Gotlucky,
Group A says that with any given set of premises, economics can reach a conclusion that will accurately predict the future.
By premises do you mean intial assumptions, for example, the action axiom, or do you mean assumed information about reality, say that unemployment is at 10%?
All Group B is saying is that there can be no experiments.
Here is an experiment. Mises writes in HA on page 866 wrote this about a boom created by a credit expansion. “The economist knows that such a boom must result in a depression.”
OK, so when we have a boom created by credit expansion, which is a commonplace occurence all over the world at various times, we have the conditions for an experiment. If there is a depression after, that is one piece of an inductive proof of AE. If no depression occurs, AE has been refuted. Now granted that AE doesn’t claim it knows when the depression will occur. But surely if the credit expansion ends, and for fifty years after there is no depression, that would be strong indication of the wrongness of AE.
Aristipuss,
What say ye to Mises’ praxeological statement that a boom caused by credit expansion must result in a depression? Do you think Mises went beyond the limits of praxeology making such a claim, because it contains definite quantities in space and time? [Space= the country expanding credit. Time= within fifty years, which I assume he meant]. Or that it is mistaken because he forgot to include ceteris parebis disclaimers? Or that he forgot that there are only variables and no constants?
I don’t think so. I think it is a valid praxeological statement, and indeed a bold prediction to boot. Being a prediction, it is subject to experiment, as described in this post.
Clayton,
Mises’ prediction [he wrote “must”] that a credit induced boom must result in a depression was written to be understood. In other words, the word “depression” is defined within reason, and we can say [except perhaps in some borderline cases] that we either are or are not in a depression.
That being the case, we can conduct an experiment, as described earlier in this post.
Adam Knott,
The statement “A boom resulting from credit expansion must result in a depression” might be a tautology [although it is not what I was taught a tautology is], but many people dispute its veracity. AE’s insists it is true always. Thus, AE can be subjected to an experiment, as described earlier in this very post.