má neméně než 12
různých významů, a že dosavadní spisovatelé domnívali se, že poznají podstatu jevu
potřeby, budou-li analysovati obecné představy slovu potřeba odpovídající. Abychom
dospěli správného názoru o podstatě a pojmu potřeby ve smyslu vědy hospodářské,
jest tudíž dle mého soudu třeba dosavadní methodu opustiti a nastoupiti touž cestu,
po které s tak velikým úspěchem postupují vědy přírodní, jež zabývají se jevy samými,
názorů, jež o nich má obecná mluva, si naprosto nevšímajíce.
² Čuhel, Franz: Zur Lehre von den Bedürfnissen, Theoretische Untersuchungen über das Grenzgebiet
der Ökonomik und der Psychologie, Wagner, Insbruck, 1907. [Pozn. ed.]
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 59
2 Pojmy potřeby ve smyslu vědy hospodářské
3. Jevy, kterými se zabývá věda hospodářská, jsou jistý druh lidských jednání a jejich
výsledků. Každé jednání pak spůsobeno jest jednou nebo několika žádostmi. Stručný
výklad o tom, jak vznikají lidské žádosti, obsažen jest v kapitole první, z níž vyjímáme
následující:
Lidský život jeví se býti nepřetržitým řetězem různých stavů tělesného organismu
a různých poměrů jeho k okolí, jakož i různých stavů vědomí. Shrneme-li tyto stavy
a poměry, z nichž jedny jsou zachování a rozvoji života (životních funkcí) příznivy,
druhé pak nepříznivy, pod společný název, obdržíme pojem objektivných stavů blahotných;
jejich souhrn v jistém okamžiku tvoří pak celkový stav blahotný. Seřadíme-li
jednotlivé stavy blahotné podle stupně, v jakém přispívají k celkovému zachování a
rozvoji člověka, v jednotnou stupnici, obdržíme objektivnou stupnici blahočelnou, jejímž
absolutným bodem nulovým jest onen stav, jenž má v zápětí smrt dotyčného individua.
Nad tímto bodem řadí se napřed ony životu nepříznivé stavy, jež mají v zápětí
menší poruchy životních funkcí nežli smrt, a pak stavy životu příznivé. Mezi oběma
nalezá se relativný bod nulový, odpovídající bodu mrazu našich teploměrů. Podobně
jako u teploměru možno nazvati stavy blahotné pod nulou se nalezající negativnými
a ty, jež se nalezají nad nulou, positivnými. Následuje-li po jistém objektivném stavu
blahotném jiný stav blahotný na objektivné stupnici blahotné výše stojící, mluvíme o
přírůstku objektivného blaha, v opačném případě pak o úbytku objektivného blaha.
4. Kdykoli si uvědomíme, že se nalézáme v nějakém objektivném stavu blahotném,
poznáváme zároveň, je-li to stav positivný či negativný, jelikož toto uvědomění
v prvním případě provázeno bývá z pravidla citem libým, v druhém případě pak citem
nelibým, na základě jichž tvoříme si úsudek o positivném či negativném rázu dotyčného
objektivného stavu blahotného. Zmíněný základ těchto našich úsudků nebývá
sice v každém jednotlivém případě spolehlivý, ale užijeme-li náležitě korrektur, jež
nám skytají city pozdější, můžeme přece ve většině případů poznati, zda jednotlivé
objektivné stavy naše jsou positivné či negativné.
5. Význam citů nespočívá však pouze v tom, že jsou posledním pramenem našeho
poznání, jakého rázu jsou naše objektivné stavy blahotné, nýbrž daleko více ještě v
tom, že jsou směrodatným regulatorem našich žádostí. Nalézá-li se na př. jistá osoba
60 New Perspectives on Political Economy
ve stavu blahotném, jehož uvědomění provázeno jest citem nelibým, vybaví v ní cit
tento snahu. Přidruží-li se k němu představa stavu, jehož uvědomění dle jejího přesvědčení
oním citem nelibým provázeno není, promění se snaha v žádost, jejíž cílem
jest uskutečnění tohoto představeného stavu blahotného. Avšak i když se nalezáme
ve stavu blahotném, jehož uvědomění spojeno jest s citem libým, může v nás vzniknouti
žádost, jejíž cílem jest buď odvrácení stavu, o němž jsme přesvědčeni, že by
byl spojen s citem méně libým, nebo uskutečnění stavu, o němž jsme přesvědčeni, že
bude spojen s citem libějším.
6. Ze souvislosti této mezi city a žádostmi nelze však nikterak, jak to činí hlasatelé
hedonismu, dovozovati, že by pravým cílem veškerých lidských žádostí a jednání byla
blaženost, t.j. souhrn takových stavů vědomí, jež jsou spojeny s city libými a prosty
citů nelibých. Ve skutečnosti tvoří žádosti, směřující k uskutečnění citů příjemnějších
a odstranění citů nepříjemnějších, toliko mechanismus, pomocí kteréhož, buďsi Stvořitel,
buďsi příroda, hledí dosíci toho, aby živočichové ze stavů na objektivné stupnici
blahotné níže stojících přivedeni byli do stavů na této stupnici výše stojících, jinými
slovy, aby konali to, co slouží k zachování a rozvoji jejich života individualného i druhového.
Avšak objektivné stavy blahotné, v nichž se živočichové nalézají, nemají o
sobě žádného vlivu na vůli, nýbrž toliko jejich subjektivné korreláty, t.j. city. Z té
příčiny možno city nazvati subjektivnými stavy blahotnými, a to city příjemné positivnými,
city nepříjemné pak negativnými. Následuje-li po jistém citu cit příjemnější,
nazýváme tuto změnu přírůstkem subjektivného blaha, kdežto v případě opačném
mluvíme o úbytku subjektivného blaha.
7. Předcházející úvaha nás poučila, že posledním cílem každé lidské žádosti jest
buď uskutečnění nějakého přírůstku neb odvrácení nějakého úbytku subjektivného
blaha. Avšak poslední tento cíl nebývá vždy bezprostředním cílem lidských žádostí.
Žádosti, u nichž tak tomu jest, chceme nazývati žádostmi blahočelnými.
8. K ukojení každé takové žádosti jest třeba jisté změny našeho stavu vědomí a
zpravidla též jisté změny ve světě zevnějším. Každá taková změna podmíněna jest
však působením dostatečné příčiny. Je-li nám souvislost mezi žádanou změnou a její
příčinou známa, dostane se blahočelné žádosti bližšího cíle, kterýmž jest uvedení této
příčiny v činnost. Poněvadž úmyslné uvedení v činnost sil, jež pokládáme za příčinu
nějakého žádaného účinku, k tomu konci, abychom tento účinek uskutečnili, nazý-
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 61
váme užitím nebo upotřebením těchto sil nebo hmotného jich nositele (ukajedla),
možno žádosti s oním bližším cílem nazvati žádostmi k užití směřujícími nebo žádostmi
užitnými.
9. Aby v někom vznikla žádost tohoto druhu, jest tedy třeba, aby měl 1. nějakou
účinnou žádost blahočelnou a 2. úsudek, že žádost tato může býti upotřebením jistého
prostředku (ukajedla) ukojena.
Ad 1. Kdo nemá na př. (blahočelné) žádosti lépe slyšeti, nemůže míti ani (užitné)
žádosti upotřebiti sluchátka. Žádost blahočelná nemůže povstati u někoho, kdo jest
přesvědčen, že představený přírůstek blaha i bez jeho úmyslného přičinění, na př.
reflexními nebo instinktivnými pohyby, se musí uskutečniti, nebo naopak že veškeré
jeho přičinění, aby představený přírůstek blaha se uskutečnil, bylo by marno.
Žádost blahočelná může se státi bezúčinnou, konkuruje-li s ní jiná, silnější žádost
blahočelná tak, že ukojí-li se jedna z nich, druhá musí zůstati neukojena, protože obě
odkázány jsou na touž dobu. Kdo chce na př. postěním se v jistém dni zalíbiti se Bohu,
ten nebude v tyto dni míti (užitné) žádosti jísti.
Ad 2. Další podmínkou vzniku žádosti užitné jest úsudek, že jisté ukajedlo hodí se
k uskutečnění žádaného přírůstku blaha. Kdo na př. jisté houby pokládá za jedovaté,
nebude míti (užitné) žádosti je jísti. Úsudek ten nemusí býti naprosto jistý, stačí, je-li
do jakéhosi stupně pravděpodobný. Není také třeba, aby byl objektivně správný. Jestiť
velmi mnoho žádostí užitných směřujících k upotřebení předmětů (na př. různých
tajných prostředků), jež ve skutečnosti žádaný přírůstek blaha přivoditi nemohou.
10. Tytéž podmínky, na nichž visí vznik žádostí užitných, jsou rozhodny též pro
další trvání žádostí takových. Pomine-li tedy příslušná žádost blahočelná, na př. tím,
že byla úplně ukojena, nebo byla-li později zatlačena silnější žádostí konkurující, nebo
změní-li se úsudek žádajícího o spůsobilosti upotřebovaných ukajedel, nemůže se
žádost k upotřebení jich směřující déle udržeti.
Žádosti k upotřebení jistých ukajedel směřující mohou se také státi bezúčinnými,
konkurují-li s nimi silnější žádosti k upotřebení týchž ukajedel čelící nebo na touž
dobu ukojením svým odkázané.
11. Chceme-li nějakého ukajedla upotřebiti, musíme je dříve míti ve svém držení.
62 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Tím rozumí se takový místní poměr ukajedla k potřebujícímu, ve kterém jeho žádost
k upotřebení tohoto ukajedla směřující, kdykoliv vznikne, bez průtahu může
býti ukojena. V tomto poměru nalezá se bez našeho přičinění jen velice málo ukajedel,
jako na př. vzduch k dýchání se hodící. Téměř všecka ostatní ukajedla, aby jich
bylo možno upotřebiti, musí dříve do zmíněného poměru k potřebujícímu býti lidskou
činností uvedena, která předpokládá zvláštní k tomu cíli směřující žádosti, jež
možno nazvati žádostmi držebnými. Vzhledem k tomu, že držení, jehož jsme nabyli,
může nám působením sil přírodních nebo činností jiných lidí zase býti odňato, směřují
tyto žádosti nejen k nabytí, nýbrž také k zachování držení.
12. Aby u někoho vznikla žádost držebná, jest třeba, aby měl:
1. buď a) aktualnou žádost užitnou nebo b) úsudek, že bude míti budoucně takovouto
žádost;
2. a) při nabývacích žádostech držebných: úsudek, že ukajedlo nenalézá se již nebo
nebude se v čas nalézati v držení osoby, která ho chce upotřebiti; b) při zachovacích
žádostech držebných: úsudek, že se držení ukajedla pozbude, zůstane-li potřebující
nečinným;
3. úsudek, že nabytí nebo zachování držení ukajedla není nemožné.
Ad 1. Ohledně žádostí držebných, jež jsou vzbuzeny přítomnými žádostmi užitnými,
stačí poukázati na to, co jsme řekli v § 9. Žádost držebná jistého ukajedla se
týkající může však býti vzbuzena i tehdy, nemá-li dotyčná osoba ještě žádné aktualné
žádosti užitné k tomuto ukajedlu se odnášející, jen když má buď jistý neb aspoň do
jakési míry pravděpodobný úsudek, že takováto žádost budoucně u ní vznikne.
Nestačí tedy pouhá představa budoucí žádosti užitné, aby mohla v přítomnosti
vzniknouti žádost držebná, nýbrž jest k tomu třeba zmíněného již úsudku neb aspoň,
byť i bez utvoření si formálního úsudku, chovaného přesvědčení, že užitná žádost,
k jejíž ukojení dotyčného ukajedla se má upotřebiti, budoucně nastane. Rovněž není
správno mínění některých spisovatelů, kteří pokládají přítomný psychický odraz budoucí
žádosti užitné za předběžný cit.
Ad 2 a 3. Úsudky nahoře uvedené nemusí býti jisté, stačí, jsou-li do jakéhosi stupně
pravděpodobné. Má-li však potřebující plné přesvědčení, že se ukajedla, jichž má býti
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 63
upotřebeno, nalézají nebo v čas budou nalézati v držení osoby, která jich má upotřebiti,
nebo že ukajedla ta z držení této osoby nemohou býti vzata, nebo že všecko
přičinění, aby držení jich nabyla, jest marno, nemůže žádost držebná k takovýmto
ukajedlům se odnášející vzniknouti.
Týchž podmínek, na nichž závisí vznik žádostí držebných, vyžaduje také další jich
trvání. Střetne-li se několik žádostí držebných takovým spůsobem, že jen jedna z nich
může býti ukojena, zatlačí nejsilnější z nich ty, jež jsou slabší.
13. Trojice žádostí, o nichž v předcházejících odstavcích bylo pojednáno, má pro
vědu hospodářskou velmi značnou důležitost. Pravili jsme na počátku této hlavy, že
věda hospodářská zabývá se jistým druhem lidských jednání a jejich výsledků. Nyní
můžeme se vyjádřiti určitěji a říci, že jednání, jimiž a jejichž výsledky se věda hospodářská
zabývá, směřují k nabytí a zachování držení jistých ukajedel, jež se pokládají za
nutné k ukojení žádostí užitných. Věda hospodářská nemůže se však spokojiti pouze
tím, aby tato jednání a jejich výsledky zjišťovala, popisovala a klassifikovala, nýbrž
úlohou její jest také, aby je vykládala, t. j. příčiny jejich zjišťovala a na pokud možná
nejmenší počet pojmů a zákonů je redukovala. Úloze této by však neučinila zadost,
kdyby se obmezila na poukazování k tomu, že jednání hospodářská jsou výsledkem
jistého druhu oněch žádostí, které jsme nazvali držebnými, nýbrž, je-li vědou theoretickou,
musí zodpověděti také otázky, proč lidé chovají se tak nestejně k různým
částem tělesného světa je obklopujícího, žádajíce držení jedněch a druhých nikoli,
a proč žádosti držebné vůči různým statkům a u různých osob, na různých místech
a v různých časích vůči týmž nebo stejným statkům co do síly své tak se liší. Je-li
však vědou praktickou, pak jest jí vyložiti a odůvodniti, kterých částí tělesného světa
nás obklopujícího držení máme žádati a jakou sílu tyto žádosti při různých statcích,
u různých osob, na různých místech a v různých časích mají míti, jinými slovy, které
žádosti držebné jsou účelné, rozumné, a jaká síla jejich jest účelná, rozumná.
Odpovědi tyto může však věda hospodářská jen tehdy dáti, jestliže si všímá také
žádostí užitných, poněvadž existence a síla žádostí držebných podmíněna jest v první
řadě existencí a silou žádostí užitných.
14. Vědouce, že každá žádost užitná má původ svůj v nějaké žádosti blahočelné,
můžeme se domnívati, že věda hospodářská, aby mohla dokonale vyložiti jednání
64 New Perspectives on Political Economy
hospodářská, musí sáhnouti zpět k žádostem blahočelným. Tato domněnka však není
správna. Netvoříť vědění lidské jedinou vědu, nýbrž se rozpadá ve větší počet jednotlivých
disciplin, mezi nimiž zavedena jest jakási dělba práce, i následkem kteréž nemusí
jednotlivé vědy příčinnou souvislost jevů, kterými se zabývají, stopovati až k posledním
příčinám, nýbrž mohou se zastaviti u jistých příčin mezitímních, které sice v
jiných vědách dalšího výkladu vyžadují, pro ně však jsou skutečnostmi a veličinami
danými.
Dále dlužno míti na mysli, že ke vzniku žádosti užitné nestačí pouze existence žádosti
blahočelné, nýbrž že je k tomu také třeba ještě úsudku, že jistý prostředek jest
s to, aby spůsobil změnu, kterou se ona žádost ukojí. Takovéto úsudky jsou však dávno
a obecně uznávanou doménou věd technologických, lékařských a jiných podobných
věd. Kdyby věda hospodářská chtěla ve svých výkladech příčin jevů hospodářských
zacházeti až k žádostem blahočelným, zmizela by hranice mezi ní a zmíněnými vědami
praktickými.
15. Pro vědu hospodářskou jsou tedy žádosti užitné danými skutečnostmi a jejich
síly danými veličinami. Vyšetřovati, jaké žádosti blahočelné lidé mají, z jakých příčin
tyto žádosti vznikají a jakou mají sílu, a které předměty se hoví k jich ukojení, nenáleží
vědě hospodářské, nýbrž vědám sousedním.
Ještě méně nežli žádosti blahočelné mohou tvořiti východiště vědy hospodářské
city, jež tyto žádosti vybavují a tudíž ještě o jednu stanici dále za nimi leží. Pohraniční
stanicí, ve které věda hospodářská od věd sousedních přejímá vozidlo práce badatelské
jsou tedy žádosti užitné. Na pojmu tomto zakládá se, jak snadno lze ukázati,
pojem statku, oba pojmy pak tvoří podstatný základ pojmů hospodářství a hodnoty
hospodářské. Tak možno tedy na pojmu žádosti užitné buď přímo, buď nepřímo vybudovati
všecky ostatní základní pojmy vědy hospodářské, kdežto k definování jeho
samého znalosti těchto ostatních pojmů třeba není. Z té příčiny dlužno pojem žádosti
užitné pokládati za první základní pojem vědy hospodářské nebo správněji za
nejdůležitější součást tohoto pojmu.
16. Vědomí lidské jest jak známo velmi úzké. Jako můžeme jen málo předmětů
najednou vnímati, jen málo věcí najednou si představiti, tak můžeme míti v téže chvíli
jen malý počet aktualných žádostí. Avšak smíme-li o někom říci, že něco v jisté chvíli
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 65
ví, byť i v této chvíli dotyčného úsudku právě nepronášel, ani naň nemyslil, jen když
má spůsobilost (disposici) úsudek ten pronésti, jakmile se pozornost jeho k podnětu
tohoto úsudku obrátí, smíme zajisté také tvrditi, že někdo má nějakou žádost ve chvíli,
ve které si není příslušné snahy ukojovací vědom, jen když má disposici, žádost tuto
si uvědomiti, jakmile se pozornost jeho k jejímu cíli obrátí.
Pro vědu hospodářskou mají takovéto disposice k žádostem stejný význam jako
aktualné žádosti a proto dlužno vedle žádostí blahočelných, užitných a držebných
přihlížeti také k disposicím k takovýmto žádostem. Sloučíme-li pojem žádosti užitné
s pojmem disposice k takovéto žádosti, obdržíme onen pojem, jejž dlužno pokládati
za první základní pojem vědy hospodářské a který budeme nazývati potřebou užitnou.
Obdobným spůsobem dospějeme k pojmům potřeby blahočelné a potřeby dr-
žebné.
17. Vzhledem k četným významům slova potřeba v mluvě obecné bylo by ovšem
lépe, kdyby věda hospodářská výrazu tohoto se vzdala. Dokud však osobou povolanější
nový terminus nebude navržen, dlužno míti na paměti, že při hořejších pojmech
užíváno jest slova potřeba bez ohledu na to, jaký význam má v mluvě obecné, tak jako
by pro hořejší pojmy schválně bylo utvořeno, a že tudíž proti správnosti těchto pojmů
nelze činiti námitky, že se příčí dosavadnímu významu slova potřeba v mluvě obecné.
Poněvadž nauka o potřebách tvoří podstatnou část nejen vědy hospodářské, nýbrž
i četných jiných věd, zejména ethiky a kulturních dějin, jest pravděpodobno, že
později odloučí se od těchto věd jako věda samostatná, pro niž by se hodil název chreonomie
(od χρέος = potřeba). Vzhledem k tomu můžeme dotčené tři pojmy potřeby
nazvati chreonomickými.
18. Mnohé žádosti blahočelné i užitné mají tu zvláštnost, že byly-li jednou ukojeny,
nepominou naprosto, nýbrž že se po nějakém čase zase vracejí; při některých
žádostech, jako na př. při žádosti jísti opakuje se toto střídání žádosti s ukojením po
celý život. Je tedy třeba rozlišovati mezi jedním průběhem potřeby blahočelné a užitné
trvajícím od té chvíle, kdy vstoupí na vědomí, až do toho okamžiku, kdy následkem
ukojení nebo z jiné příčiny nejen jako aktualná žádost, nýbrž i jako disposice k žádosti
z vědomí vymizí, a pak mezi souhrnem všech těchto průběhů v jisté době. Pro první
pojem hodí se název průjev potřeby, pro druhý potřeba blahočelná nebo užitná nebo
66 New Perspectives on Political Economy
držebná v užším slova smyslu. Během každého průjevu prodělává potřeba různá stadia
lišící se od sebe různou silou snahy ukojovací. Tato stadia možno nazvati fásemi
potřebovými. Znázorníme-li si jednotlivý průjev potřeby lomenou čarou, odpovídají
jednotlivým fásím jednotlivé přímky, z nichž se tato čára skládá. Poněvadž zvláštní
důležitost pro vědu hospodářskou mají fáse za ukojovacího aktu se vyskytující, označíme
je zvláštním jménem, totiž fáse úkojové. Průjev potřeby a fáse potřebová jsou
tedy obdobné pojmy jak kyv a fáse kyvová při kyvadle.
Shrneme-li užitné potřeby různých lidí téhož druhu statků, na př. chleba, se týkající
v jeden pojem, obdržíme pojem druhu potřeb užitných; obdobným spůsobem
můžeme dojíti také pojmů druhu potřeb blahočelných a držebných.
Shrneme-li pak užitné potřeby různých lidí k témuž rodu statků, na př. potravinám
se odnášející, povstane pojem rodu potřeb užitných, jemuž jsou obdobny pojmy
rodu potřeb blahočelných a držebných.
19. V předcházejících odstavcích poznali jsme tedy osm různých pojmů, jež v obecné
mluvě a dosud zpravidla také ve vědě hospodářské označovány jsou týmž názvem
potřeba, a to tři souřadné: potřeba blahočelná, užitná a držebná, a pět sobě nadřaděných,
které podle svého objemu od nejužšího k nejširšímu mohou býti seřaděny takto:
fáse potřebová, průjev potřeby, potřeba v užším slova smyslu, druh potřeb a rod potřeb.
Jest zajisté v zájmu dalšího pokroku vědy hospodářské, aby si rozdíly mezi těmito
různými pojmy náležitě uvědomila a užívajíc pro ně různých terminů vždy bedlivě jich
šetřila.
3 Potřeby ipsilné, alterilné a mutualné
20. City naše nesignalisují nám positivný či negativný ráz pouze vlastních objektivných
stavů blahotných, nýbrž také obdobných stavů osob jiných, na př. našich dítek,
rodičů, manželů, sourozenců a p. V tomto druhém případě možno je nazvati alterilnými,
kdežto jinak přísluší jim název citův ipsilných. Uvědomíme-li si, že někdo trpí
bolest, vznikne velmi často i v nás cit nelibý (soucit); podobně, avšak řídčeji, poněvadž
je málo lidí prostých vší závisti, vyvolá poznání, že někdo má cit libý, i v nás cit
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 67
libý. Oboje tyto city dlužno počítati k subjektivným stavům blahotným; jsou to však
stavy indukované na rozdíl od stavů originarných, o nichž v § 6. byla řeč.
21. Na základě toho, co bylo pověděno o mechanismu naší vůle, můžeme usouditi,
že také uskutečnění neb odvrácení indukovaných stavů blahotných bývá cílem
žádostí blahočelných. Poněvadž pak ukojení takovýchto žádostí mívá v zápětí uskutečnění
přírůstku neb odvrácení úbytku objektivného nebo subjektivného blaha jiných,
od žádajícího rozdílných osob, možno je nazvati alterilnými, kdežto žádosti
v § 7. zmíněné budeme nazývati ipsilnými.
22. Názvův altruistické a egoistické city a žádosti vystříháme se proto, že mají
mravní zabarvení; míníť se egoismem takový směr vůle, který vlastním žádostem objektivně
méně důležitým dává přednost před žádostmi cizími objektivně daleko důležitějšími,
kdežto altruismus značí onen směr vůle, který cizím, objektivně stejně nebo
méně důležitým žádostem dává přednost před vlastními žádostmi. Pojmy tyto vztahují
se tedy na poměry sil dvou žádostí, kdežto my potřebujeme terminu k označení
směru jednotlivých žádostí.
23. Nezřídka vyskytuje se případ, že pro jistou osobu A není uskutečnění přírůstku
vlastního blaha buď vůbec nebo ne tak dokonale nebo ne tak levně možno, jako když
uskuteční se zároveň přírůstek buď subjektivného buď objektivného blaha jedné nebo
několika jiných osob M, N, O atd. Tak na př. se stává, že ochrany pozemků jisté osoby
A od povodní nemůže býti dosaženo jinak nežli vystavěním hráze, kterou se zabrání
přístup vodě také na pozemky osob M, N, O atd. Chce-li tedy A dojíti žádaného přírůstku
blaha pro sebe, musí žádat uskutečnění podobného přírůstku blaha také pro
osoby M, N, O atd. Takovéto blahočelné žádosti nazývají se vzájemnými nebo mutu-
alnými.
24. Kombinací těchto žádostí s disposicemi k nim obdržíme pojmy ipsilných, alterilných
a mutualných potřeb.
Také žádosti a potřeby užitné možno děliti v ipsilné, alterilné a mutualné dle toho,
do které z těchto kategorií náležejí žádosti nebo potřeby blahočelné, jimiž jsou vzbu-
zeny.
Žádá-li někdo, aby držení nějakého ukajedla nabyl nebo je zachoval sám pro sebe,
jest to ipsilná; je-li cílem jeho žádosti, aby držení takové nabyl nebo zachoval někdo
68 New Perspectives on Political Economy
jiný, jest to alterilná, a je-li poslednější žádost podmínkou splnění žádosti prvnější,
jest to mutualná žádost držebná. Obdobným spůsobem obdržíme pojmy ipsilná, alterilná
a mutualná potřeba držebná.
4 Potřeby individualné a kollektivné
25. Společnost lidská skládá se jak známo, z velikého počtu všelijakých skupin, z nichž
každou tvoří větší či menší počet individuí buď současně, buď po sobě žijících. Mezi
těmito skupinami zasluhují zvláštní pozornosti ony, jejichž příslušníkům společný
jest jistý, podstatnou část jejich osobnosti tvořící příznak (národnost, vyznání, povolání
a p.), následkem čehož jest mezi nimi takový vztah, že jisté subjektivné neb
objektivné stavy blahotné, v nichž nalézají se jedni z nich, signalisovány jsou také druhým,
pokud onoho společného příznaku jsou si vědomi. To děje se prostřednictvím
citů, jež na rozdíl od citů osobitých čili individualných, o nichž v předchozích dvou
hlavách bylo jednáno, mohou býti nazývány pospolitými čili kollektivnými. Doznajíli
na př. jednotliví příslušníci některé národnosti nebo konfesse při osvědčování své
národnosti nebo konfesse nebo k vůli své příslušnosti k ní nějakého příkoří neb újmy,
ozve se také u ostatních krajanů nebo spoluvěrců cit nelibý. Cit tento mívají dotyčné
osoby jen, pokud se považují za příslušníky téže národnosti nebo konfesse (pokud se,
jak se říká, jimi „cítí“). Jakmile by jimi býti přestali, neobjevil by se více, ba mohl by
se objevovati u nich při stejných příležitostech dokonce cit opačný.
26. Jaký příznak musí býti příslušníkům takovýchto skupin společný, to zjišťovati
není úlohou vědy hospodářské. Proto se můžeme zde obmeziti na konstatování skutečnosti,
že skupiny takové jsou. Skupiny tyto mají v mluvě obecné i vědecké různá
jména; abychom mohli pro všecky stejného názvu užívati, budeme jmenovati je pospolitostmi
nebo kollektivitami.
27. Jako city individualné tak i city kollektivné zdají se míti dvojí teleologické určení:
jednak umožniti nám rozeznávání positivného a negativného rázu objektivných
stavů blahotných, v nichž se ty které kollektivity nalézají, za druhé pak vybavovati
instinktivné a úmyslné činnosti směřující k tomu, aby aktualné stavy kollektivit na
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 69
objektivné stupnici blahotné níže stojící byly nahrazeny stavy na této stupnici výše
stojícími. Jsouť také mezi stavy a poměry, v nichž nalézají se členové jistých kollektivit
v této své vlastnosti, nejen takové, jež napomáhají k zachování a rozvoji, nýbrž
i takové, které mají v zápětí oslabení a zničení života veškerenstva členů k té které
kollektivitě příslušejících. Můžeme tedy dle obdoby § 3. stavy prvější nazývati positivnými,
poslednější pak negativnými kollektivnými stavy blahotnými.
28. Na otázku, jaký jest rozdíl mezi kollektivnými a individualnými objektivnými
stavy blahotnými, netroufám si dáti úplně uspokojující odpovědi všeobecné. Chci se
však pokusiti, rozdíl tento na zvláštním případě objasniti. Ve veškerém živočišstvu panuje,
jak známo, více nebo méně urputný boj o život. Takovýto boj spatřujeme také
mezi příslušníky různých lidských kollektivit. Vítězství v tomto zápase kyne zpravidla
příslušníkům oné kollektivity, kteří jej vedou společně a mají k účelu tomu lépe
přispůsobenou organisaci. Jednotlivá individua, jejichž blaho právě pro jejich příslušnost
k jisté kollektivitě jest ohrožováno, mívají tedy tím větší vyhlídku, že se vyhnou
hrozící jim újmě, čím větší moc může veškerenstvo členů oné kollektivity rozvinouti.
Vše, čímkoli se tedy zvyšuje moc veškerenstva členů nějaké kollektivity, má stejný
význam jako rozmnožení vlastního blaha každého člena této kollektivity a naopak
vše, čímkoli se ona moc veškerenstva ztenčuje, znamená tolik jako ztenčení vlastního
blaha jednotlivých členů, pokud toto blaho jest podmíněno příslušností k oné kollektivitě.
Vzhledem k tomu možno pokládati za positivný kollektivný stav blahotný, je-li
ta která kollektivita dobře organisována a disciplinována, skládá-li se z velikého počtu
členů a je-li každý člen o sobě silný, kdežto poměry opačné dlužno míti za negativný
kollektivný stav blahotný.
29. Na vůli naši mají objektivně blahotné stavy kollektivné tak málo vlivu jako
individualné. Přimým cílem žádostí našich bývá uskutečnění kollektivných citů libých
a odstranění neb odvrácení kollektivných citů nelibých, které jsou subjektivnými
korrelaty příslušných objektivných kollektivných stavů blahotných. Vzhledem k tomu
možno kollektivné city nazvati také subjektivnými kollektivnými stavy blahotnými, a
to buď possitivnými nebo negativnými.
30. Kollektivné stavy blahotné jsou bez odporu stavy jednotlivých členů té které
kollektivity, poněvadž mimo tyto není žádné jiné bytosti, jíž by se takové stavy mohly
připisovati a která by měla vědomí, jímž by je mohla cítiti; přes to však nelze jich
70 New Perspectives on Political Economy
pokládati za blahotné stavy individualné, poněvadž osoby, které jsou příslušníky té
které kollektivity, nemají a neuvědomují si stavů těch jako individua, nýbrž pouze
jako příslušníci oné kollektivity; neboť jakmile přestanou býti členy oné kollektivity,
ony stavy blahotné se na ně více nevztahují a také jim je city jejich více nesignalisují.
Nesmíť nás uvésti v omyl věda právnická, která v kollektivitách spatřuje samostatné
osobnosti, t. zv. právnické osoby, neboť tyto jsou pouhými fikcemi, pro něž mimo obor
vědy právnické není žádného místa. Vždyť každá samostatná osobnost předpokládá
samostatné vědomí, jakého kollektivity bez odporu nemají.
31. Žádosti, jejichž přímým cílem jest uskutečnění kollektivných citů libých neb
odstranění kollektivných citů nelibých, jmenují se kollektivné žádosti blahočelné.
Také tyto žádosti jsou žádostmi oněch individuí, z nichž se ta která kollektivita skládá,
poněvadž mimo ně není žádné bytosti vědomím obdařené, v níž by mohly vzniknouti.
Mohla by tedy povstati domněnka, že kollektivných žádostí vůbec ani není;
než názor tento byl by nesprávný, poněvadž ony osoby, jež si žádosti takové uvědomují,
nemají jich jako individua, nýbrž jako členové té které kollektivity; tedy nikoli
následkem svých citů individualných, nýbrž následkem citů kollektivných. Není
třeba, aby všichni členové jisté kollektivity měli city a žádosti takové; stačí, je-li tomu
tak u oněch členů, jejichž vůle repraesentuje vůli kollektivnou. Ostatní členové mohou
k těmto žádostem býti donuceni, což jest úplně na místě, jestliže jim následkem
nesprávné jich vlohy citové positivný nebo negativný ráz objektivných stavů blahotných
vlastní kollektivity nevhodně jest signalisován. Jako jednotlivé osoby tak mohou
i kollektivity pověřiti jiné osoby, a to i takové, jež nejsou jejich členy, tím, aby za ně
jisté žádosti kollektivné si uvědomovaly a jim průchod sjednávaly.
32. V pudech a žádostech vybavovaných city kollektivnými dlužno spatřovati onu
psychickou sílu soudržnou, která udržuje kollektivity jako zvláštní, od jiných individuí
a skupin lidských se odlišující útvary a které dlužno přičítati, že kollektivity jako
na př. stát, obec, církev, národ a p., nejsou jen logickými pojmy druhovými, pouhými
abstrakty, nýbrž jevy realnými, jakýmsi druhem nadindividualných organismů, vůči
nimž jsou jednotliví členové jejich v podobném poměru, jako jednotlivé buňky vůči
celkovému organismu individua.
33. Spojením pojmů kollektivné žádosti blahočelné a disposice k takovéto žádosti
obdržíme vyšší pojem kollektivné potřeby blahočelné.
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 71
Obdobným spůsobem, jakým jsme v §§ 8. a násl. dospěli pojmů užitné a držebné
žádosti a potřeby individualné, doděláme se pojmů užitné a držebné žádosti a potřeby
kollektivné.
Všecky tyto kollektivné žádosti a potřeby můžeme děliti zase v ipsilné, alterilné a
mutualné.
34. Velmi četné jsou kombinace potřeb kollektivných s individualnými, z nichž
mnohé pro vědu hospodářskou, zvláště pak pro vědu finanční mají veliký význam.
Jestliže na př. odpadkové vody nějaké továrny znečišťuji potok takovou měrou, že
sousedé jeho smrdutými výpary z něho vycházejícími značně jsou obtěžováni, dlužno
stav tento považovati za negativný stav blahotný těchto osob, jehož uvědomění vzbudí
v nich blahočelnou potřebu směřující k jeho odstranění. Týká-li se takováto nepřístojnost
jen nepatrné části členů jisté kollektivity, dlužno ji pokládati za individualný
negativný stav blahotný dotyčných členů. Je-li však počet členů, kteří takovouto
nepřístojností jsou postiženi, tak veliký, že tím moc a zdar veškerenstva členů jsou
značně oslabeny neb ohroženy, přistoupí k negativným blahotným stavům individualným
postižených členů kollektivity ještě negativný blahotný stav kollektivný veškerenstva
členů a odstranění tohoto stavu jest cílem blahočelné potřeby kollektivné, jež
dochází výrazu v zákon nařizujícím továrníkům, by si opatřili zařízení, jímž se odpadkové
vody před vpuštěním do potoka náležitě vyčistí. Následkem této kollektivné
potřeby nepřestanou ony individualné potřeby existovati, nýbrž kollektivná potřeba
vznikne vedle nich a proto je možno nazvati ji kollektivnou potřebou akcessorní.
35. V uvedeném příkladě patří individualné potřeby původní do kategorie potřeb
ipsilných. Mohou však náležeti také mezi potřeby alterilné nebo mutualné. Péče o nemanželské
dítky na př. jest v první řadě alterilnou individualnou potřebou těch kterých
nemanželských matek. Byl-li však vydán zákon, kterým se ukládá alimentační
povinnost nemanželskému otci, jest zákon tento projevem kollektivné potřeby akcessorní,
pojící se k oněm individualným potřebám alterilným. Jsou-li pozemky většího
počtu majitelů vydány častěji se opakujícím povodním, jest potřeba jejich, odstraniti
tento negativný stav blahotný, v první řadě mutualnou potřebou individualnou oněch
majitelů. Vydá-li se však zákon, který donucuje menšinu, aby se podrobila usnesení
většiny, směřujícímu k vystavění ochranné hráze, svědčí to o tom, že kollektivita, jejíž
orgánové tento zákon vydali, považuje stav majitelů pozemků ohrožovaných povod-
72 New Perspectives on Political Economy
němi spolu za negativný blahotný stav kollektivný, následkem čehož přistupuje k individuálným
mutualným potřebám majitelů pozemků akcessorní potřeba oné kollektivity,
jejíž jsou členy.
36. V příkladech dosud uvedených jsou kollektivné potřeby v první řadě potřebami
blahočelnými. Je-li však třeba, aby úřad správní proti neposlušným nebo liknavým
továrníkům nastoupil exekucí směřující k vynucení předepsaných zařízení, předchází
takovémuto výkonu potřeba, užiti příslušných prací úředních a upotřebiti příhodných
statků. Tato potřeba akcessorní jest tedy kollektivnou potřebou užitnou.
Nemají-li úřady statků ku provedení exekuce takové nutných (na př. materialií
na čistící zařízení, jež se exekučně na účet neposlušných továrníků provedou), podmíněno
jest ukojení potřeby výše jmenované ukojením kollektivné potřeby držebné,
která jest taktéž jen potřebou akcesorní.
Činnost kollektivných orgánů, jež vzniká následkem dosud uvedených potřeb kollektivných,
nazval Sax činností regulující, která jest buď bránící, buď pořádající.
37. Kdežto v případech, o nichž dosud byla řeč, akcessorní potřeby kollektivné
jen výjimečně jsou potřebami užitnými nebo držebnými, totiž jen tehdy, když předpisy,
v nichž potřeby blahočelné nalézají výrazu, nebyly splněny, jest celá řada jiných
případů, kde jest od prvopočátku jisto, že k ukojení akcessorní blahočelné potřeby
kollektivné bude třeba také kollektivné potřeby užitné. Tak na př. bylo by o blaho
velikého počtu nemanželských dítek velmi špatně postaráno, jestliže by se stát obmezil
na vydání zákona nahoře dotčeného. Proto za našich časů zřizují státy nebo
tělesa samosprávná ústavy k vychovávání dětí nemanželských; takovýmto rozhodnutím
musila však předcházeti kollektivná potřeba užitná, směřující k užití výkonů
příslušných zřízenců státních nebo samosprávných a k upotřebení příslušných statků
(budov, nábytku, potravin a p.). K ukojení této potřeby je však zase třeba kollektivné
potřeby držebné, směřující k nabytí a zachování držení oněch výkonů a statků.
38. Potřeba obyvatelů nějakého města, nabytí držení dostatečného množství zdravé
vody pitné jest zajisté v první řadě individualnou potřebou držebnou. Je-li dostatek
zdravé vody studničné nebo najde-li se soukromý podnikatel, který by zřídil vodovod
a dodával obyvatelům města zdravou pitnou vodu za slušný peníz, nemá obec s touto
potřebou nic činiti. Je-li však studničná voda infikována a nenalezne-li se takový sou-
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 73
kromý podnikatel, nastane vzhledem k tomu, že pití infikované vody spůsobuje nakažlivé
nemoci, které dlužno pokládati za negativný kollektivný stav blahotný, blahočelná
akcessorní potřeba kollektivná, jejíž cílem jest odstranění tohoto negativného
stavu. Potřebu tu lze ukojiti zřízením vodovodu na obecní náklad, jež musí předcházeti
kollektivná potřeba držebná, směřující k nabytí držení dostatečného množství
zdravé pitné vody obcí k tomu konci, aby mohla obyvatelům města býti přenechá-
vána.
39. Kdežto tedy v tomto případě kollektivná potřeba v popředí stojící jest potřebnou
držebnou, jeví se v případě v § 37. uvedeném kollektivná potřeba toto místo zaujímající
potřebou užitnou. Rozdíl tento vysvětluje se tím, že v tomto případě ukojení
kollektivné potřeby blahočelné jest již tím zabezpečeno, dají-li organové kollektivní
obyvatelům města příležitost, nabyti držení dostatečného množství zdravé pitné
vody, kdežto v případě, o němž dříve byla řeč, žádaného blahotného stavu nemanželských
dětí, který se jeví býti spolu blahotným stavem kollektivným, nebylo by dosaženo,
kdyby se dítkám těm, pokud se týče jejich matkám, dalo na vůli zda-li a jak
mají ústavů pro ně zřízených užívati. V takovýchto případech musí kollektivita také
provádění užívání svěřiti vlastním orgánům, musí tedy míti také příslušné potřeby
užitné.
40. Užitné a držebné potřeby kollektivné, o nichž v posledních dvou paragrafech
bylo jednáno, dávají vznik oné činnosti orgánů kollektivných, kterou Sax nazval přímou
činností vlastní. Činnost tato jest pouze tehdy na místě, když přírůstky blaha
kollektivného, jejichž uskutečnění, a úbytky blaha kollektivného, jejichž odvrácení
jest cílem potřeb kollektivných, činností regulující nemohou býti uskutečněny, pokud
se týče odvráceny, buď že příkazy a tresty nejeví se dosti účinnými, aby individualné
potřeby členů kollektivity uvedly v soulad s potřebami kollektivnými, nebo že tělesné,
duševní nebo hospodářské síly členů kollektivity nestačí na výkony, jichž k ukojení
kollektivných potřeb jest třeba.
41. Tato přímá vlastní činnost orgánů kollektivných děje se buď veřejnými podniky
nebo veřejnými ústavy; a sice možno o veřejném podniku tehdy mluviti, když
kollektivné potřeby v popředí stojící, k jichž ukojení mají sloužiti, jsou potřebami
držebnými, o veřejném ústavu pak tehdy, když potřeby ty jsou potřebami užitnými.
Touto větou jest, jak se domnívám, rozdíl mezi podnikem a ústavem veřejným mno-
74 New Perspectives on Political Economy
hem přesněji a jasněji vyložen, nežli se to podařilo jiným spisovatelům národohospodářským,
kteří si rozdíl mezi kollektivnými potřebami užitnými a držebnými neuvě-
domili.
42. S kombinacemi potřeb individualných a kollektivných, jež jsme právě projednali,
nesmíme směsovati takové případy, ve kterých jedno a též ukajedlo slouží
k ukojení potřeb i individualných i kollektivných, jež však spolu jinak nemají nic společného.
V takových případech dlužno mluviti o konkurenci potřeb individualných
a kollektivných. Příkladem takovéto konkurence jsou na př. železnice, které slouží
nejen k dopravě osob a statků soukromých, tedy k ukojení potřeb individualných, nýbrž
též k dopravě vojska a materialu válečného, tedy k ukojení potřeb kollektivných.
5 Některá další rozdělení potřeb
43. Poznavše v předcházejících dvou hlavách dvoje rozdělení potřeb, chceme v této
hlavě z oněch 27 dalších rozdělení, jež obsahuje pátá kapitola spisu na počátku zmíněného
uvésti co nejstručněji jen ona, jež pro vědu hospodářskou hrají největší důle-
žitost.
a) Poněvadž věda hospodářská zabývá se toliko potřebami hospodářskými, jest
nejprve vytknouti rozdíl mezi nimi a potřebami nehospodářskými. K definování onoho
pojmu jest však třeba znáti pojmy hospodářství a hospodářského statku, jichž vyšetřování
nebylo úkolem dotčeného spisu. Proto musíme přestati na větě, že hospodářské
potřeby držebné jsou takové, jejichž přímým cílem jest nabytí nebo zachování
držení, hospodářské potřeby užitné pak takové, jejichž přímým cílem jest upotřebení
hospodářských statků. Ostatní potřeby dlužno pokládati za nehospodářské, s nimiž
věda hospodářská nemá co činiti.
b) Blahočelné potřeby, jejichž cílem jest uskutečnění přírůstku neb odvrácení
úbytku objektivného blaha, možno nazvati objektivnými; ty pak, jejichž ukojením docílí
se pouze uskutečnění přírůstku neb odvrácení úbytku blaha subjektivného, jsou
potřebami subjektivnými.
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 75
Je-li úsudek o spůsobilosti ukajedel, jejichž upotřebení jest přímým cílem potřeby
užitné, objektivně pravdivý, nazýváme potřebu takovou správnou, je-li však úsudek
ten jen subjektivně pravdivý, nazýváme ji nesprávnou.
Správné potřeby užitné vzbuzené objektivnými potřebami blahočelnými nazývají
se v obecné mluvě potřebami pravými, ostatní pak potřebami domnělými.
c) Potřeby blahočelné jsou positivné, jestliže přímým cílem jejích jest uskutečněni
přírůstku blaha, negativné pak, jestliže přímým cílem jejich jest odvrácení úbytku
blaha.
Obdobně možno rozlišovati mezi užitnými potřebami positivnými, jejichž
přímým cílem jest upotřebení nějakého ukajedla, a negativnými, které se jeví býti
odporem proti upotřebení nějakého ukajedla, poněvadž vedle účinků příjemných má
také účinky nepříjemné.
Také potřeby držebné mohou býti positivné a negativné. Do této poslední kategorie
nepočítáme však odpor proti pozbytí držení statku B, jehož dání jest podmínkou
nabytí statku A, neboť odpor tento jest v pravdě zachovací potřebou držebnou, nýbrž
na př. odpor proti držení statku ukradeného nebo proti námaze, jíž nabytí nebo
zachování držení statku nějakého vyžaduje.
d) Cílem jedné potřeby blahočelné nebývá vždy uskutečnění jen jednoho přírůstku
neb odvrácení jen jednoho úbytku blaha, nýbrž velmi časté jsou případy, že žádáme
uskutečnění několika přírůstků neb odvrácení několika úbytků blaha najednou,
na př. když účinky takové přivodí se současně upotřebením téhož ukajedla. Vzhledem
k tomu možno jak potřeby blahočelné tak i užitné děliti v jednoduché a složité. Při
posléze jmenovaných potřebách bývá pak jedna potřebou hlavní, kdežto ostatní jsou
potřebami vedlejšími.
Od užitných potřeb složitých, jejichž cílem jest upotřebení ukajedel tvořících jednotný
celek, jehož části o sobě nemohou býti předmětem zvláštních potřeb užitných,
lišiti dlužno užitné potřeby komplementarné, jež odnášejí se každá k jinému ukajedlu,
jestliže potřeby tyto tvoří dohromady jakýsi celek proto, že jejich současné nebo
v krátkých přestávkách po sobě provedené ukojení žádá se s větší intensitou, nežli jest
součet intensit, které mají žádosti ty, jsou-li každá zvláště ukojovány.
76 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Také mezi potřebami držebnými možno vedle jednoduchých lišiti potřeby složité,
které se odnášejí k několika statkům, jejichž držení se současně nabývá, na př.
při výrobě obilí a slámy, mouky a otrub a p., a potřeby komplementarné, které vznikají
z obdobných potřeb užitných, jako jsou na př. potřeby odnášející se k výrobním
činitelům téhož statku.
e) Vzhledem k různosti účinkův aktův úkojných možno děliti blahočelné i užitné
potřeby v potřeby bolestí vzbuzené a v potřeby za libostí směřující; u prvnějších záleží
totiž účinek aktu úkojného v tom, že popudy jím spůsobené paralysují popudy, jimiž
potřeba byla vzbuzena, kdežto při potřebách druhé kategorie popudy v aktu úkojném
se jevící a ty, jimiž, resp. jejichž představou potřeba byla vzbuzena, jsou totožny.
Potřeby, z potřeb obojí kategorie složené, slovou potřebami smíšenými.
f) Činnost, jíž jest třeba, aby hospodářská potřeba byla ukojena, t. j. aby ukajedlo
ze svého přirozeného poměru místního uvedeno bylo v onen poměr, jejž možno
nazvati držením k upotřebení pohotovým, neprovádí se zpravidla uno tractu, nýbrž
v několika stadiích. V každém z těchto stadií nalézá se sice dotyčné ukajedlo v držení
té které osoby, ale každé z těchto držení má takřka jiný stupeň zralosti. Nazveme-li
onen stupeň držení, ve kterém končí hospodářská činnost a začíná činnost spotřební,
hospodářským držením prvého řádu, možno potřeby držebné, jejichž přímým cílem
jest nabytí nebo zachování takovéhoto držení, nazvati hospodářskými potřebami držebnými
prvého řádu. Podobně můžeme nazvati stadium, ležící bezprostředně před
držením prvého řádu, hospodářským držením druhého řádu a potřeby směřující k nabytí
nebo zachování tohoto držení hospodářskými potřebami držebnými druhého
řádu. Obdobným spůsobem dospějeme k hospodářským potřebám držebným třetího,
čtvrtého řádu atd. Všecky tyto potřeby vyjímaje potřeby prvého řádu možno shrnouti
pod společný název hospodářských potřeb držebných vzdálenějších řádů.
Také užitné potřeby možno děliti podle řádů.
g) Je-li nějaká osoba B, jsouc v držení jistého statku, právně zavázána, tento statek
na požádání jiné osoby A uvésti v držení této osoby a je-li tu jakási pravděpodobnost,
že B tomuto závazku dostojí, možno také osobě A přičítati držení tohoto statku, jež
na rozdíl od onoho spůsobu držení, o němž dosud bylo jednáno, (držení přímého),
možno nazvati držením nepřímým. Vzhledem k tomu možno také potřeby držebné,
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 77
podle toho, zdali bezprostředním cílem jejich jest nabytí resp. zachování přímého či
nepřímého držení, nazvati přímými nebo nepřímými potřebami držebnými.
h) Potřeby užitné, jichž si kdo v té chvíli, kdy sestavuje hospodářskou rozvahu,
jako aktualných žádostí nebo jako disposicí k takovýmto žádostem (§ 10.) jest vědom,
slují přítomnými. Ony potřeby užitné o nichž v této chvíli má za to, že mu v budoucnosti
jistě nebo pravděpodobně nastanou, následkem čehož v něm v přítomnosti
vzniknou potřeby držebné, jsou potřebami budoucími ve smyslu vědy hospodářské.
Užil-li někdo k ukojení potřeb užitných v době minulé statků úvěrem opatřených a
má-li v době přítomné potřeby držebné, směřující k nabytí držení takovýchto statků,
aby je mohl oplatiti, říkáme, že má minulou potřebu.
i) Rozdělení potřeb v kollektivné a individualné jest příbuzno rozdělení v potřeby
veřejné a soukromé, při němž záleží na tom, zdali ty které potřeby ukojují korporace
veřejnoprávní, k obstarávání úkonů vládních povolané, či osoby jednotlivé nebo
společnosti a korporace soukromého práva.
j) S rozdělením oním nesmí býti směsováno rozdělení potřeb ve společné a oddělené.
Oboje jsou stejné potřeby různých osob, z nichž první se však ukojují společným
aktem úkojným.
k) Také dlužno od onoho rozdělení rozeznávati rozdělení potřeb ve společenské
a nespolečenské. Jsouť oboje potřebami individualnými, z nichž první se vyskytují
pouze u osob ve společnosti, druhé pak u osob osamoceně žijících.
l) Vzhledem k tomu, že v pojmu potřeby obsaženy jsou nejen aktualné žádosti,
nýbrž též disposice k takovýmto žádostem, možno potřeby blahočelné i užitné i držebné
děliti v potřeby aktualné a v potřeby dispositionalné nebo potentialné.
m) Střetnou-li se dvě potřeby užitné, jež obě vyžadují ke svému ukojení téhož
ukajedla, může jen jedna z nich, totiž ta silnější, býti ukojena. Zatlačená potřeba nevymizí
však ihned naprosto z vědomí, nýbrž naskytne-li se do jisté doby možnost
jejího ukojení, zjedná si ihned průchodu. Takovéto na čas zatlačené potřeby nazýváme
latentními, ty pak, jež se projevují v jednáních hospodářských nebo spotřebních,
effektivnými.
n) Potřeby skládající se z několika průjevů, k jichž podstatě tudíž náleží, že kdy-
78 New Perspectives on Political Economy
koli jeden průjev jejich jest ukojen, po jistém čase zase novým průjevem na vědomí
vstupují, slují periodickými, ty pak, jež skládají se jen z jediného průjevu, tak že, když
tento byl ukojen, více se neozvou, nazýváme neperiodickými.
o) Některé průjevy potřeb mohou býti po kousku ukojovány. Mám-li na př. hlad,
nejsem vázán alternativou, buď se úplně nasytiti nebo zůstati docela hladovým, nýbrž
mohu požitím menšího množství jídla hlad svůj jen z části ukojiti. Potřeby tohoto
druhu nazývají se dílnými, kdežto ty, které takovéhoto ukojování po kouscích nepřipouštějí,
slují nedílnými.
p) Absolutné potřeby individualné jsou takové průjevy nebo takové fáse průjevů
potřebových, jejichž neukojení má v zápětí smrt nebo značné porušení neb ohrožení
tělesného nebo duševního zdraví té které osoby; absolutné potřeby kollektivné jsou
pak ty průjevy nebo ty fáse průjevů potřeb kollektivných, jejichž neukojení má za
následek zánik té které kollektivity, zejména národního státu, nebo vážné porušení
neb ohrožení jejího blaha. Ostatní průjevy a fáse průjevů potřebových nazvati jest
relativnými.
q) Potřeby, kterým jsme právě dali název potřeb absolutných, kryjí se celkem
s těmi, které Wagner nazývá existenčními potřebami prvního stupně, kdežto potřeby,
které spisovatel tento nazývá existenčními potřebami druhého stupně, jsou ony relativné
potřeby, jejichž ukojení „podle mravu a zvyku“ jistého kraje a jisté doby pokládá
se za nutné pro každého, kdo chce býti považován za příslušníka jisté sociální třídy.
Kvantita a kvalita statků, jejichž konsumce podmíněna jest potřebami této kategorie
při jisté třídě, v jistém kraji a v jisté době se vyskytujícími tvoří t. zv. míru životní
(standard of life) této třídy v tomto kraji a v této době.
Potřeby komfortní směřují k dosažení jistých jemnějších požitků hmotných bez
vhledu na to, žádá-li ukojení jejich příslušnost k určité třídě socialní či nic, kdežto potřeby
kulturní mají za cíl uskutečnění jemnějších požitků duševních, zvláště aesthetických
a intellektualných. Na konec zmíniti se dlužno ještě o potřebách přepychových,
jejichž cílem jest honosení se skutečným nebo jen předstíraným bohatstvím, za
kteroužto příčinou upotřebuje se k aktu úkojnému větší množství nebo lepší jakost
statků, nežli jaké z duvodů technických jsou nutny. Potřeby tyto náleží spolu s potřebami
nestřídmostními do kategorie potřeb subjektivných (nerozumných).
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 79
6 O směrnosti potřeb
44. Při každé žádosti blahočelné možno mimo cit nebo představu citu, kterým nebo
kterou se žádost vybavuje, rozeznávati zejména ukojovací snahu a pak představu přírůstku
blaha, jehož uskutečnění jest cílem snahy ukojovací. Jest známo, že dvě žádosti
blahočelné, i když cílem jejich jest uskutečnění přírůstku blaha stejného druhu
a stejného trvání, nemívají vždy stejnou sílu, a že ze dvou žádostí blahočelných ceteris
paribus zpravidla ta bývá silnější, která směřuje k uskutečnění přírůstku blaha
déle trvajícího. Jest tedy žádost blahočelná veličinou o dvou rozměrech, z nichž jedním
jest trvání přírůstku blaha, za jehož uskutečněním směřuje, a druhým intensita
snahy ukojovací. Veličinu tuto možno přirovnati ku přitažlivosti, kterou působí země
na tělesa na jejím povrchu se nalézající a která taktéž závisí jednak na velikosti hmoty
těchto těles, jednak na intensitě gravitace. Následkem této přítažlivosti působí tělesa
na povrchu země se nalézající tlak na svou podložku, který nazýváme vahou a jehož
příčinu obecný názor klade do těchto těles. Podobně považuje mluva obecná také
jev, že jisté stavy blahotné jsou cílem žádostí blahočelných a že jistá tělesa jsou předmětem
žádostí užitných, za vlastnost těchto stavů, pokud se týče těles, nazývajíc je
obdobnými jmény: důležitost, platnost, užitečnost ap. Věda hospodářská následovala
v této věci dosud mluvu obecnou, ač již poznala, že bezprostřední příčina zmíněného
jevu netkví v oněch stavech blahotných resp. tělesech, nýbrž v našich žádostech blahočelných
a užitných.
45. Chtěje ukázati, že lze nauku o potřebách vykládati spůsobem i formalně se
shodujícím s nynějším stavem meritorního vědění hospodářského, nazval jsem onu
dvojrozměrovou veličinu v aktualných žádostech blahočelných se projevující, na intensitě
snahy ukojovací a trvání přírůstku blaha závislou, blahočelnou egencí. Je-li
žádost blahočelná positivná, je také egence její positivná; je-li negativná, je také její
egence negativná. Místo tohoto posledního výrazu možno užívati také názvu dise-
gence.
Také v užitných žádostech projevuje se dvojrozměrová veličina, závislá jednak na
intensitě snahy ukojovací jednak na množství ukajedla, jehož má býti upotřebeno.
Tuto veličinu budeme nazývati egencí užitnou, a to buď positivnou nebo negativnou
80 New Perspectives on Political Economy
(disegencí). Místo tohoto pojmu užívala věda hospodářská dosud pojmu užitečnost
nebo užitek.
Podobným spůsobem doděláme se pojmu egence držebné, jež jako dvojrozměrová
veličina jest závislá jednak na intensitě snahy ukojovací, jednak na množství ukajedla,
jehož držení má býti nabyto nebo zachováno. Poslednějšímu pojmu odpovídá dosavadní
pojem subjektivné hodnoty hospodářské.
46. Že egence všech žádostí blahočelných, jež si jistá osoba aktualně nebo potentialně
v téže chvíli uvědomuje, nejsou stejny, možno a priori tvrditi. Neboť kdyby
tomu tak bylo, nemohlo by v takových případech vzniknouti žádné rozhodnutí, protože
podle organisace lidské vůle jen ta z několika konkurujících žádostí může se státi
vůlí, která jest silnější nežli ostatní. Poněvadž pak v takovýchto případech, jež se každého
dne nesčíslněkrát naskytují, dochází k rozhodnutím vůle, musila ta žádost, jež
se stala vůlí, býti silnější nežli žádosti s ní konkurující. Tento spůsob tvoření se rozhodnutí
naší vůle jest nejlepším prostředkem, jaký máme, abychom mohli poznati,
která ze dvou daných žádostí má větší egenci.
47. Na základě toho, co právě bylo pověděno, nebude nesnadno odpověděti na
otázku, jsou-li různé potřeby směrné. Rozumíme-li potřebami na své ukojení čekající
aktualné průjevy nebo fáse průjevové blahočelných žádostí a směrností možnost určiti,
která z nich má větší egenci nebo disegenci, možno potřeby prohlásiti rozhodně
za směrné.
Příznakem směrnosti potřeb není však, jak někteří spisovatelé udávají, intensita
citů je provázejících, nýbrž síla jejich egencí.
Směrny jsou nejen positivné, nýbrž i negativné; nejen ipsilné, nýbrž i alterilné
a mutualné; nejen individualné, nýbrž i kollektivné žádosti blahočelné. Zkušenost
učí dále, že i žádosti užitné a držebné a to nejen mezi sebou, nýbrž i se žádostmi
blahočelnými jsou směrny.
48. Srovnávání dvou egencí má velikou podobnost s vážením dvou těles na stejnoramenné
váze, dáme-li každé na jinou misku její. Na takovéto váze můžeme však
určiti netoliko, které z obou těles jest těžší nebo jsou-li obě tělesa stejně těžka, nýbrž
také kolikrát každé z těchto těles jest těžší nežli jiné těleso, jehož váha platí za jednotku
váhy. Tento výkon nazývá se měřením. Měřitelny jsou jen takové veličiny, pro
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 81
něž existuje tolik stejných a nezměnitelných exemplářů jednotky měrné, aby z nich
složena mohla býti veličina, rovnající se buď veličině, jež se má určiti, samé (měření
přímé), nebo jiné veličině, jejíž číselný poměr k veličině, jež se má určiti, jest znám
(měření nepřímé).
49. Možno-li blahočelné žádosti, resp. jejich egence prohlásiti i tehdy za směrné,
rozumíme-li směrností možnost je měřiti ve smyslu právě uvedeném? Vzhledem
k tomu, že lze na př. zjistiti, že egence blahočelné žádosti namířené na uskutečnění
přírůstku blaha, jejž spůsobuje snědění jednoho jablka (kratčeji: blahočelná egence
na jedno jablko), rovná se blahočelné egenci na 15 švestek, a blahočelná egence na
jednu hrušku blahočelné egenci na 10 švestek, zdálo by se, že také egence na jablka a
hrušky jsou měřitelny egencí na jednu švestku. Domněnka tato jest však mylná, poněvadž,
jak později (§ 58.) bude ukázáno, egence na 10 nebo 15 švestek, spotřebují-li
se rychle za sebou, není 10-resp. 15-krát větší nežli egence na jednu švestku stejné jakosti,
nýbrž snad jen 9- nebo 8-krát, resp. 13- nebo 12-krát, aniž jsme s to příslušné
číslo přesně udati. Kdybychom však, chtějíce uniknouti nesnázi, kterou působí první
zákon Gossenův, určovali egence na jablka a hrušky egencemi na jednu švestku po
každé o sobě snědenou, tak že by mezi spotřebováním dvou švestek byla vždy delší
přestávka, na př. jednoho dne, neměli bychom zase žádné jistoty, že egence na švestku
dnes snědenou má stejnou sílu jako egence na švestku včera snědenou. Rušivým účinkům
prvního zákona Gossenova nevyhneme se ani tehdy, jestliže vyhledáme si na př.
sedm různých statků S1 až S7, a zjistíme, že blahočelná egence na každý ze statků
S2 až S7, o sobě rovná se blahočelné egenci na S1 a že blahočelná egence na statek
Sn rovná se součtu egencí na statky S1 až S7. Neboť předně jest procedura tato
velmi zdlouhava, tak že se pro určování velikých egencí sotva hodí. Myslel-li by někdo,
že pro moderní hospodářství směnné toto tvrzení neplatí, poněvadž lze každé
chvíle zjistiti, které statky mají stejnou cenu, na př. jedné koruny, dlužno odvětiti
že různé statky mající stejnou cenu nejsou nikterak předmětem stejných egencí blahočelných
při jedné a téže osobě, protože egence tyto nejsou, jak známo, jediným
činitelem při určování směnné hodnoty statků. Mimo to má však tento spůsob zjišťování
egencí tu podstatnou vadu, že porovnáváme-li egenci na statek S3, nebo S4
atd. s egencí na statek S1, nemůžeme již zcela bezpečně tvrditi, že egence poslednější
jest ještě táž, jaká byla, když jsme i porovnávali s egencí na S2. Dále dlužno
82 New Perspectives on Political Economy
míti také na paměti, že čím více statků bychom k určení nějaké větší egence musili
přibrati, tím větší je pravděpodobnost, že se mezi nimi vyskytnou takové, které se
mohou navzájem více nebo méně dokonale zastupovati, následkem čehož součet
egencí na dva takové statky není více roven dvojnásobné egenci na každý z nich
o sobě.
Z toho všeho vysvítá, že měření blahočelných egencí jest prakticky neproveditelno,
protože, složíme-li několik jednotek této egence dohromady, není možno úplnou
stejnost jejich zjistiti.
Totéž platí také o egencích užitných a držebných.
50. Není-li egence možno měřiti, není tím ještě řečeno, že by každékoli určování
jich s použitím číslic bylo vyloučeno. Možnoť na př. pomocí Mohs’ovy stupnice zjistiti,
má-li nějaký nerost druhý nebo třetí až desátý stupeň tvrdosti, ačkoli měření tvrdosti
naprosto proveditelno není. Podobné číselné výrazy možno nalézti také pro egence,
sestavíme-li si totiž stupnici egencí a zjistíme-li pak, kolikátému stupni této stupnice
se ta která egence rovná.
O tom, jak se sestavují idealné stupnice egencí blahočelných a užitných pojednáno
jest obšírně v §§ 276-279 spisu na počátku uvedeného.
51. K určování egencí držebných má hospodářský obchod již od nepamětných dob
stupnice, jejichž jednotlivé stupně tvoří egence na různé násobky jisté jednotky mincovní.
Je-li takovou jednotkou na př. halíř, tvoří držebná egence na první halíř první
stupeň (1v), egence na první dva halíře druhý stupeň (2v), egence na první tři halíře
třetí stupeň (3v) atd. oné stupnice.
Čísla 1, 2, 3 atd., jež jsou vyjádřena číslovkami řadovými a nikoli číslovkami základními,
neznačí násobky egence na jeden halíř, jak se v obecném životě za to mívá
a jak také spisovatelé národohospodářští se domnívají, neboť o egenci 2v víme toliko,
že jest větší nežli egence 1v, ale nikoli, že by byla právě dvakrát větší nežli 1v.
52. Zkušenost nás poučuje, že disegence proti 2-, 3-, 10- nebo n-hodinové práci
není 2-, 3-, 10- nebo n-krát větší nežli disegence proti jednohodinové práci, neboť disegence
tato jest velice různá dle toho, kolikahodinová práce ji už předcházela. Chtěli-li
bychom však porovnávati disegenci proti 2-, 3-, 10- nebo n-hodinné práci s 2-, 3-, 10-
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 83
nebo n-hodinové práci s 2, 3, 10 nebo n disegencemi proti jednohodinové práci v různých
dnech konané, nemáme žádné pomůcky, abychom zjistili, že disegence proti
jednohodinové práci dnes konané jest na vlas stejná s disegencí proti jednohodinové
práci včera konané.
Z toho plyne, že ani disegence nelze měřiti, nýbrž toliko pomocí stupnic určovati.
Idealnou stupnici blahočelných disegencí možno si sestaviti podobným spůsobem
jako stupnici blahočelných egencí.
53. Poněvadž egence a disegence jsou veličinami stejného druhu ale s opačným
znamením, možno stupnice disegencí užiti také k nepřímému určování egencí; podobně
jako se síla parního stroje zjišťuje velikostí odporu, který dovede překonati.
Modus tento má tu výhodu, že pomocí jeho lze zjistiti změny, jichž doznaly všecky
egence nějaké osoby.
54. Mluvíce o směrnosti potřeb měli jsme dosud na mysli vždy jen potřeby jedné
a téže osoby. Nyní dlužno přikročiti k otázce, zdali též egence různých osob mezi
sebou jsou směrny. V té příčině narážíme především na nesnáz, již působí ta okolnost,
že osoba A existenci a sílu potřeb osoby B nemůže poznati přímo, nýbrž jen
pomocí závěrů z jistých účinků jejich nebo z jistých okolností, které je doprovázívají,
kteréžto závěry však podrobeny jsou častým omylům. Avšak i kdybychom egenci potřeb
u různých osob, jež máme porovnati, každou o sobě dovedli správně poznati,
nebyli bychom přece s to, abychom poměr jejich velikostí bezpečně udali, poněvadž
ona pomůcka, která nám umožňuje poznati, která ze dvou egencí téže osoby jest silnější,
totiž směr rozhodnutí vůle, při tom schází. Z toho plyne, že egence různých
osob jsou mezi sebou nesměrny.
55. Tvrzení tomuto zdá se odporovati zkušenost, že každého dne provádějí se
směny statků mezi různými osobami, jež zdají se předpokládati směrnost příslušných
egencí. Domněnka tato není správná, neboť má-li osoba A koně a je-li egence
její na jednoho koně tak veliká jako její egence na 40 q pšenice jistého druhu a jisté
jakosti, má-li dále osoba B pšenici tohoto druhu a této jakosti a je-li její egence na 50 q
její stejně veliká jako egence na jednoho koně, jakého má A, jest pro provedení směny
mezi těmito osobami úplně lhostejno, kolikátý stupeň má egence každého z nich na
jednoho koně nebo na 40, resp. 50 q pšenice. Směna tato provede se tak, jako by
84 New Perspectives on Political Economy
egence tyto u obou osob měly stejný stupeň a jako by tedy poměr egence na jednoho
koně k egenci na 40 q, pokud se týče na 50 q pšenice u obou osob byl stejný.
To, co pověděno bylo o nesměrnosti egencí, platí též o nesměrnosti disegenci různých
osob.
56. Až dosud měli jsme na zřetel toliko přítomné potřeby. V praktickém životě
hospodářském vyskytují se však téměř každého dne případy, kde přítomné potřeby
užitné musí býti porovnávány s potřebami budoucími, při čemž velmi často potřeby
tyto mívají převahu nad oněmi. Jak je to však možno, když užitné potřeby budoucí v
přítomnosti nemají žádné snahy ukojovací, tudíž také ne žádné egence? Tu dlužno si
vzpomenouti, že budoucími potřebami ve smyslu vědy hospodářské jsou ty potřeby
užitné, jež v přítomnosti jsou s to vzbuditi potřeby držebné; tyto potřeby mají zajisté
egenci držebnou, která může s užitnou egenci přítomných potřeb užitných býti odvažována.
Mluví-li se o směrnosti potřeb budoucích s přítomnými nebo mezi sebou,
míní se tím takovéto odvažování držebných egencí spůsobených budoucími potřebami
užitnými s užitnou egencí užitných potřeb přítomných nebo mezi sebou.
7 O změnách intensity a egence potřeb
57. Každodenní zkušenost poučuje nás, že, jíme-li po sobě několik stejně velikých
soust téhož pokrmu, chuti k jídlu od sousta k soustu ubývá, až nastane chvíle, kdy nemáme
žádné chuti nějaké další sousto snísti. Byli-li bychom nuceni, ještě další sousta
jísti, nastal by proti tomu odpor, jinými slovy: intensita a tudíž i egence blahočelné žádosti,
jejíž cílem jest uskutečnění přírůstku blaha, jaký působí snědení jednoho sousta
jest uvnitř téhož průjevu od přírůstku ke přírůstku menší až klesne konečně na nulu.
Pokračuje-li se dále v ukojování této blahočelné potřeby, stane se tato negativnou. Podobné
ubývání intensity a egence blahočelné žádosti čelící k uskutečnění přírůstku
blaha spůsobeného nosením oděvu můžeme pozorovati, oblékáme-li na sebe několik
úplně stejných obleků, po oblečení každého dalšího obleku, nebo blaha spůsobeného
zdržováním se v teplé světnici, přibývá-li stále teploty vzduchu, po zvýšení této teploty
o každý další stupeň.
Čuhel: K nauce o potřebách 85
58. Na základě takovýchto zkušeností, jejichž řadu lze do nepřehledna prodloužiti,
formuloval Gossen svůj první zákon o ubývání požitku, znějící následovně: „Pokračujeme-li
nepřetržitě s přípravováním téhož požitku, ubývá stále jeho velikosti, až
na konec nadejde nasycení“. V naší terminologii by zákon tento zněl: „Ukojuje-li se
několik fasí téhož dílného průjevu nějaké blahočelné žádosti za sebou, stává se egence
uvnitř tohoto průjevu od fáse k fasi slabší, až konečně klesne na nulu“. V §§ 316.-320.
mého spisu jest ukázáno, že takovéto ubývání blahočelné egence možno pozorovati
jen u takových průjevů blahočelných žádostí, náležejících do kategorie potřeb ipsilných,
jednoduchých, bolestí vzbuzených (§43. lit. e), které za trvání aktu ukojovacího
nedoznají žádného přírůstku intensity, kdežto u potřeb za libostí směřujících stává
se zákon tento teprve od oné fáse účinným, ve které intensita toho kterého průjevu
dostoupila svého vrcholu.
Podobného obmezení doznati musí také zákon nasycování potřeb Wieserem formulovaný,
jenž týká se ubývání egence užitné.
59. Gossen vyslovil ještě druhý zákon o ubývání požitku, podle kterého by maximalná
egence každého pozdějšího průjevu periodických potřeb blahočelných byla
slabší nežli maximalná egence průjevů předcházejících. Prozkoumáme-li však větší
počet periodických potřeb, nemůžeme mezi opakováním jejich a velikostí maximalné
egence jednotlivých průjevů konstatovati takové pravidelnosti, jež by zasluhovala název
zákona.
60. V poslední kapitole spisu na počátku uvedeného pojednáno jest o poměru
mezi velikostí egencí držebných a užitných, pokuď jde buď o jednotlivé statky nebo
o zásoby skládající se ze statků stejného druhu a stejné velikosti, které jsou spůsobilé
k ukojení toliko jediného dílného nebo nedílného průjevu potřeby užitné; jinými
slovy: o elementárních zákonech subjektivné hodnoty hospodářské, pak o poměru
velikosti držebné egence vzbuzené budoucí potřebou užitnou k velikosti aktualné
egence této potřeby, při čemž stanoveny přesněji než se to dosud stalo, příčiny t. zv.
„diskontování budoucnosti“, jakož i míra jejich účinnosti a odkryto skrovné jadérko
pravdy, skrývající se v t. zv. abstinenční nebo čekací theorii úroku kapitálového.
ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 3, Number 1, 2007, pp. 87 – 104
Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom
Richard M. Ebeling¹
JEL Classification: B53
Abstract: The revival of the modern Austrian School of economics may be said to
have begun 30 years ago. In 1974 the Austrian School had been on hiatus for almost a
quarter of a century. For more than 60 years before the 1940s, the Austrian economists
had been considered some of the most original contributors to economic theory and
policy. They were among the leading developers of the theories of marginal utility,
opportunity cost, value and price, capital and interest, markets and competition,
money and the business cycle, and comparative economic systems – capitalism versus
socialism versus the interventionist welfare state. But the rise and triumph of the
Keynesian explanation of and prescription for the Great Depression eclipsed all competing
approaches to the problems of economic depression and high unemployment.
Despite all that, however, fundamental Austrian insights about man and the market
exposed in this article are still corner-stones of a unique Austrian approach which is
incompatible with the positivist, historicist, and neoclassical economic views of the
world.
¹ Richard Ebeling (rebeling@fee.org) is president of the Foundation for Economic Education,
Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533, www.fee.org
88 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Introduction
The revival of the modern Austrian School of economics may be said to have begun 30
years ago, during the week of June 15–22, 1974, when the Institute for Humane Studies
sponsored a conference on Austrian economics for about 40 participants in the small
town of South Royalton, Vermont.
In 1974 the Austrian School had been in hiatus for almost a quarter of a century.
For more than 60 years before the 1940s, the Austrian economists had been considered
some of the most original contributors to economic theory and policy. They
were among the leading developers of the theories of marginal utility, opportunity
cost, value and price, capital and interest, markets and competition, money and the
business cycle, and comparative economic systems – capitalism versus socialism versus
the interventionist welfare state.
But the rise and triumph, in the late 1930s and 1940s, of the Keynesian explanation
of and prescription for the Great Depression eclipsed all competing approaches to
the problems of economic depression and high unemployment. This included the
Austrian theory of the business cycle, which in the early 1930s had been a leading
alternative to the emerging Keynesian macroeconomics.²
At the same time, there developed what came to be called the neoclassical approach
in microeconomics. The study of the logic of individual decision-making, the
allocation of scarce resources among competing uses, and the distribution of income
among the factors of production – land, labor, and capital – became increasingly an
exercise in mathematical optimization under conditions of various quantitative constraints.
The focus of attention was on the specification and determination of the
narrow and often highly artificial conditions under which a market economy would
be in general equilibrium.
² For an exposition and contrast of the Austrian and Keynesian explanations of and policy prescriptions
for the Great Depression of the 1930s, see Richard M. Ebeling, “The Austrian Economists and the
Keynesian Revolution: The Great Depression and the Economics of the Short-Run” in Richard M.
Ebeling, ed., Human Action: A 50-Year Tribute (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2000), pp.
15–110.
Ebeling: Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom 89
This, too, was in stark contrast to the approach of almost all Austrian economists,
who attempted to explain the logic and processes of market competition in a world of
constant change. The Austrians, unlike their neoclassical rivals, emphasized imperfect
knowledge, the pervasive role of time in all market decision-making, and the
nature of market coordination through continual adaptation to changing circum-
stances.³
Eight months before that conference in South Royalton, in October 1973, the most
important contributor to Austrian economics in the twentieth century, Ludwig von
Mises, had died at the age of 92.⁴ The second most prominent member of the Austrian
School at that time, Friedrich A. Hayek, had been invited to attend the conference,
but had declined due to health problems that made it impossible for him to travel to
America from Europe. No one at the conference anticipated that only four months
later, in October 1974, Hayek would be awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.⁵
The speakers at the conference were three other leading figures in Austrian economics:
Ludwig M. Lachmann, who had studied with Hayek at the London School
of Economics in the 1930s; Israel M. Kirzner, who had studied with and written his
³ For an overview of many of the theoretical and policy themes in the writings of the Austrian
Economists, see Richard M. Ebeling, “The Significance of Austrian Economics in 20th Century Economic
Thought,” Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom (Northhampton, Mass.:
Edward Elgar, 2003), pp. 34–60; also, Ludwig M. Lachmann, “The Significance of the Austrian School
of Economics in the History of Ideas” [1966] reprinted in Richard M. Ebeling, ed., Austrian Economics:
A Reader (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 1991), pp. 17–39.
⁴ For expositions of Mises’s many contributions to economic theory and policy, see Richard M. Ebeling,
“A Rational Economist in an Irrational Age: Ludwig von Mises,” Austrian Economics and the Political
Economy of Freedom, pp. 61–100; Richard M. Ebeling, “Planning for Freedom: Ludwig von Mises as
Political Economist and Policy Analyst,” in Richard M. Ebeling, ed., Competition or Compulsion? The
Market Economy versus the New Social Engineering (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2001),
pp. 1–85; and Richard M. Ebeling, “The Economist as the Historian of Decline: Ludwig von Mises
and Austria Between the Two World Wars,” in Richard M. Ebeling, ed., Globalization: Will Freedom
or World Government Dominate the International Marketplace? (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College
Press, 2002), pp. 1–68; Richard M. Ebeling, “Ludwig von Mises: The Political Economist of Liberty”
Parts I & II, The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty (May & June 2006) pp. 16-19 & 34-40; and Richard M.
Ebeling, “Ludwig von Mises and the Vienna of His Time,” Parts I & II, The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty
(March & April 2005) pp. 24-531 & 19-25. Also, Murray N. Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises: Scholar,
Creator, Hero (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1988); and Israel M. Kirzner, Ludwig von
Mises (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2001).
⁵ For a summary of Hayek’s life and contributions to economics, see Richard M. Ebeling, “Friedrich A.
Hayek: A Centenary Appreciation,” The Freeman (May 1999), pp. 28–32; also, Bruce Caldwell, Hayek’s
Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F. A. Hayek (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
90 New Perspectives on Political Economy
dissertation under Mises at New York University in the late 1950s;⁶ and Murray N.
Rothbard, who had attended Mises’s NYU seminar for many years beginning in the
late 1940s and had received his doctoral degree in economics from Columbia Univer-
sity.
One evening during the conference, Milton Friedman came from his summer
home in Vermont to join us for dinner and make a few remarks after the meal. Friedman
commented that he was delighted to be with us and recalled he had long known
both Mises and Hayek, having been a founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society
and present at its first meeting in Switzerland in April 1947.⁷ But what stood out in
his remarks for many of us there was his statement that there are no different schools
of thought in economics; there is only good economics and bad economics. Clearly,
therefore, in Friedman’s mind, we were on a fool’s errand attending a conference on
something called “Austrian” economics.
2 Acting Man as the Core of Austrian Economics
Yet most of us attending that conference did not consider ourselves on a fool’s errand.
We just considered Austrian economics to be “good economics.”⁸ At its most fundamental
level, Austrians see the individual as “acting man.” This was already clearly
stated by Ludwig von Mises in 1933:
In our view the concept of man is, above all else, also the concept of the
being who acts. Our consciousness is that of an ego which is capable of acting
and does act. The fact that our deeds are intentional makes them actions. Our
thinking about men and their conduct, and our conduct toward men and toward
our surroundings in general presuppose the category of action.⁹
⁶ For a summary of Kirzner’s contributions to Austrian economics, see Richard M. Ebeling, “Israel M.
Kirzner and the Austrian Theory of Competition and Entrepreneurship,” Freedom Daily, August 2001,
pp. 8–14.
⁷ See R. M. Hartwell, A History of the Mont Pelerin Society (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1995).
⁸ For a summary of the conference’s events, see Richard M. Ebeling, “Austrian Economics on the Rise,”
Libertarian Forum, October 1974, pp. 3–6; the lectures delivered by Lachmann, Kirzner, and Rothbard
at South Royalton were later published in Edwin G. Dolan, ed., The Foundations of Modern Austrian
Economics (Kansas City, Kan.: Sheed & Ward, 1976).
⁹ Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics (New York: New York University Press,
1981 [1933]), p. 14.
Ebeling: Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom 91
The Austrian view of man refutes the positivist, historicist, and neoclassical conceptions
of man as a mere physical, quantitative object, or as a passive subject controlled
by the dark forces of history, or as a “dependent variable” in a system of mathematical
equations. Positivism tried to reduce man and his mind to mere magnitudes to be
studied and manipulated like the inanimate matter experimented on in the natural
sciences. Historicism claimed that man is determined and molded by external
laws of history that shape his thoughts, actions, and destiny, with little latitude for
the individual to design and guide his own future.¹⁰ Neoclassical economics treats
man like a mathematical function possessing given tastes and preferences, which are
themselves induced by his surroundings and on the basis of which he responds in
predictable ways when confronted with various constraining and objective tradeoffs
in the form of market prices.¹¹
For Austrians, on the other hand, man is a purposeful being. He thinks, plans,
and acts. Man may be made up of matter, but he possesses consciousness. He has
the capacity to imagine, create, and initiate. His mind is not simply reducible to lifeless
matter. He has spirit and will. Man reflects on the circumstances in which he
finds himself. He judges aspects of his physical and social surroundings less than
satisfactory. He imagines states of affairs that would be more to his liking. He creates
in his mind plans of action that would bring those preferred states of affairs into
existence. He discovers that the things he can use as means to achieve some of his
ends are insufficient to achieve all of his ends. He has to weigh the alternatives and
decide which he prefers more, since some of them, in the face of scarcity, will have
to be forgone today or forever. He, therefore, has to decide the tradeoffs he is willing
to make, and as a result he determines the costs of his own choices in the form of
goals he is willing to give up in order to pursue others that he considers more impor-
tant.
¹⁰ One of Mises’s most insightful but unfortunately highly neglected works was devoted to undermining
the assumptions and absurdities in both positivism and historicism; see Ludwig von Mises, Theory
and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises
Institute, 1985 [1957]); also F. A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund,
1980 [1955]); and Murray N. Rothbard, Individualism and the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (San
Francisco: Cato Institute, 1979).
¹¹ For a contrast of the Austrian and neoclassical conceptions of man in relation to action and choice,
see Richard M. Ebeling, Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom, pp. 3–7.
92 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Those ends and means that neoclassical economics take as “given” are, in fact,
created and compared in the actor’s mind. They change and are modified as man
experiences successes and failures. They are not static. Nor is man a hopeless victim
or captive of history. He makes his own history by reflecting on what has happened
in the past and mentally projecting himself into the future. He decides what past
course of action is worth trying to continue or what might be a better course as he
looks ahead.
3 Imperfect Knowledge and Market Opportunities
This is why Mises insisted that in every man there is the element of entrepreneurship.
In all his actions, man searches for and creates profitable opportunities to improve
his lot and tries to avoid losses, that is, circumstances worse than they need to be. By
necessity, man is, therefore, a speculator in everything he does.¹²
Creating profitable opportunities and avoiding losses are concepts that have no
meaning in the traditional neoclassical conception of “perfect competition,” in which
every market participant is assumed to possess perfect or sufficient knowledge of all
possibilities that might be relevant to his decisions. What is the meaning of “opportunities
discovered” or “losses avoided” when the actors already know from the
beginning what are the best and, indeed, the only options that should be followed,
given perfect and sufficient knowledge of all relevant circumstances?¹³
From the Austrian perspective, to choose is to select from alternatives, and to select
from alternatives must mean that, at least from the individual’s perspective, the
¹² Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation
for Economic Education, 1996), p. 254: “Entrepreneur means acting man in regard to the changes
occurring in the data of the market.” And Mises, The Ultimate Foundations of Economic Science
(Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 2002 [1962]), p. 51: “Every action
is a speculation, i.e., guided by a definite opinion concerning the uncertain conditions of the future.”
¹³ For the classic Austrian criticisms of the neoclassical mathematical general equilibrium approach,
and the theory of perfect competition, see Hans Mayer, “The Cognitive Value of Functional Theories
of Price” [1932] in Israel M. Kirzner, ed., Classics of Austrian Economics: A Sampling in the History
of a Tradition (London: William Pickering, 1994), pp. 55–168; F. A. Hayek, “The Meaning of Competition”
[1946] Individualism and Economic Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp.
92–106; Mises, Human Action, pp. 350–57, and Mises, “Comments on the Mathematical Treatment of
Economic Problems,” [1953] Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. I, no. 2 (1977), pp. 97–100.
Ebeling: Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom 93
future is not preordained. If that future is not preordained, but can be influenced
by the choices he makes, then perfect knowledge is logically inconsistent with the
very concept of acting and choosing man. Otherwise, man would know already all
the decisions he will make and the necessary outcomes. But what then remains of
any commonsensical notion of choice? Even if we assume only knowledge of objective
probabilities and not absolute certainties about the future, every man would still
know what is the precise set of options from which he has to choose and the exact
weight he should assign to each possible outcome; then, given his tastes and preferences
for risk, he would again know from the start the only courses of action he could
and should logically follow.
Many neoclassical economists may despair of a world in which imperfect knowledge
and uncertainty prevail, a world in which their mathematically deterministic
models lose their force. But for Austrians, this reality of the human condition is a
reason for optimism about man and his world. The fact that man does not know for
certain what the future holds, including what his own future actions may be, means
that the world in which he lives is one of wondrous possibility. Individuals have incentives
to experiment with creative new ideas precisely because they don’t know for
sure or with any probabilistic degree of certainty how those ideas may actually turn
out. It is this element of uncertainty about the future that permits imagination and
action to influence the shape of things to come – including all the advancements in
the social, economic, and cultural condition of mankind.¹⁴
For the neoclassical economists, the market is reduced to a series of simultaneous
equations of supply-and-demand functions, the properties of which specify whether a
general-equilibrium “solution” exists for the market as a whole, and whether that solution
is “unique” and “stable.” Prices are the quantitative ratios of exchange at which
goods may be bought and sold, and which “objectify” the tradeoffs for which alternatives
in the market may be obtained. Likewise, the theory of comparative advantage,
in the neoclassical framework, merely determines the relative opportunity costs of
potential trading partners so they may assume their highest-valued roles in the division
of labor. In addition, property rights, money, and social and political institutions
¹⁴ Mises, Human Action, p. 105: “The uncertainty of the future is already implied in the very notion of
action. That man acts and that the future is uncertain are by no means two independent matters.
They are only two different modes of establishing one thing.”
94 New Perspectives on Political Economy
are usually treated as “givens” in neoclassical analysis. They are merely the context in
which the supply and demand functions interact.¹⁵
4 Minds, Markets, and the Entrepreneur
For Austrians, the essence of the market is missed when reduced to a skeletal representation
in the form of mathematical functions. The market is where the minds and
the meanings of men meet. It is the place where the plans of multitudes of individuals
overlap, enabling people mutually to improve their situations through discovered and
created gains from trade. It is where the wants of men find greater degrees of satisfaction
than in isolated self-sufficiency, and where achieving things never conceived of
before is practicable. In the Austrian conception of the market, prices are not simply
quantitative ratios of exchange; they are also the encapsulation of the market participants’
valuations and appraisements, which result from the participants’ buying
and selling.¹⁶ As Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School, expressed it in 1871:
[Prices] are by no means the most fundamental feature of the economic phenomenon
of exchange. This central feature lies rather in the better provision two
persons can make for the satisfaction of their needs by trade… Prices are only
incidental manifestations of these activities, symptoms of an economic equilibrium
between the economies of individuals [and consequently are of secondary
interest for the economic subjects]… The force that drives [prices] to the surface
is the ultimate and general cause of all economic activity, the endeavor of men to
satisfy their needs as completely as possible, to better their economic positions.¹⁷
¹⁵ It should be pointed out that there has developed what is now referred to as the “new institutional
economics,” which attempts to explain the emergence, evolution, and significance of the underlying
institutional order in which market processes operate. Some of these economists have consciously
incorporated elements of the Austrian perspective in their theories; see, especially, Wolfgang Kasper
and Manfred E. Steit, Institutional Economics: Social Order and Public Policy (Northampton, Mass.:
Edward Elgar, 1998), and Eirik G. Furubotn and Rudolf Richter, Institutions and Economic Theory:
The Contribution of the New Institutional Economics (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press,
1998).
¹⁶ Mises, Human Action, pp. 327–33.
¹⁷ Carl Menger, Principles of Economics [1871] (New York: New York University Press, 1981), pp. 191–192.
The bracketed clause was restored by the present author from Menger’s original German volume,
Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre, 2d ed. (Vienna: Holder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1923), pp. 182–83.
Ebeling: Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom 95
In neoclassical theory, prices are usually taken as “given,” with any changes coming,
somehow, from the “outside,” with market participants responding accordingly. In
the Austrian approach, prices emerge out of the interactions of market actors. They
initiate price bids and offers, and competitively move prices up or down. In Eugen von
Böhm-Bawerk’s famous horse market, any resulting equilibrium between suppliers
and demanders arises out of their efforts to attract trading partners by offering better
terms than their rivals.¹⁸
Thus the Austrian focus is on the logic and sequential process of price formation,
rather than only on any final equilibrium price that may result from this
active market rivalry. It is why one prominent member of the Austrian school
referred to the Austrian theory of price as the causal-genetic approach: the purpose
of the theory is to explain the “causal origin” of prices in the valuations and
actions of market actors, and the process by which prices adjust to reach a final
equilibrium.¹⁹
The theory is also the basis for the later Austrian emphasis on the role and significance
of the entrepreneur. In the division of labor, entrepreneurs are not only the
“undertakers of enterprise” who imagine the patterns of future consumer demand,
conceive of ways of organizing production processes to better satisfy that demand,
oversee the stages of production to the completion of finished goods, and bring the
goods to market. They also set and change consumer prices when they discover that
they over- or underestimated how intensely consumers want the goods.²⁰
It is the “promoting and speculating entrepreneurs” who are “the driving force
of the market,” Mises wrote. Their “social function” is to coordinate the use of resources,
capital, and labor with the demands of consumers through the rewards of
profits and the penalties of losses.²¹ Again, as Mises concisely put it, “It is the entrepreneurial
decision that creates either profit or loss. It is mental acts, the mind
of the entrepreneur, from which profits ultimately originate. Profit is a product of
¹⁸ Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, vol. 2: The Positive Theory of Capital (South Holland,
Ill.: Libertarian Press, 1959), pp. 216–35.
¹⁹ Mayer, p 57.
²⁰ See the much-neglected analysis on this point by Philip Wicksteed, The Common Sense of Political
Economy, vol. 1 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1933 [1910]), pp. 212–37.
²¹ Mises, Human Action, pp. 328–29.
96 New Perspectives on Political Economy
the mind, of success in anticipating the future state of the market. It is a spiritual
and intellectual phenomenon.”²² The intentionality of entrepreneurship, the creative
mental processes that are the essence of the enterpriser’s activities, are drained of
all understanding if the market is reduced to a simplified and barren mathematical
function.
5 Economic Calculation and the Market Process
The social institutions of private property and monetary exchange are not simply
conceptual backdrops to the determination of equilibrium prices and outputs, as has
tended to be the view in neoclassical economics. In the standard textbooks, from
which most economists learn the core concepts of their discipline, private property
is described as an “incentive mechanism” for work and the conserving of scarce resources;
and money is explained as a “unit of account” that serves as a common denominator
for comparing the value of goods bought and sold in the market. Both
descriptions are true and important. But they fail to capture the institutions’ profundity
for the functioning and coordinating of the complex and ever-changing market
order.
Private property and money are, instead, the core – the indispensable features – of
the market economy and the civilization that develops with it. The evolution of private
property rights and a medium of exchange has made possible the economic calculation
without which rational market decision-making would be impossible. And,
again, it is Mises who articulated this most clearly:
Monetary calculation is the guiding star of action under the social system
of division of labor. It is the compass of the man embarking upon production.
He calculates in order to distinguish the remunerative lines of production from
the unprofitable ones… Monetary calculation is the main vehicle of planning and
acting in the social setting of a society of free enterprise directed and controlled
by the market and prices.²³
²² Ludwig von Mises, “Profit and Loss,” [1951] in Planning for Freedom (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian
Press, 1980), p. 120.
²³ Mises, Human Action, pp. 229–30.
Ebeling: Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom 97
We can view the whole market of material factors of production and of labor
as a public auction. The bidders are the entrepreneurs. Their highest bids are
limited by their expectation of the prices the consumers will be ready to pay for
the products… The competition between the entrepreneurs reflects these prices
of consumers’ goods in the formation of the prices of the factors of production…
To the entrepreneur of capitalist society a factor of production through its price
sends out a warning: Don’t touch me, I am earmarked for the satisfaction of
another, more urgent need.²⁴
Only private property enables all marketable commodities and means of production
to be available for sale and purchase in the area of exchange. Only a medium of exchange
provides the means by which heterogeneous things may be reduced to a valuational
common denominator. Only the competitive market enables every participant
in society to contribute to the formation of prices through his bids and offers.²⁵
Only economic calculation enables the integration of billions of people’s actions into
a network of mutually beneficial market relationships and coordinated plans.
Yet every man is free to make his own decisions, guided by his own hopes, dreams,
goals, and plans. The money prices that make economic calculation possible are used
by each individual for his own purposes. He weighs their significance for the ends he
has in mind. He uses them to evaluate his past actions and to plan his future actions.²⁶
He is at liberty to integrate himself into the division of labor on the basis of his own
evaluations of the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action – while bearing
the consequences, good or ill, for the choices he makes.
It is through economic calculation in the free market that individual freedom is
made compatible with social order. It is through economic calculation that billions
²⁴ Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969 [1944]), pp. 28–29.
²⁵ Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism in the Classical Tradition (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for
Economic Education, 1985 [1927]), pp. 71–72. On p. 75 Mises wrote: “This is the decisive objection that
economics raises against the possibility of a socialist society. It must forgo the intellectual division
of labor that consists in the cooperation of all entrepreneurs, landowners, and workers as producers
and consumers in the formation of market prices. But without it, rationality, i.e., the possibility of
economic calculation, is unthinkable.”
²⁶ Mises, Human Action, p. 229: “Monetary calculation is entirely inapplicable and useless for any consideration
which does not look at things from the point of view of individuals… The premeditation of
planned action becomes commercial pre-calculation of expected costs and expected proceeds. The
retrospective establishment of the outcome of past action becomes accounting of profit and loss.”
98 New Perspectives on Political Economy
of individual plans are combined into patterns of rational social coordination. No
wonder Mises concluded that “Our civilization is inseparably linked with our methods
of economic calculation. It would perish if we were to abandon this most precious
intellectual tool of acting.”²⁷
6 The “Law of Association” as the Foundation of Society
Austrians see more in the theory of the division of labor and comparative advantage
than simply the determination of specialization at various prices, given the capital
and labor available. Once again it was Mises who insightfully clarified the implications
of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century classical economists’ views on the
benefits of the division of labor. The theory of the division of labor, Mises explained,
is really the basis of what he called the law of human association and, therefore, the
foundation of a theory of society. Based on Adam Smith’s and David Ricardo’s expositions
of the benefits from specialization, it was possible to show how society emerged
and took form over the centuries as the result of individuals discovering the mutual
benefits from trade.²⁸ The additional gains through specialization resulted in an expanding
network of human relationships. The theory of the division of labor, therefore,
is able to serve as the analytical tool for explaining the emergence of society as
the result of human action but not of human design. As Mises explained this process:
The law of association makes us comprehend the tendencies which resulted
in the progressive intensification of human cooperation. We conceive what incentive
induced people to not consider themselves simply as rivals in a struggle
for the appropriation of limited supplies of means of subsistence made available
by nature. We realize what has impelled them and permanently impels them to
²⁷ Mises, Human Action, p. 230.
²⁸ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations Book I, Chapters 1–3 (New York: The Modern Library, 1937 [1776]),
pp. 3–21; Piero Sraffa, ed., The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, vol. I: On the Principles
of Political Economy and Taxation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951 [1821]), pp. 128–49;
Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise on Political Economy, or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption
of Wealth (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1971 [1821]), pp. 90–99; John R. McCulloch, The Principles of
Political Economy, with Some Inquiries Respecting Their Applications (New York: Augustus M. Kelley,
1965 [1864]), pp. 37–46, 85–116.
Ebeling: Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom 99
consort with one another for the sake of cooperation… Thus we are in a position
to comprehend the course of human evolution.²⁹
The theory of the division of labor and comparative advantage becomes the basis
for a “science of society.” A foundation is laid for the theory of market relationships,
the interconnections between supply and demand, and the network of market prices
for finished goods and the factors of production. The way is opened to understanding
the “inevitable laws of the market and exchange,” which is “one of the greatest
achievements of the human mind.”³⁰
Out of the classical economists’ theory of the division of labor there now comes
the classical-liberal “philosophy of peace and social cooperation,” which is the basis
“for the astonishing development of the economic civilization of [our] age.”³¹ The
greater material productivity of a peaceful division of labor, Mises explained, provides
the means for the development of what we call civilization. The means are now provided
for leisure and the peace of mind required for art, literature, and scientific and
philosophic reflection.
Men increasingly become differentiated from one another, but not only in the
specialized tasks and skills through which they find their place in the division of labor.
They also differentiate themselves by developing their individual personalities,
thanks to the greater abundance of resources and free time with which they can cultivate
the pursuits that most interest them. Individualism, meaning man as distinct
from the tribal mass and unique in his character and qualities as a singular human
being, is a product of the extension and intensification of the division of labor.³²
At the same time, the division of labor and its law of association are the foundation
for a philosophy of world peace. Through specialization and exchange, men
become allies against the niggardliness of nature. No longer are individuals and nations
opponents, where the improvement of one requires a loss to another. Instead,
all benefit from everyone’s talents, industry, and creativity.
²⁹ Mises, Human Action, pp. 160–61.
³⁰ Ludwig von Mises, Interventionism: An Economic Analysis (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation
for Economic Education, 1998 [1941]), p. 24.
³¹ Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics,
1981 [1922]), pp. 55–56, 268–69.
³² Mises, Socialism, pp. 256–72; Human Action, pp. 157–74.
100 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Competition, both within and between nations, is no longer a life-and-death
struggle. The competitive market process becomes the peaceful procedure through
which each member of society finds his most productive and profitable niche for
improving his own circumstances by furthering the ends of others. Again, Mises captured
the essence of this great social process:
All collaborate and cooperate, each in the particular role he has chosen for
himself in the framework of the division of labor. Competing in cooperation
and cooperating in competition all people are instrumental in bringing about
the result, viz., the price structure of the market, the allocation of the factors of
production to the various lines of want-satisfaction, and the determination of
the share of each individual.³³
The world, therefore, becomes one community of free men who, though separated
by time, distance, and interest, are peacefully guided to assist one another by the
information and incentives supplied by market prices. People’s buying and selling
determine the patterns of production that best serve the wants and needs of all humanity.
The market economy thus is the means to the peaceful unity of mankind.
7 The Political Economy of Freedom
None of these Austrian insights about man and the market is compatible with the
positivist, historicist, and neoclassical economic views of the world. Reduced to
physical object or mathematical function, man is stripped of his most essential
human qualities. What are intention and imagination, choice and creativity, if the
human mind is banished from social and economic analysis? What meaning, therefore,
does freedom have when man is merely a measured magnitude or a dependent
variable in a system of simultaneous equations?
It should not be surprising that so many members of the Austrian School of
economics have also been classical liberals – defenders of individual liberty, private
property, and the market economy. Once you see the individual as thinking, creating,
and acting man, with so much potential within him, who can tolerate the idea
³³ Mises, Human Action, p. 338.
Ebeling: Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom 101
of making him the slave to another’s will – of denying him his humanness? Once
you comprehend the majesty of the market order, in which each man is free to follow
his own plans while advancing the welfare of others, who can want to restrict him to
the dictates of a central planner or political intervener? Once one understands the
significance of prices for social coordination within the market process, who can presume
to have the knowledge and ability to command humanity’s consumption and
production?³⁴
It is no wonder, therefore, that so many of freedom’s friends have been influenced
by the Austrian economists. In the last 100 years, they have been the true political
economists of liberty. The Austrian School of economics has enriched our understanding
of the market economy and advanced the cause of freedom in our time.
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[3] Dolan, Edwin G., ed. 1976. The Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics.
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and Consumption of Wealth [1821]. New York: Augustus M. Kelley.
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ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 3, Number 1, 2007, pp. 105 – 121
Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An
Austrian Critique of the Hausmann-Rodrik New Argument
for Industrial Policy
Bogdan Glăvan¹
JEL Classification: D21, L51, O31
Abstract: The information externality in entrepreneurship theory argues that the social
benefits arising from entrepreneurial actions are greater than the private gains.
Entrepreneurs who discover profit opportunities signal to other entrepreneurs efficient
path of investments, and the latter can imitate the former acting upon this information.
Market failure to internalize this information externality creates a useful
role for the state, which can provide adequate incentives by subsidizing investment
in new projects. We criticize this theory by pointing out that it is both irrelevant and
inconsistent. An inadequate view of entrepreneurship is responsible for most of these
weaknesses.
¹ Bogdan Glăvan is Assistant Professor of economics at the Romanian-American University in
Bucharest. The author wishes to thank Dragoş Aligică and two anonymous referees for comments
on an earlier draft of this paper. All remaining errors are my own.
106 New Perspectives on Political Economy
1 Introduction
A number of development economists have advanced the idea that the key obstacle
to economic growth in less developed regions is the insufficient level of entrepreneurship.
This problem arises because markets do not generate adequate incentives to reward
entrepreneurship. Thus, entrepreneurship is seen as having some public good
characteristics. In particular, Hausmann and Rodrik (2003; 2005), Iyigun and Rodrik
(2004) and Rodrik (2004) have focused on a new type of entrepreneurship-related
externality that prevents the market from working efficiently – “information exter-
nality”.
As the information externality argument goes, exploiting new business opportunities
has considerable positive externalities for other entrepreneurs, who can learn
about the profitability of certain ventures and can act accordingly. This means that
entrepreneurship will be under-supplied and that government should correct market
failure, providing proper incentives in order to reach the optimal level of en-
trepreneurship.
This paper attempts to refute this argument and implicitly outline an alternative
view of the relationship between entrepreneurship and development. It uses Hausmann
and Rodrik’s thesis as an example of this approach and criticizes the claim that
entrepreneurship presents positive externalities which prevent the optimal allocation
of resources. Its goal is to demonstrate that despite the supposed discovery of new
market failures, the case for government intervention is no better at the present than
it was decades ago. In particular, the objective is to show that Austrian economists
have addressed issues regarding the relation between entrepreneurship and development,
and successfully answered the argument that government policy can improve
market outcomes.
The paper is organized as follows. The next section presents the case for government
intervention advanced by Hausmann and Rodrik. Section two explains the role
of entrepreneurs in the economy. In section three, Hausmann and Rodrik’s model
of market failure is shown to be irrelevant because of the nonrealistic treatment of
uncertainty in social life. Section four demonstrates that the information externality
Glăvan: Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An Austrian … 107
theory of entrepreneurship is inconsistent on its own terms. Section four concludes
the paper.
2 Information Externality in Entrepreneurship
Rodrik and Hausmann are considered two of the best economists in the field of development
economics at the present. Their recent contribution lies in rebuilding the
case for development policy after this seemed to be definitively compromised during
the last decades of successive failures of different “models of development”. More precisely,
Rodrick and Hausmann have discovered a new problem in the functioning of
the market economy, which the government is able to alleviate in order to generate
an optimal rate of growth.
From the very beginning, Hausmann and Rodrick prefer to assume, as early development
economists, that the free market is inherently flawed.² Then they attempt to
build a strategy for government intervention to correct market weaknesses and foster
development.
For Rodrick, at the root of economic growth is innovation that enables productivity
to grow (Rodrick 2004, p. 4). Innovation, in turn, is the product of entrepreneurial
activity, the task of which is to “discover” the set of goods that need to be produced.
This undertaking is, obviously, a tricky job. For entrepreneurs, economic theory,
management abilities and technological knowledge are of no help. The main problem
is the uncertainty about the outcome of entrepreneurial actions.³ If making the
right investment decision is so difficult, one could expect the reward for successful
undertakings to be accordingly high. Yet this is not so. As Hausmann and Rodrik
(2003, p. 4) argue, “the initial entrepreneur who makes the ‘discovery’ can capture
only a small part of the social value that this knowledge generates”.
The situation is, in Hausmann and Rodrik’s opinion, similar to the problem of gen²
“I start also from generic market failures, but then I take it as a given that the location and magnitude
of these market failures is highly uncertain” Rodrik (2004, p. 3).
³ “Most fundamentally, market prices cannot reveal the profitability of resource allocations that do not
yet exist. (In general equilibrium theory, this is finessed by assuming that markets are “complete” and
there is a price for everything.) The returns from investing in non-traditional activities are therefore
hazy at best” Rodrik (2004, p. 7).
108 New Perspectives on Political Economy
uine innovation (in developed countries). As the argument goes, private economic
agents allocate less than the optimal amount of resources in R&D activities, because
they cannot capture all the benefits resulting from innovation; a part of them simply
accrue to society.⁴ Therefore, here is a typical externality problem. In developed
countries the government can solve this particular market failure by subsidizing research
and innovation or by granting patents to the producers of brand new goods.
The issue is slightly different in developing countries. Here, the task of entrepreneurs
is not to come up with an original product, but to ‘discover’ that a certain good, already
established in world markets, can be produced at home at lower cost” (Rodrik
2004, p. 9). Like genuine innovation, discovering what good deserves to be produced
is an activity that has socially positive effects. If the entrepreneur succeeds in his
undertaking, he will soon be challenged by other individuals who will imitate him and
start identical production processes. However, the entrepreneur who fails to identify
the right product bears the whole cost of his venture. Thus, each entrepreneur has
strong incentives not to go first in discovering the profitability of a new venture, but
instead wait for others to undertake the project, and then imitate them. The outcome
is that there will be a less than adequate level of investment in new projects. Unfortunately,
there is no policy to address the market failure arising from the imitative
nature of human beings. The logical consequence, in the authors’ opinion, is that
“free entry makes the non-appropriability problem worse, and undercuts the incentive
to invest in discovering what a country is good at producing. Laissez-faire cannot
be the optimal solution under these circumstances, just as it is not in the case of R&D
in new products” (Hausmann and Rodrik 2003, p. 6).
In order to alleviate the problem, the authors argue for an upgraded industrial policy,
which should include trade protection, temporary monopolies, fiscal incentives
and subsidized credit for the entrepreneurs engaging in new production processes.
The state should manage carefully the provision of rents to avoid being captured by
the various interest groups:
We recommend generically a carrot-and-stick strategy. Since self-discovery
requires rents to be provided to entrepreneurs, one side of the policy has to take
⁴ A succinct presentation and critique of public subsidization of research can be found in Wallsten
(2000).
Glăvan: Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An Austrian … 109
the form of a carrot. This can be a subsidy of some kind, trade protection, or the
provision of venture capital. Note that the logic of the problem requires that the
rents be provided only to the initial investor, not to copycats. To ensure that mistakes
are not perpetuated and bad projects are phased out, these rents must in
turn be subject either to performance requirements (for example, a requirement
to export), or to close monitoring of the uses to which they are put. In other
words, there has to be a stick to discipline opportunistic action by the recipient
of the subsidy. (Rodrik 2004, p. 11)⁵
3 Entrepreneurship and Institutional Framework
A number of considerations prompt us to claim that Hausmann and Rodrik’s model
of market failure in development does not enrich the understanding of how entrepreneurship
contributes to development, is unrealistic, and internally inconsistent.
In what follows, we will analyze some of its weaknesses closely.
Although Hausmann and Rodrik do not provide a definition of what they understand
by entrepreneurship, after reading their argument one cannot avoid a simple
conclusion. In the authors’ perspective, entrepreneurs represent a class of individuals
(businessmen) who are inhibited from pursuing their actions because of the inadequate
rewards provided by the market mechanism.
This account of entrepreneurship is unrealistic. Entrepreneurship can be defined
as an immanent function of human behavior (Mises 1949, pp. 252-253; Kirzner 1973;
1992). All human decisions concerning the allocation of resources are taken in uncertainty.
Individuals intend to improve their future wellbeing, and consequently, they
are required to anticipate the development of economic conditions.
Since entrepreneurship is an inherent aspect of human action, it is pointless to
analyze the market process in terms of density of entrepreneurial activity. We cannot
properly speak of an inadequate level of entrepreneurship, because all existing
⁵ In Rodrik’s opinion, there is nothing wrong in principle with such a policy. The failure of industrial
policy in Latin America and other parts of the world is not explained by the intrinsic contradictions
of government policy, but by the inability of certain governments to put in place a correct policy.
See Rodrik (2004, p. 11). Curiously, Rodrik’s favorite example of “smart” interventionism is South
Korea, and this despite the fact that the “Asian model” of development has been compromised in
most people’s eyes by the economic crisis of 1997.
110 New Perspectives on Political Economy
economic activity is entrepreneurial in the sense that it is always speculative, coping
with uncertainty, and attempting to discover new and more profitable investment opportunities.
Consequently, we cannot conclude that the market fails because it does
not reach a higher density of entrepreneurship, and that this prevents the optimal
allocation of resources and economic development.
Human actions enhance overall welfare to a higher or lesser degree, depending
upon the institutional environment within which they are exercised. Institutions
frame human behavior and result in a pattern of incentives and constraints that
shape individual activity. The existence of certain institutions (essentially, private
property and economic freedom) stimulates individuals to undertake productive activities,
while a different institutional framework (heavy government regulation of the
market, taxation and corruption) creates incentives for unproductive entrepreneur-
ship.
Contrary to Iyigun and Rodrik (2004, p. 32), the level of entrepreneurship does
not depend on the magnitude of rents created by government policy. Entrepreneurial
spirit is inherent in any human action. People do not undertake more or less activities
depending upon the institutional framework established by policymakers. Different
policy strategies influence only the payoff of different activities and thus, the type of
entrepreneurship exercised at a given moment. The presence of heavy regulation, industrial
policy, and unclear definition of property rights encourages the development
of unproductive entrepreneurship. Adequate policy reform cannot result in increasing
the number of entrepreneurs but, by granting more economic freedom, should
provide incentives for the development of productive behavior.⁶
Besides adopting an inadequate perspective on entrepreneurship, Hausmann and
Rodrik’s argument is unfeasible on its own grounds. In the next sections we explore in
more detail some of its shortcomings. We prefer to leave aside the general weaknesses
of the theory of externalities and public goods – which have been comprehensively
analyzed by Block (1983), Hoppe (1989), Hummel (1990) and Holcombe (1997) – and
focus instead on the particular case of externalities in entrepreneurship.
⁶ See Coyne and Leeson (2004, p. 4, table 1) for a short description of the institutional framework
conducive to productive entrepreneurship.
Glăvan: Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An Austrian … 111
4 Uncertainty and Entrepreneurship
In Hausmann and Rodrik’s model (2003, p. 6), there are two main production possibilities:
entrepreneurs may choose between production of “traditional” goods, “where
there is no uncertainty”, and production of new goods, which has “uncertain productivity”.
This is hardly a realistic description of reality. For the economists who accept
the distinction between uncertain investments and safe production, the implications
of Hausmann and Rodrik’s model are more comprehendible. By definition, the impossibility
of capturing all the benefits from investments in modern (uncertain) activities
forces entrepreneurs to take refuge in traditional (safe) production activities.
For Hausmann and Rodrik, the main task the government and businessmen have to
accomplish is to find the set of new activities, with significant spillover effects, which
can accelerate growth.⁷ Then, through the fine tuning of subsidies and penalties,
entrepreneurs can be induced to develop these activities, and the market failure is
corrected.
The artificial assumption of the model obscures the truth that any activity is inherently
uncertain. As Mises (1998, p. 805) noticed, the “owner of capital does not
choose between more risky, less risky, and safe investments. He is forced by the
very operation of the market economy, to invest his funds in such a way as to supply
the most urgent needs of the consumers to the best possible extent”. Therefore,
entrepreneurs have no possibility to avoid the market pressure to change production
according to consumers’ wishes. They cannot refuse to adjust production because
the uncertainty is too high. When entrepreneurs do not undertake an investment
project, it is always because of the higher profit they expect to obtain elsewhere.
In fact, one could argue that government policy is a constant source of uncertainty.
Through its constantly changing regulations and provision of rents – trade
protection, legal monopolies, fiscal privileges etc. – the government enhances or dilutes
the uncertainty associated with the operation of specific industries. Very often
what is considered to be a lack of “entrepreneurial spirit” is caused by an institutional
framework adverse to productive activity and economic growth (Coyne and Leeson
⁷ Empirically, the authors illustrate their argument with the establishment of software research in India,
the cut flower industry in Colombia, the salmon industry in Chile – where the state played an
important role – and several notorious transfers of technology realized by private entrepreneurs.
112 New Perspectives on Political Economy
2004, p. 236). Entrepreneurial behavior is dependent on the political institutions that
govern the market process.
Any entrepreneurial initiative is new, in the sense that it has not been tried before.
Rodrik’s “imitators” who undertake additional investments in a certain line of production
do not simply copy previous successful ventures. They are still entrepreneurs,
and they have to discover whether it pays or not to invest additional resources and
enlarge a certain production process. Because of the ever-changing economic conditions,
entrepreneurs must continuously judge the opportunity of continuing investment
in an established process of production. As Boettke and Coyne (2005, p. 202)
explain: “Given the presence of uncertainty, entrepreneurs (and all economic agents)
must always speculate to some degree on what the future will bring. As time passes
and new data become available via entrepreneurial discovery, past uncertainty is removed
and new uncertainty is introduced.” Therefore, past empirical knowledge is a
poor guide for future action.
Besides these considerations, why is new necessarily better? The degree of novelty
of additional investments can be discovered only by entrepreneurial experimentation,
and one cannot postulate a priori that new (that is, original, never attempted before)
investments are more profitable than old (traditional) investments. Our authors fail
to offer a satisfactory answer to this question, as to many others.
5 Entrepreneurship, Discovery and Imitation
The externality in entrepreneurship argument is built around the idea that entrepreneurs
who discover new business opportunities signal to others the opportunity
to extend their own businesses. Boettke and Coyne (2003, p. 78, footnote 7) have
noticed the same idea: “The entrepreneurial aspect of human action is, in a sense,
self-sustaining since it creates an environment of further discovery”.⁸
This process of knowledge spillover represents the basis for Hausmann and Rodrik’s
assertion that the state should mitigate the problem of informational externalities
by supporting entrepreneurial initiative. The leakage of knowledge resulting
⁸ For a critique of the view that entrepreneurship will be under-supplied because of this externality
problem, see Boettke and Coyne (2005).
Glăvan: Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An Austrian … 113
from the entrepreneurial discovery of profit opportunities is considered a variant of
the externality problem associated with innovation. As the authors argue:
The problem faced by potential entrepreneurs in developing countries is
identical to the problem faced by innovators in the advanced industrial countries.
However, the policy environments facing the ‘innovators’ in the two settings
are quite different. Typically, the intellectual property regime protects
discoverers of new goods through the issuance of temporary monopolies, i.e.,
patents. But the investor in the developing country who figures out that an existing
good can be produced profitably at home does not normally get such protection,
no matter how high the social return. Indeed, ease of entry by competitors
(i.e., imitators or copycats) is normally judged to be an important indicator of
how well markets function—the lower the barriers to entry, the better. Free entry
makes the nonappropriability problem worse, and undercuts the incentive to
invest in discovering what a country is good at producing. Laissez-faire cannot
be the optimal solution under these circumstances, just as it is not in the case of
R&D in new products. (Hausmann and Rodrik 2003, pp. 5-6)
However, both the assumption that the patent system is essential for protecting technological
discovery and the implication that developing countries need an analogous
system to protect entrepreneurial discovery are unwarranted. First, the merits of the
actual patent system have been contested by an number of writers.⁹ It is arguable
that this system is consistent with the institution of private property rights or that
it fosters innovation. Secondly, economic discovery of profit opportunities is different
by nature from technological advance or scientific breakthrough, because it is
intrinsically linked to any human action.
The fact that “knowledge acquired in the process of discovering one’s costs spills
over to other potential entrepreneurs” (Hausmann and Rodrik 2003, p. 5, footnote 5)
has no economic meaning. Relevant knowledge is specific knowledge, depending on
circumstances of time and space. In fact, nobody is interested in acquiring knowledge
as such, but only information specific to his own actions. For example, what matters
is not whether other individuals posses my knowledge of using a certain subway train
⁹ For a review of the literature and a critique of intellectual property rights, see Kinsella (2001).
114 New Perspectives on Political Economy
to arrive to a specified destination, but if they consider it useful or not for their own
purposes. As Hülsmann (1999, p. 63-64) says:
Entrepreneurial decisions are not taken in a time-and space-less vacuum,
but under specific conditions, which permit the successful performance of some
actions and preclude the success of other actions… Entrepreneurial judgments
are “historical” judgments, that is, they have to grasp the unique combination
of circumstances that actually prevails and to anticipate, in the light of ongoing
events, the unique conditions that will prevail in the future.
Entrepreneurs have to discern always between relevant and irrelevant information,
and their choice of accumulating additional information results not from passively
incorporating signals spread by other entrepreneurs, but from their judgment of market
conditions.
Rodrik’s claim that if leave it to the market, innovation will be insufficient because
the innovator “has to share the value of his discovery with other producers who can
follow (my emphasis) his example and flock into the new activity” (Rodrik 2004, p. 9)
is wrong. The basic issue concerning the attitude of other individuals is not whether
they can expand their business following their fellows, but if they should adopt such
a course of action. Imitation is a very simple action, or rather, reaction. It represents
an option available not only for human (mentally healthy) adults, but also for
other human beings and non-human beings. Entrepreneurs, however, must judge
the opportunity of any activity, including imitative behavior, and act accordingly.¹⁰
Moreover, we should not overlook the fact that to imitate somebody’s action supposes
that the imitator has to incur some costs, just like any other acting person.
Competitors appear only if they estimate costs are lower than the discounted marginal
income to resulting from production (which means the existing supply is not right).
One should not assume, as Rodrik does, that this situation is the only possible case.
¹⁰ As Mises (1998, p. 582) explains: “What distinguishes the successful entrepreneur and promoter
from other people is precisely the fact that he does not let himself be guided by what was and is, but
arranges his affairs on the ground of his opinion about the future. He sees the past and present as other
people do, but he judges the future in a different way […] If the present structure of prices renders
very profitable the business of those who are today selling the articles concerned, their production
will expand only to the extent that entrepreneurs believe that the favorable market constellation will
last long enough to make new investments pay. If entrepreneurs do not expect this, even very high
profits of the enterprises already operating will not bring about an expansion.”
Glăvan: Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An Austrian … 115
Still another problem with the imitation argument is that it proves too much. If
imitation is such an effective course of action, we shall expect people to behave like
a herd. Moreover, one could wonder why one would act at all, given that imitation
pays for itself and private returns to new actions are so low. Yet herd behavior is too
easy a refuge for those lacking a reasonable explanation of human action.
It should not be forgotten that, in a larger sense, appropriability is never absolute
or, to put it differently, imitation is always possible. One may see the “leakage”
of information about investment opportunities as similar to the “theft” of any other
economic good. But nobody has argued that theft – or, for that matter, imitation –
should be prevented at all cost (Demsetz 1969, p. 10).
Further, there is another problem with the argument that the danger of imitation
prevents entrepreneurs from discovering profit opportunities. Ease of entry is
another name for high exclusion costs. The idea that ease of entry undermines entrepreneurial
actions boils down to the thesis that exclusion costs make more difficult
economic initiatives. But this is misleading. There is no such thing as cost-free
action. Exclusion costs, like transportation costs or labor costs are economic costs
which must be taken into account before deciding upon the allocation of resources.
The fact that the height of exclusion costs discourages some action is no more relevant
than the fact that high transportation costs prevent a doctor from selling his
services to a distant customer. If we pursue the argument to its logical conclusion, we
should maintain that this is a good reason for state subsidization of the doctor’s long
distance activity.¹¹ But this is hardly acceptable. Therefore, it is obvious that one cannot
derive any sound conclusion by comparing real world situations with the (perfect
competition-based) model of Hausmann and Rodrik, where free entry is costless.
Last, but not least, the imitation argument does not lead to where its advocates
intend to arrive. Suppose individual X engages in discovering the cost of producing
good Y. His action can have only two possible outcomes: either it ends with a profit
or with a loss. Rodrik maintains that discovering a profitable opportunity has great
social benefits, because it fosters the efficient allocation of resources. But what if X
fails in his venture? Does not society owe something to him because he discovered
¹¹ For a similar observation with regard to the argument that the mere existence of costs prevents the
optimal allocation of resources, see Demsetz (1969, p. 7).
116 New Perspectives on Political Economy
(unintentionally) what business is not efficient to undertake and, therefore, has reduced
the range of opportunities that have to be explored by entrepreneurs?¹² As can
be easily observed, this will absurdly imply that government should provide subsidies
to all entrepreneurs, because each of them helps – one way or the other – society to
improve the allocation of resources and accelerate development.
6 Correcting Market Failure in Entrepreneurship: A Final Critique
Leaving aside the criticism outlined above, how could Rodrik’s argument that entrepreneurship
will be under-produced because of inadequate incentives be proven?
What criteria should be used to find whether or not a certain type of entrepreneurship
is under-supplied? Obviously, the question how many entrepreneurial opportunities
exist and how many initiatives capture these opportunities is an empirical question
(Hülsmann 1999, p. 64). But one cannot discover the number of entrepreneurial opportunities
and compare it with the number of exploited opportunities, because all
one can notice is the number of entrepreneurial initiatives undertaken at a certain
moment.
Hausmann and Rodrik acknowledge implicitly the difficulty of finding an empirical
proof for their argument when they maintain that:
Looking for systematic evidence that successful investments are rapidly
copied is a self-defeating strategy because there shouldn’t be much evidence of
this sort to the extent that our model does capture an important part of reality.
Entrepreneurial initiatives of this kind should tend to remain episodic, almost
random events – not systematic ones… Similarly, if we were to learn that many
successful new firms from developing countries operate with technologies that
¹² A simple example will clarify the issue further. Imagine there are two roads leading to a certain
destination, and a group of individuals undecided which way they should take. Each individual may
choose not to be the first starter, but wait for others to go check which way is shorter and then follow
the people who made the right choice. One could say this is a case for subsidizing the individual
who discovers the shorter road, since his action benefits the entire group. But why not subsidize the
individual who takes his chance and (unfortunately) discovers the longer road? Does not his action
equally help the group in making the right decision?
Glăvan: Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An Austrian … 117
are hard to copy or have devised successful strategies of product differentiation
(with protection against imitative entry), this apparently contradictory finding
may in fact be quite consistent with our model. After all, a direct implication
of our argument is that only investments that provide such protection will be
undertaken in equilibrium. (Hausmann and Rodrik 2003, p. 18)
In other words, the impossibility of an empirical validation of their assertions does
not discourage the authors to maintain their thesis. On the contrary, by a switch of
argument, they assume that this observation supposedly defends their argument.
It is quite easier, rather, to use the overwhelming empirical evidence to criticize
the information externality theory of entrepreneurship. As Boettke and Coyne (2005,
p. 209) point out, “in fact, our historical experience with markets defies what narrow
economic theory might dictate. Entrepreneurs capture profits by exercising the
knowledge they have of ‘time and place’ and revealing the information they are in
possession of through their actions in the marketplace”.
Even if we overlook the difficulty of proving empirically the hypothesis that entrepreneurs
fail to exploit all profit opportunities, the conclusion that government
should support the entrepreneurial search for profitable investments is equally difficult
to implement. In particular, Rodrik’s provision that government should offer
subsidies only to new activities is questionable. In the author’s view, “the main purpose
of industrial policy is to diversify the economy and generate new areas of comparative
advantage… ‘New’ refers to both products that are new to the local economy
and to new technologies for producing an existing product” (Rodrik 2004, p. 21). But
this has no practical relevance at all, and it opens the Pandora’s Box of government
abuses, rent seeking, and waste. Is building inter-continental missiles or intelligence
satellites new enough? Is growing bananas in Russia or cocoa trees in the United
States not a new activity? Well, one cannot be sure if all such new activities are profitable,
but at least governments are encouraged to pump in money and help businessmen
find the answer. Moreover, state bureaucrats need not let the fear of wasting
resources restrain them from channeling funds toward their preferred projects, because
making mistakes is inevitable. “If governments make no mistakes, it only means
that they are not trying hard enough” (Rodrik 2004, p. 25). It results logically that
Rodrik sets no limit for government subsidization programs.
118 New Perspectives on Political Economy
The case for subsidization can be helped if we confine it only to successful ventures
and not to “new” activities in general. That is, government should rather distribute
prizes to those who have demonstrated their superior ability in forecasting
consumer needs. In this case, Hausmann and Rodrik have to acknowledge that the
government needs to stop operating an industrial policy or (market failure-correcting
policy) and start a simple redistributive policy.¹³ But then, the importance of these
writers’ contribution to development economics and industrial policy evaporates, because
there is no solid economic or ethical ground for redistribution.
An additional question, to which Hausmann and Rodrik offer no satisfactory answer,
is how the new investments are to be financed. According to the information
externality theory of entrepreneurship, the financial market does not provide a proper
solution, given that the market is too blind to finance the “longer term and riskier” investments
in development of new products.¹⁴ As a consequence, the state should support
investment through funding development banks and venture funds, and provide
public guarantees for long-term investment projects that cannot fulfill the requirements
of private bankers. There are several problems with this opinion.
First, in order to see if it is economically efficient to support entrepreneurship in
new investments one has to compare the benefits derived from subsidization (a higher
level of entrepreneurship and a more complete exploitation of profit opportunities)
with the costs associated with government interventionism (a larger bureaucracy, a
higher level of taxation and rent-seeking, and eventually a weaker incentive to work
and produce goods demanded by the public). But there is no infallible method for
this type of calculation.
First, public investment funding distorts the functioning of the capital market
and falsifies the time preference of individuals. Because the state interferes with the
market allocation of saving, a process of crowding out will put private (unprivileged)
entrepreneurs in the position of being unable to undertake investments necessary to
provide consumers with the goods they desire.¹⁵
¹³ In fact, any government policy implies redistribution.
¹⁴ This is a strange consideration, given that many critics of the free market share an opposite idea, and
blame the market for gambling too many of society’s resources in high-risk investments.
¹⁵ Mises explains: “It is proposed that a railroad, the construction and operation of which does not
promise profitability, is to be made possible by a government subsidy. It may be, it is said, that the
Glăvan: Entrepreneurship, Externalities and Development: An Austrian … 119
Secondly, subsidization represents an alternative method of financing business
plans. Even if entrepreneurs use public funds to start a new investment, they could alternatively
fund this project naturally, from private savings. If the government wants
to “correct” a market failure (and not to displace the market altogether), then it should
choose to finance those projects that are rejected by banks or any other private savings
institution. But this consideration immediately raises an insurmountable problem.
There are an immense number of investment projects private individuals would not
fund: transportation to the moon, production of water using chemical reactions, replacement
of today’s car engines with solar energy propulsion etc. Does the market
failure argument imply that government should support all these projects? If not,
what criteria should be used to divide between worthy and unworthy investment
ideas? All these questions can hardly be answered in an unambiguous way.
7 Conclusions
In this paper I have tried to address some of the more important problems associated
with the information externality theory of entrepreneurship, as exposed by
Hausmann and Rodrik. In particular, I have shown that these writers’ argument that
the market fails to provide sufficient entrepreneurial actions is based on a misunderstanding
of the notion of entrepreneurship. Further, Hausmann and Rodrik’s thesis
cannot be defended empirically and is internally inconsistent, and, thus, it fails to advance
the case for industrial policy. Overall, the attempt to theorize new market failures
and build a solid framework for market-correcting policies has to be considered
unsatisfactory.
railroad is not profitable in the usual sense of the word and that, therefore, it is not attractive to entrepreneurs
and capitalists, but it would contribute to the development of the whole region. It would
promote trade, commerce, and agriculture and thus it would make an important contribution to the
progress of the economy […] This reasoning is thoroughly mistaken […] Certainly, these subsidies
contribute to the economic development of a region where otherwise less would be produced. But
the production increase in the part of the country thus favored by the government’s railroad policy is
to be contrasted with the burden placed on production and consumption in those parts of the country
which have to pay the costs of the government policy.”
120 New Perspectives on Political Economy
Bibliography
[1] Block, Walter. 1983. “Public Goods and Externalities: The Case of Roads”. Journal
of Libertarian Studies 7(1): 1-34.
[2] Boettke, Peter J. and Coyne, Cristopher. J. 2005. “Concerting Entrepreneurship:
An International Public Good”. In Padoan. P. C. and Boyd. G. eds.. Structural
Partenering for a New Atlantic Economy: Complementary Entrepreneurship for
Balanced Interdependence. Edward Elgar.
[3] Boettke, Peter and Coyne, Cristopher. 2003. “Entrepreneurship and Development:
Cause or Consequence”. Advances in Austrian Economics 6: 67-87.
[4] Coyne, Cristopher J. and Leeson, Peter T. 2004. “The Plight of Underdeveloped
Countries”. Cato Journal 24(3): 235-249.
[5] Demsetz, Harold. 1969. “Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint”. Journal
of Law and Economics 12(1): 1-22.
[6] Hausmann, Ricardo and Rodrick, Dani. 2003. “Economic Development as SelfDiscovery”.
Journal of Development Economics 72(2): 603-633.
[7] Hausmann, Ricardo and Rodrik, Dani. 2005. “It Is Not How Much But What
You Export That Matters”. Working Paper. November. Harvard University.
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~drodrik/papers.html
[8] Holcombe, Randall G. 1997. “A Theory of the Theory of Public Goods”. Review
of Austrian Economics 10(1): 1-22.
[9] Holcombe, Randall G. 1998. “Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth”. The
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 1(2): 45-62.
[10] Holcombe, Randall G. 2003 a. “The Origins of Entrepreneurial Opportunities”.
Review of Austrian Economics 16(1): 25-43.
[11] Holcombe, Randall G. 2003 b. “Progress and Entrepreneurship”. The Quarterly
Journal of Austrian Economics 6(3): 3-26.
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[12] Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. 1989. A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Boston.
Kluwer.
[13] Hummel, Jeffrey R. 1990. “National Goods Versus Public Goods: Defense, Disarmament,
and Free Riders”. Review of Austrian Economics 4: 88-122.
[14] Hülsmann, Jörg Guido. 1999. “Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth: Comment
on Holcombe”. The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economic 2(2): 63-65.
[15] Iyigun, Murat and Rodrik, Dani. 2004. “On the Efficacy of Reforms: Policy
Tinkering, Institutional Change, and Entrepreneurship”. NBER Working Paper
10455.
[16] Kinsella, Stephan N. 2001. “Against Intellectual Property”. Journal of Libertarian
Studies 15(2): 1-53.
[17] Kirzner, Israel. 1973. Competition and Entrepreneurship. Chicago. University of
Chicago Press.
[18] Kirzner, Israel. 1992. The Meaning of the Market Process. London. Routledge.
[19] Mises, Ludwig von. 1998. Interventionism. An Economic Analysis. Irvington-onHudson.
The Foundation for Economic Education.
[20] Mises, Ludwig von. 1998. Human Action. Scholar’s edition. Auburn. Ala.: Ludwig
von Mises Institute.
[21] Rodrik, Dani. 2004. “Industrial Policy for the Twenty-First Century”. Working
Paper. October. Harvard University.
[22] Wallsten, Scott. 2000. “The R&D Boondoggle: Why is Government Subsidizing
Commercially Promising Business Projects?”. Regulation 23(4): 12-16.
ISSN 1801-0938
New Perspectives on Political Economy
Volume 3, Number 1, 2007, pp. 123 – 128
Book Review
Bryan Caplan. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad
Policies. Princeton University Press, 2007.
124 New Perspectives on Political Economy
All serious students of political economy should read The Myth of the Rational
Voter. It attempts to answer one of the most important questions in political economy
– why democracies choose bad policies. Caplan’s answer is bold. He claims that
governments do not fail to produce good outcomes because of special interests or
self-interested bureaucrats or politicians. Instead, he argues that voters largely get
the policies they want, but voter beliefs on economic issues are irrational and systematically
biased. He does this while arguing that even though traditional neoclassical
theory assumes rationality, he is well within that framework. Voters are rationally
irrational.
Traditional Virginia School public choice theory explains that democratic governments
fail to do what is efficient because voters are rationally ignorant about public
policies and what politicians do, allowing politicians and special interests to hijack
the political system for their own private benefit. The evolution of Chicago School
public choice from Stigler to Becker and ultimately Wittman is the main challenge
to this view.¹ Wittman argues that democratic failure is a myth. He contends that
behind every theory of democratic failure is an assumption of serious lack of competition,
excessively high negotiation costs, or extreme voter stupidity. Wittman argues
that economists who are extremely skeptical of these assumptions in markets should
also be skeptical of them in the political arena. Wittman argues that none of these
assumptions hold and thus democratic outcomes are efficient. The Myth of the Rational
Voter’s greatest strength, and ironically its greatest weakness, is that it steps
inside Wittman’s framework and tirelessly argues that a single assumption, extreme
voter stupidity, is in fact correct. His conclusion is that even with the Chicago School
framework, democratic governments fail to select efficient policies.
Caplan argues that extreme voter stupidity, which he equates with irrationality, is
both empirically supported and is consistent with neoclassical economic theory. It is
the next logical step from rational ignorance. In the political sphere, the benefit or
cost that accrues to the individual voter as a result of his vote is virtually zero. Because
there is a positive cost associated with acquiring enough information to cast a wellinformed
vote, individuals make the rational decision to remain ignorant. Caplan,
¹ See Wittman, Donald. 1995. The Myth of Democratic Failure: Why Political Institutions Are Efficient.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Book Review 125
like Wittman and mainstream economics, equates ignorance with random noise such
that errors are normally distributed with a mean of zero. But Caplan argues that
because the cost of a vote with negative consequences is zero, voters are not only
rationally ignorant, they are also rationally irrational where the mean error is not
zero and that this has serious consequences for the efficiency of democracy.
If there is a benefit to irrationality – if people derive utility from holding a belief
in a policy that will not produce the intended outcome – as the price of irrationality
falls, people will consume more of it. The cost of consuming irrationality in a market
setting is high, as individuals bear the costs of decision-making, but in the political
context, indulging irrational beliefs in the voting booth has an expected cost of nearly
zero, since one vote is not going to change the outcome of the election. Individual
utility maximization leads people to vote for irrational policies. Individually rational
decisions thus produce inefficient outcomes for society. This is the essence of Caplan’s
rational irrationality.
Rationally irrational voters hold systematically biased views resulting in mean errors
which are not zero. The miracle of aggregation holds that for a large population,
even if 99 percent of the voters are ignorant, their ignorant views will not be
systematically biased one way or another, so they will cancel each other out in the
voting booth. The one percent of informed voters would choose the efficient policy.
So for the miracle to work the errors that ignorant voters make must be random – not
systematically biased.
Caplan provides empirical evidence that voter errors are systematically biased. He
uses the results of the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy,² a comprehensive
data set on people’s opinions on a variety of economic issues. He compares
the opinions of laymen to that of “experts” (economists) and concludes that laymen
systematically suffer from anti-market, anti-foreign, make-work, and pessimistic biases.
These results are robust even when controlling for socio-demographic characteristics
such as income, race, gender, and job security.
Because voters have incorrect beliefs about economic policy that are systematically
biased a large and only partially informed voter population can still select in²
http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/1199-econgen.cfm
126 New Perspectives on Political Economy
efficient policies. Democracy does not fail because it does not give the people what
they want. Voter irrationality causes democracy to fail precisely because it does give
people what they want.
How can we get more efficient policies? Caplan hints at some electoral tweaks
such as restricting the franchise to the more informed voters, but his main solution
is restricting the scope of democratic decision making. In chapter, 8 Caplan contrasts
“market fundamentalism” with the “religion of democracy.” He argues more
decisions should be made in markets where people are rational while fewer should
be decided democratically where they are rationally irrational. Although a good suggestion,
given that Caplan documents anti-market bias, it seems unlikely that a democracy
would voluntarily move more decisions to the market.
Caplan’s book is an important contribution to the democratic failure literature.
His attack is strongest on Chicago School public choice. He steps inside the Chicago
framework, challenges one assumption and generates an entirely different conclusion.
This is a significant intellectual achievement. Chicago School objections to
Caplan’s book will likely center on whether systematically biased beliefs are empirically
justified.³
The greatest weakness of Caplan’s book is related to this strength. In order to win
the intellectual battle against Wittman, Caplan too easily dismisses other causes of
government failure. Caplan writes, “Voter irrationality is the key to a realistic picture
of democracy” (p.3, emphasis ours). Caplan has done a good job demonstrating that
it is a key but has not demonstrated that it is the key. A tension running through the
book is whether it is a complement or substitute for traditional Virginia School public
choice. Both reach the same conclusion – democracies achieve inefficient outcomes –
but they arrive at it different ways. For Caplan the mechanism of failure is systematically
irrational policy beliefs; for the Virginia School, it is rational ignorance coupled
with self-serving politicians and interest groups. Caplan seems to reject the importance
of the traditional Virginia School mechanisms confining them to operating only
³ In fact, in an exchange in Econ Journal Watch published prior to the book Caplan and Wittman argued
exactly this point. See: http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/CaplanCommentApril2005.pdf,
http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/WittmanReplyApril2005.pdf,
http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/CaplanRejoinderAugust2005.pdf,
http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/Wittman2ndReplyAugust2005.pdf.
Book Review 127
on “margins of voter indifference” and sometimes showing they could actually minimize
the harm irrational voters would otherwise cause.
However, traditional sources of government failure should not be so easily dismissed.
Virginia School public choice has produced counter arguments to all three
of Wittman’s assumptions. Negotiation costs can be high and there often is a serious
lack of meaningful competition in the political realm. Also left out of Caplan’s
analysis is the source of the systematically biased beliefs. He dismisses the media
and current politicians as sources of the bias, claiming they only operate on margins
of indifference and pander to the biases that exist. But what about the educational
system the government often controls? Can that create biases that serve the interests
of the politicians? Does culture cause bias? Why are some places more or less biased
on the same policies than others?
These shortcomings do not detract from the importance of Caplan’s book. In
fact, they could be considered a public choice research program that his book might
inspire. Overturning general interest stories by explaining the rent-seeking interestgroup
origin of many public polices has been an important public choice research
program. That program coupled with Caplan’s work provides a new research agenda.
It is an empirical question whether voter irrationality or interest groups have been
a more important source of democratic failure. Can some of the traditional rentseeking
stories be overturned by explanations of irrational public opinion? Better
opinion data will clearly have to be gathered in the future to better test these competing
hypotheses. We believe that both standard Virginia School public choice and
“extreme voter stupidity” create democratic failure, but it is likely that neither is a universal
explanation. In some cases failure is likely due to voter stupidity, and in others
interest groups are likely at work. It is an empirical question of which mechanism is
operating in which instance.
The second question this book leaves unanswered, what causes systematic bias,
also deserves to be explored. Caplan’s conclusion that democracy should be restricted
so there is more room for markets is a reasonable response to democratic failure.
However, another solution is to ask what causes systematic bias and to try to eliminate
it. This research question deserves to be further explored.
128 New Perspectives on Political Economy
The Myth of Democratic Failure is the most important public choice book published
in over a decade. It develops evidence of systematically biased voter beliefs,
shows how these systematically biased irrational beliefs are compatible with traditional
neoclassical economic theory, and then shows how this bias is a cause of democratic
failure. This book should inspire new public choice research agendas.
Prema Popat
Northeastern University
and
Benjamin Powell
Suffolk University