Cant remember where I read it...

[Erock]

Somewhere Mises talks about why certain ideologies (clearly talking about Marxists) will not engage in economics. Or that they refuse to engage in ecnomics.

I think it may have been in Human Action, but I cant locate it.

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks!

[resist272727]

Anti-Capitalistic Mentality? I know he roundhoused a bunch of people for not being capitalists.

[EmperorNero]

There was such a paragraph early in The Anticapitalistic Mentality, but that was not about Marxists but about general economic illiterates.

[Erock]

What would you guys reccomend then for reading when trying to answer the whole “There is no economic truth therefore the Austrians cant possibly be correct” argument?

[Phaedros]

Just tell them they don’t believe in science, reason, or logic and then walk away.

[Erock]

But… I’m arguing on the internet. This is important.

[resist272727]

@Erock

]What would you guys reccomend then for reading when trying to answer the whole “There is no economic truth therefore the Austrians cant possibly be correct” argument?

I don’t know who would argue that there’s no economic truth, but this is a good starting point for understanding economic principles:

http://freedom-school.com/money/how-an-economy-grows.pdf

and the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFxvy9XyUtg

[Phaedros]

Who would argue that there is no economic truth? Most of the educated elite I think. At least feminists, neo-feminists, marxists, socialists, neo-marxists, post-structuralists perhaps, etc. etc. etc.

[EmperorNero]

@Erock

What would you guys reccomend then for reading when trying to answer the whole “There is no economic truth therefore the Austrians cant possibly be correct” argument?

If they are denying economics they are denying physics. So their ideology is super-natural, which in some contexts is the definition for a religion.

[Nielsio]

@Erock

What would you guys reccomend then for reading when trying to answer the whole “There is no economic truth therefore the Austrians cant possibly be correct” argument?

If there’s no economic truth, then why are they forcing their doctrines on otherwise peaceful people? It is because they believe that might makes right?

[Erock]

The person im talking with is actually my old professor. He teaches modern political theory and is a phd candidate. He’s a big fan of Foucault.

[DrewBrando]

But… I’m arguing on the internet. This is important.

Tell them to visit the Mises forums.

[resist272727]

I still think what you’re referring to was from The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, but he might have said something similar elsewhere:

First: The great ideological conflict of our age is not a struggle about the distribution of the “national income.” It is not a quarrel between two classes each of which is eager to appropriate to itself the greatest possible portion of a total sum available for distribution. It is a dissension concerning the choice of the most adequate system of society’s economic organization. The question is, which of the two systems, capitalism or socialism, warrants a higher productivity of human efforts to improve people’s standard of living. The question is, also, whether socialism can be considered as a substitute for capitalism, whether any rational conduct of production activities, i.e., conduct based on economic calculation, can be accomplished under socialist conditions. The bigotry and the dogmatism of the socialists manifest themselves in the fact that they stubbornly refuse to enter into an examination of these problems. With them it is a foregone conclusion that capitalism is the worst of all evils and socialism the incarnation of everything that is good. Every at­tempt to analyze the economic problems of a socialist commonwealth is considered as a crime of lèse majesté. As the conditions prevailing in the Western countries do not yet permit the liquidation of such offenders in the Russian way, they insult and vilify them, cast suspicion upon their motives and boycott them.

–Section 3, Chapter 5