Could it be that the Austrian ‘rejection’ of empiricism is what lures Christians to the austrian school? I spend a lot of time reading the Lew Rockwell blog and am generally perplexed by the huge torrent of christian apologist, mostly catholic, posts which seem to pop up commonly for no good reason except perhaps to reassure and coddle their own insecurities. Should Lew Rockwell update his banner to say “Anti-State, Anti-War, Pro-Market, Pro-Catholic”?
Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, and others were all agnostics or atheists, their rejection of empiricism was only directed at some particular uses in the methodology of the social sciences, they fully accepted that the scientific method works wonders for the hard sciences. Why is it that the same doubt that today’s austrian intellectuals apply to commonly accepted social theories cannot be transferred into rejecting centuries old superstitions?
I am not trying to have a doctrinal debate, or point fingers at religious justifications for coercions in the past. My question for the religious lurkers on this board is, what are you basing your beliefs on outside of subjective desires and fears? Even a priori reasoning does not eliminate the need for testability of an assumption. Human action is observable and quite provable, that is why Mises based his theory on its certainty, only the predictability of precise actions are not known, which is why the mainstream fails. We all need a rock to stand on, atheists commonly rely on universal certainties, where do you gain your confidence?
If Christians (or anyone else who is religious) are drawn to Austrian econ because they think it supports their worldview they need to acquire a subtler understanding of the Austrian method…
“There is a long tradition of close cooperation between church and state in Spain. In fact, Spain has long been one of the most Catholic countries with one of the most Catholic governments - second only perhaps to Italy.”
“Since becoming Prime Ministers in April, 2004, Zapatero has done a number of things which has outraged Catholic bishops: legalizing gay marriage, making divorce easier, and eliminating the requirement of schools to teach religion to name just a few.”
“His latest move is to eliminate the huge subsidy which the Spanish government gives to the Catholic church every year. Now, the Spanish Catholic church will have to pay more of its own way.”
"Under the agreement, the state will scrap providing the Spanish bishops’ conference a direct annual subsidy, which totaled about 30 million euros (about $38.5 million) last year. In exchange, the government raised the maximum tax deductible donation to the Catholic Church to 0.7 percent of a taxpayer’s income from the current 0.52 percent. "
As a Christian and a libertarian I will give my two cents on this. I understand what you are saying about the rejection of empiricism in the social sciences. However, religion is something that goes beyond science, it is beyond what would be distinctively defined as a priori and a posteriori. When somebody starts applying knowledge to something wordly, be it a hard science or social science, one can often reach a conclusion that can be proven in one way or another. However, it is naive to say the least, to believe that this also applies to what is truly beyond our world. The reality is that there really is no such thing as certainty. I believe it was Nietzsche that said “Doubt is unpleasant, but certainty is asburd.”
Beliefs are based upon faith, in the case of Christians, our faith in God and his only begotten son Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. One is guided by faith, comforted by faith, strengthened by faith. This faith is in a higher power, God and Jesus Christ, and does not need to be proven by any type of scientific method. Sciences simply cannot provide all the answers to life, and I think if somebody believes this they have a small-minded view of the universe and life itself. To think that the human mind and human reasoning based upon worldly things encompasses all in existence is ridiculous. When one has faith they can feel a connection with God/Jesus, a connection that, to an outsider, may not be “observable” per say. Faith is what enables us to feel the love of God/Jesus, thus if a person who does not believe claims it is “non-existant” based on a priori reasoning this is a fallacy because they would not know because they have no faith. While admittedly I cannot sit here and prove to you that the Christian faith is right, nobody can prove it is not.
As far as scientific reasoning and so-called certainties go, science can not answer how everything was created. Sure there are theories, a big bang…that suddenly came out of nowhere from nothing, from outside of time and space? Human beings are more than water, plasma, blood, nerves, and bone; there is a soul, there is a reason we feel emotion and have feelings that cannot be neurologically explained. Life is a beautiful, precious, complex mystery and not everything in it can be explained like math or economics. This is what my beliefs and confidence is based upon though other Christians may feel differently.
With regards to Austrian economics and more generally libertarianism, Christianity as shown by the teachings of Jesus is completely anti-state. If you look at the commandments, “Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not kill” just by following those two commandments alone one cannot condone the State since it based upon extortion and murder and violence. Jesus sums up the commandments by saying “Love thy neighbor as you love thyself” or something to that effect. This is in essence the substratum of libertarianism; mind your own business and keep your hands to yourself. Jesus doesn’t advocate forcing people to fork over their money to the poor, but rather endorses the notion of voluntarism by having us look at all human beings as made in the image of God, and assisting people whenever we can to whatever extent we can. God/Jesus love you, I hope you accept their love.
So what you’re essentially saying is somewhere along the following lines “Look guys, given that your beliefs are founded upon your own subjective whims and fears, I don’t know what you irrationally believe in the Lord” only to point out that actually you really don’t want a doctrinal debate. The funny thing is, you sit here lecturing Christians about the need to get a more nuanced understanding of Austrian methodology but I’m not too sure that your own grasp is as good as you think it is. A priori reasoning does eliminate the need for testing (by the way, the whole of Austrian theory is unfalsifiable and therefore “pseudo-science”, and the action axiom is neither observable nor provable in the slightest.
LRC doesn’t have anything to do with Austrian economics, it’s a libertarian news website.
By the OP’s apparent criteria, that would follow. I merely took issue with his presumption that Christians who are attracted to the Austrian school do it because they can rationalize their beliefs.
As for the action axiom, it can’t be proven or observed. All I can see is physical motion, not action in the Misesian sense. Look if I see a man sneezing it could either be unpurposeful and therefore not action in the Misesian sense, or it could be an attempt to convince somebody else that he is sick. The fact is, from the outside, it can’t be known what it is. The fact is, Austrians make an assumption that the action axiom does hold, and to the extent it doesn’t, Austrian theory is not applicable.
I see. He might mean people like Fundamentalist on the Mises blog who takes its methodological approach to cohere with creationism, when it’s more or less neutral to it (though anti-monist arguments are not unpopular amongst evolutionary theorists/biologists tbh because of the attitude of some positivists towards their respective sciences - it could be argued both ways.)
It’s provable by negative demonstration, but I agree that where it does not apply Austrian econ does not. Still, since most humans are acting beings it gets the job done.
What do you mean by “Austrian theory”? Mises defined human action as purposeful behaviour, and praxeology is only interested in human action. I think that’s pretty clear.
And about that the Austrian method is unfalsifiable, I believe that’s true.
It is revisable in the way that mathematical theories are… it’s not unfalsifiable (e.g. one can omit or discover new postulates or discard old ones that prove to be misspecified/wrong, botch up deductions &c.) If it were genuinely unfalsifiable the amount of revision and refinement that goes on amongst Austrians would be inexplicable.
G, you really need to take discussions on religion in stride and not immediately get tense over this stuff. Being defensive doesn’t serve you or your perspective well. Just sayin’
OK, but that wasn’t really what he was saying. His post pretty much amounted to saying that “Some Austrians may misunderstand Austrian methodology and use it to rationalize their own Christian beliefs, by the way, all Christians are therefore stupid”. Following this he made a few blunders of his own regarding methodology. The fact is there are numerous Christians who wouldn’t dispute evolution, others who would do so on biological grounds. The irony is that he says we need challenge various dogmas and Christians don’t do so, well, I’d argue evolution could well be one of those dogmas.
It’s not provable, imagine I have tourettes and a very large interest in economics. You say to me “humans act”, and I blurt out “no they don’t” without meaning to. I’ve denied the action axiom without acting. The fact is that the action axiom is an assumption, it’s just more realistic than the assumption that all humans now their indifference curves and the math necessary to maximise their own utility.
Mises also said that the point of economic theory is to do historical research. If there were a society of mindless, unacting individuals, Austrian theory wouldn’t apply.
OK, I was vague. What I meant, is that certain statements are unfalsifiable. For example, Mises axioms, the Ricardian law of comparative advantage, that inflation is only caused by increasing the money supply, etc.
But that isn’t anywhere close to disproof. It is a mindless reaction. If you want to disprove something you aim at that and attempt to do so. Merely blurting out robotic statements doesn’t invalidate the fact that you do act, and if you’re just saying “no they don’t” as a pure reaction it could just as well have been “@(#&@”; there was no attempted refutation, not even a reasoned argument - just empty words. Moreover, any attempt for you personally to deny it would lapse into contradiction so it at least personally provable; I agree that beyond that it is a judgement call whether someone acts (or has a brain, or is not an illusion &c.)
OK, you meant incontestable. The ABCT is certainly falsifiable and revisable though, as are other aspects of Austrian theorising. But yeah, those postulates are pretty much paramount.
And? It’s a means to an end, be it dreaming, replenishing your energies &c. Also, refutation is an action. The negative demonstration is only concerned with attempts to actively disprove the fact that man acts. No more, no less.
Could it be that the Austrian ‘rejection’ of empiricism is what lures Christians to the austrian school? I spend a lot of time reading the Lew Rockwell blog and am generally perplexed by the huge torrent of christian apologist, mostly catholic, posts which seem to pop up commonly for no good reason except perhaps to reassure and coddle their own insecurities. Should Lew Rockwell update his banner to say “Anti-State, Anti-War, Pro-Market, Pro-Catholic”?
What about all the alternative medicine, archeology, diet, exercise, tips for men, and various other articles trivial to libertarianism or economics that appear on that site? Does that really bother you? At least a few of the Catholic articles will provide some decent revisionist history, which is probably of interest to many libertarians.
Either way, I am wondering if you are genuinely asking a question or trying to vent /goad in a passive aggressive manor due to an extraordinarily reactionary attitude towards anything Christian.
Jon, you’re missing my point. Which was merely that people tend to assume that the action axiom is stronger than it is. To point is that the axiom is just an assumption, and unlike the mainstream neoclassical assumptions of perfect “rationality”, information etc. it’s fairly accurate. But the validity of it depends on that country in question. It’s not impossible for there to exist a society populated by robots, children and the mentally retarded and if there were, it would be incorrect to use Austrian theory to analyze it. Which, as Mises claimed, is the point of economics.
As concerns falsifiability, I think we’re using different definitions of term. I’m using it in the Popperian sense.