The case studies are for the most part organized historically in the belief that real-world industries are complex organisms whose evolution can be understood only through careful attention to the historical dynamics. An historical approach is adopted also to help readers avoid the trap of which George Santayana warned: that those who fail to learn the lessons of the past condemn themselves to repeat its errors.
From my overtly Marxist “industrial economics” textbook.
Something along the lines of post hoc ergo propter hoc, I would imagine.
Have you ever seen the disclaimer: Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Or as Jim Kramer (Not Austrian in the slightest but does provide common sense sometimes.) says: “We don’t care where stocks have been, but where they are going.”. In other words history is only a guide and should not be used for the purpose of future prediction.
Now Austrians depend on history as a mechanism to verify principals of human action derrived from simple principals of economics. So history is important to Austrians as it provides verification of the pricipals.
What if they are contradictory?