Human Action

[NeophyteAustrian]

I’d like to use this thread to ask questions I have while beginning my education in Austrian economics. I’m a freshman in high school and I haven’t even taken a public-school economics class yet. I’ve been reading Mises.org and LewRockwell.com for a while and so now I want to really start getting into the literature. Right now I’m concurrently reading Human Action and Man, Economy, and State.

I have some really fundamental questions that may seem a bit dumb.

Here’s my first:

In reality there is a disutility in laboring; and leisure is a telos, an economic good. But when is a man truly experiencing leisure? Is it relative? Because aren’t individuals perpetually laboring? Even when a man skips a day’s work to sit around home, is he not still laboring and acting by constantly choosing? He has to continually choose to watch a program on tv rather than change the channel or go on the computer or something. How does one separate leisure from labor? Again, sorry if I’m missing something really obvious and these are really just asinine questions.

[filc]

@NeophyteAustrian

But when is a man truly experiencing leisure?

Only he, this man, can answer that. This follows from subjective value. Don’t take it too literally though when he talks about man’s constant discomfort. He doesn’t mean it in a negative sense, it doesn’t mean man cannot enjoy himself. Mises simply explains why man does act. If he did not act it’s assumed he would be in a state of nirvana and be completely content.

Welcome aboard man! If only I knew of Austrian Economics at your age.

[krazy_kaju]

It’s a matter of subjectivity. Leisure is doing whatever you want. Most people, even if they absolutely love their job, would rather be doing something else. For example, even a chemist who is working at a major university doing research would probably rather be taking care of his family, hanging out with friends, and exploring more than just one area in chemistry. So in order to compensate for this, the chemist must receive pay that exceeds his subjective disutility of labor.

[NeophyteAustrian]

@filc

Don’t take it too literally though when he talks about man’s constant discomfort. He doesn’t mean it in a negative sense, it doesn’t mean man cannot enjoy himself. Mises simply explains why man does act. If he did not act it’s assumed he would be in a state of nirvana and be completely content.

Yeah, while reading Rothbard and the study guides to both, I’ve learned that when Mises speaks of “uneasiness” he really doesn’t mean that negatively.

@krazy kaju

It’s a matter of subjectivity. Leisure is doing whatever you want. Most people, even if they absolutely love their job, would rather be doing something else. For example, even a chemist who is working at a major university doing research would probably rather be taking care of his family, hanging out with friends, and exploring more than just one area in chemistry. So in order to compensate for this, the chemist must receive pay that exceeds his subjective disutility of labor.

I suppose that is really what I’m confused about and asking about. When that chemist labors and finally receives the pay in order to “leisure” (e.g. taking care of his family, hanging out with friends, etc), is that “leisure” not full of labor? Like, when he takes his family out to a nice, relaxing dinner, is that not still labor? He must constantly act and employ physiological functions while doing those things during his time of leisure.

[filc]

@NeophyteAustrian

I suppose that is really what I’m confused about and asking about. When that chemist labors and finally receives the pay in order to “leisure” (e.g. taking care of his family, hanging out with friends, etc), is that “leisure” not full of labor? Like, when he takes his family out to a nice, relaxing dinner, is that not still labor? He must constantly act and employ physiological functions while doing those things during his time of leisure.

Leisure itself is an action. Man was compelled by his feelings to do this action. He did so because of some so called “un-easyness”. Perhaps he was worried that his wife thought he was neglecting him. Perhaps he feels good at the action of providing for them. Even all of his leisure is still an action.

I think we’re convolution two points here. Leisure itself is subject to the law of marginal utility. If man had lots of leisure he may find a particular “Leisurly activity” boring and decide to take up something different. NOthing says that he cannot find leisure in labor itself. Though it may be that he would change his labor from time to time to something else.

The fact is, what is decided as leisure can only be decided by him.

Human action remains the same. Man acts because of some reason. He does not act arbitrarily.

[NeophyteAustrian]

@filc

Leisure itself is an action. Man was compelled by his feelings to do this action. He did so because of some so called “un-easyness”. Perhaps he was worried that his wife thought he was neglecting him. Perhaps he feels good at the action of providing for them. Even all of his leisure is still an action.

I think we’re convolution two points here. Leisure itself is subject to the law of marginal utility. If man had lots of leisure he may find a particular “Leisurly activity” boring and decide to take up something different. NOthing says that he cannot find leisure in labor itself. Though it may be that he would change his labor from time to time to something else.

The fact is, what is decided as leisure can only be decided by him.

Human action remains the same. Man acts because of some reason. He does not act arbitrarily.

Thank you. That really clears things up. I was mistakingly thinking that leisure was inaction. So there can even be a disutility of leisure? If the lazy person gets tired of “doing nothing” (I put that in quotes because he still is really acting all day), he may choose to go out and look for a job and labor so as to maybe not look like a bum to others or whatever reason that brings a more satisfactory state of affairs to him.

[Lilburne]

@NeophyteAustrian

leisure is a telos, an economic good.

One technical point: a telos is an end, while conversely, all goods are means.

Welcome and good luck in your studies!

[filc]

@NeophyteAustrian

So there can even be a disutility of leisure?

There can be disutility in anything. However since the person performed said act it means that they believed prior that no disutility would have resulted. Wether disutility occured or not is really mute, he acted because of the outcome he thought would occur. Leisure by itself is not a disutility.

[NeophyteAustrian]

@Lilburne

One technical point: a telos is an end, while conversely, all goods are means..

Ah yes. I was considering the consumer good, leisure, as the telos, instead of the utility the actor thinks it will provide.

Sorry I have yet another question. Your comics actually made me think of this, Lilburne. If there were no scarcity, there would exist a paradise of superabundance. Since time is scarce, this would include time being superabundant, right? Because if time was still linear and scarce, then it would not in fact be paradise since people would still have to economize their time.

Also, I forget exactly where I read it, but supposedly if an actor had perfect knowledge of future events, he would not act. I guess I’m having a little trouble understanding this. If I was granted by God the knowledge that it would absolutely happen that if I went into the kitchen and turned on the oven it would heat up, why would I not do that?

Just to make it clear, I’m not trying to poke holes in economic axioms. I’m just trying to clarify things for myself.

[filc]

Here Mises describes what he considers is the difference between labor and leisure.

@Mises

Paddling a canoe as it is practiced on Sundays for amusement on the lakes of public parks can only from the point of view of hydromechanics be likened to the rowing of boatsmen and galley slaves. When judged as a means for the attainment of ends it is as different as is the humming of an aria by a rambler from the recital of the same aria by the singer in the opera. The carefree Sunday paddler and the singing rambler derive immediate gratification from their activities, but not mediate gratification. What they do is therefore not labor, not the employment of their physiological functions for the attainment of ends other than the mere exercise of these functions. It is merely pleasure. It is an end in itself; it is done for its own sake and does not render any further service. As it is not labor, it is not permissible to call it immediately gratifying labor.

11

Sometimes a superficial observer may believe that labor performed by other people gives rise to immediate gratification because he himself would like to engage in a kind of play which apparently imitates the kind of labor concerned. As children play school, soldiers, and railroad, so adults too would like to play this and that. They think that the railroad engineer must enjoy operating and steering his engine as much as they would if they were permitted to toy with it. On his hurried way to the office the bookkeeper envies the patrolman who, he thinks, is paid for leisurely strolling around his beat. But the patrolman envies the bookkeeper who, sitting on a comfortable chair in a well-heated room, makes money by some scribbling which cannot seriously be called labor. Yet the opinions of people who misinterpret other people’s work and consider it a mere

pg 138

@NeophyteAustrian

Also, I forget exactly where I read it, but supposedly if an actor had perfect knowledge of future events, he would not act. I guess I’m having a little trouble understanding this. If I was granted by God the knowledge that it would absolutely happen that if I went into the kitchen and turned on the oven it would heat up, why would I not do that?

I feel like Mises said this somewhere. If man knew the future he would not act he would mearly be as a machine doing what the future brings. At any rate I found some similar stuff on page 69 in “The Limitations on Praxeological Concepts”.

Human Action

[Lilburne]

@NeophyteAustrian

Since time is scarce, this would include time being superabundant, right? Because if time was still linear and scarce, then it would not in fact be paradise since people would still have to economize their time.

You raise a good point. Mises deals with this in the following passage from chapter 5 of Human Action:

“The economization of time is independent of the economization of economic goods and services. Even in the land of Cockaigne man would be forced to economize time, provided he were not immortal and not endowed with eternal youth and indestructible health and vigor. Although all his appetites could be satisfied immediately without any expenditure of labor, he would have to arrange his time schedule, as there are states of satisfaction which are incompatible and cannot be consummated at the same time. For this man, too, time would be scarce and subject to the aspect of sooner and later.”

It seems that for time to be truly superabundant, an actor would have to never happen to have the incompatible wants Mises refers to. But then, such an actor would seem to never have to make any choices. But then can an actor who never makes choices truly be said to have a will? And can an “actor” without a will truly be said to BE an actor? I haven’t yet settled on answers to these questions.

[NeophyteAustrian]

filc, I actually just got through reading that before I read your post. Haha. You and him and provided really lucid explanations for my questions.

@Lilburne

You raise a good point. Mises deals with this in the following passage from chapter 5 of Human Action:

“The economization of time is independent of the economization of economic goods and services. Even in the land of Cockaigne man would be forced to economize time, provided he were not immortal and not endowed with eternal youth and indestructible health and vigor. Although all his appetites could be satisfied immediately without any expenditure of labor, he would have to arrange his time schedule, as there are states of satisfaction which are incompatible and cannot be consummated at the same time. For this man, too, time would be scarce and subject to the aspect of sooner and later.”

It seems that for time to be truly superabundant, an actor would have to never happen to have the incompatible wants Mises refers to. But then, such an actor would seem to never have to make any choices. But then can an actor who never makes choices truly be said to have a will? And can an “actor” without a will truly be said to BE an actor? I haven’t yet settled on answers to these questions.

I guess it’s pretty difficult for a person to even fathom what a world would be like in which time wasn’t scarce. Nothing would age, so it seems the universe would not even exist since everything is subject to time. All of eternity would pass instantly. Maybe someone could make the case that an advanced being may have the ability to traverse through time. But would that being not be acting by going back through time in order to satisfy another end at an earlier point?

Anyway, I suppose it’s safe to say that economic axioms are implemented so long as time is scarce, even if all other resources are just general conditions of human welfare.

[NeophyteAustrian]

In 2. A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View of Society (chapter viii) is Mises making the case that democracy is the way to go? That seems very counter to everything else he has written. Then he condemns anarchism. Well, it seems he attacks a straw man when attacking anarchism.

@Mises

Such an ideal society could do without state and government, i.e., without a police force, the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion.

The anarchists overlook the undeniable fact that some people are either too narrow-minded or too weak to adjust themselves spontaneously to the conditions of social life. Even if we admit that every sane adult is endowed with the faculty of realizing the good of social cooperation and of acting accordingly, there still remains the problem of the infants, the aged, and the insane. We may agree that he who acts antisocially should be considered mentally sick and in need of care. But as long as not all are cured, and as long as there are infants and the senile, some provision must be taken lest they jeopardize society. An anarchistic society would be exposed to the mercy of every individual. Society cannot exist if the majority is not ready to hinder, by the application or threat of violent action, minorities from destroying the social order. This power is vested in the state or government.

It’s a non sequitur to think there’d be no police in the absence of the State. But I guess he’s right when he says that an anarchist society would be without a police force based on “coercion and compulsion.” It would instead be an apparatus of defense and protection. However, Mises seems to be too “narrow-minded” and “weak” to realize how an anarchist society, with every venture subject to profit and loss, thus only the protection agencies providing the best service would be the ones which succeed. I guess I’m a little confused why Mises even included this chapter, praising majority rule by a coercive State and condemning anarchism, in Human Action. So far while reading it, all I’ve been thinking is “Dang. This is the best book I’ve ever read in my life.” Then this chapter really made me raise an eyebrow.