JSS:
I believe that both you and Miss Rand have mis-read the passage from Mises.
When he writes above: “…these illusory schemes for establishment of an unrealizable realm of calm removed from the inescapable limitations of human action and providing eternal security…”
He is referring to the government’s use of public debt and the attempts to create money with stable purchasing power which try to overcome the laws of the market (i.e., the attempt by governments to try to overcome the praxeological laws of economics). He is saying that the government, through public borrowing and debt schemes, and through attempts to stabilize the currency, cannot provide lasting calm, happiness, security, etc., for society.
He is saying that these schemes are illusory and unrealizeable… (the schemes governments are trying to implement)
Then, you quote this passage as if it were an idealization of human action on the part of Mises and other economists. You imply that Mises puts forth this statement as his concept of human action:
"Well, it seems like Mises (and, indeed, just about any economist) idealizes the world of perfect security. …their reasoning is that everyone aims for perfect security—“an unrealizable realm of calm removed from the inescapable limitations of human action.”
You have totally misread and misunderstood Mises.
He is criticizing the idea of using governmental means in an attempt to circumvent economic laws, and you are interpreting his critique of the attempt to use government to circumvent economic laws as Mises’s concept of action.
That is simply a terrible misread.
Then you continue:
“In the quoted passage, however, he asserts that there is no such thing as the “eternal, absolute, and unchanging” when it comes to humanity.”
This again is a blatant misreading and misrepresentation of what Mises is asserting. He writes: “There is no such things as eternal, absolute, and unchanging values. The search for a standard of such values is vain.”
Mises doesn’t refer to the collective concept of “humanity” as you write.
Also, as the title of the chapter indicates (The Root of the Stabilization Idea), Mises is saying the idea that money has a rigid purchasing power, or that government can “stabilize” the purchasing power of money, is faulty. He is saying that it is vain to try to find a standard of eternal and rigid value as is implied in the idea of a currency with stable purchasing power.
So again, a misreading of what Mises is saying.
Rand seems to make the same mistake. In the context of critiquing Mises’s quote, she writes:
“…then the concept of man as being constantly seeking the Nirvana of stagnation …What Mises blanks out totally in his assumption of a happy Nirvana-seeker is…”
Rand is saying that Mises is putting forth the concept of man as seeking “the Nirvana of stagnation” and of man as “a happy Nirvana-seeker.”
If we look at the passage that Rand is referring to, Mises has written: “…establishment of an unrealizable realm of calm removed from the inescapable limitations of human action and providing eternal security…”
What Mises is saying is that the government is attempting to do something that cannot be done (i.e., provide a realm of calm removed from the inescapable limitations of human action and provide eternal security…)
Rand is saying: What a contradictory concept of human action Mises has !!
Rand, like you, is taking Mises’s critique of government intervention in monetary affairs and implying that it constitutes his theory or concept of human action. You are both misreading the passage.
Then she continues: “On what grounds would we assume…that man, by nature, is set against reality?”
By which she seems to mean that man would be “set against reality” if he is a being that tries to reach an unrealizable state of Nirvana. But Mises is referring to the government’s plans to overcome the laws of the market, and create a realm that is not subject to the laws of the market, as he writes: “people yearning for stable income not dependent on the productive processes of men.”
He is criticizing such people as aiming in vain for a state of affairs that cannot be attained.
Rand is mistakenly reading this as part of Mises’s conception of individual action, as if Mises held the idea that all action is directed toward:
“an unrealizable realm of calm removed from the inescapable limitations of human action and providing eternal security…”
That is not Mise’s theory of action. Rand appears to be misreading and misunderstanding Mises.
Here is Mises’s concept of human action:
“Man’s aim is to substitute what he considers a better state of affairs for a less satisfactory one. He strives for the substitution of a more satisfactory state of affairs in place of a less satisfactory state of affairs. And in the satisfaction of this desire, he becomes happier than he was before.”
“The theoretical science of human action presupposes only one thing—that there is action, i.e., the conscious striving of individuals to remove uneasiness and to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for one that is less satisfactory.”
(The Free Market and its Enemies, p.14)