David Prychitko is the coeditor with Jaroslav
Vanek of the two volume _Producer Cooperatives
and Labor-Managed Systems_, 1996, Edward
Elgar. He definitely considers himself to be an
Austrian.
Chris Matthew Sciabarra's fascinating book is
_Marx, Hayek and Utopia_, 1995, State University of
New York Press. More recently he has taken a more
clearly hard libertarian position, with a newer book
(forget the title). He is also the founder of the Journal
of Ayn Rand Studies, which, surprise surprise, tends to
be pretty pro-Ayn Rand.
Barkley Rosser
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb
-----Original Message-----
From: Forstater, Mathew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, February 08, 2001 3:18 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:7931] RE: Re: RE: Critique of mathematical economi cs
>aren't 'incentives' built in to goal-oriented activity? the 'incentive' is
>realizing the goal(s). my understanding of Austrianism is that the issue of
>'information' is not that it exists out there but we have no incentive to
gather
>it, but that it is not so easily accessible, and that is where discovery,
>interpretation, etc. come in. i do not accept the notion that prices are
>"information repositories" in the sense sometimes put forward, but even if
we do
>the "hermeneutic insight" (actually in the case of Austrian economics
>historically, it should be the "phenomenological sociological insight" as
Schutz
>is the important figure, not Gadamer) is that the meaning of a price change
is
>not immediately apparent, but needs to be understood, which requires
>interpretation, especially consideration of the context of the price change
>(much in the same way that the meaning of a word is not always immediately
>apparent and needs to be interpreted in its context, in other words, prices
are
>"signs"). I recommend Ebeling's work on the subtle differences between
Hayek,
>Lachmann, and others on this--see his chapter in the Kirzner edited
Lachmann
>festschrift (or memorial, I forget which).
>
>polanyi influenced hayek. polanyi is where hayek took the notion of
"spontaneous
>order" (and polanyi himself developed the idea out of discussions with
adolph
>lowe, who developed his own related but different idea of "spontaneous
>conformity"). of course, the idea of unintended consequences goes back much
>farther, in this context to at least the scottish enlightenment ("of human
>action, but not of human design"). if we are not just interested in the
history
>of thought here, but in the possibilities of an alternative political
economy,
>then I think we should be thinking about exploring the possibilities for
>consciously enhancing creative discovery and imaginative problem solving in
BOTH
>SPONTANEOUS AND DESIGNED ASSOCIATIONS (I prefer "associations" to
>"orders"--there's plenty of disorder), in other words asking the question:
MUST
>SPONTANEOUS ORDER BE UNINTENDED (AND CAN PLANNING BE IMAGINATIVE AS WELL AS
>INTENTIONAL)? These are the issues I have been grappling with a number of
>publications and presentations over the last several years (cites for
anyone
>interested). Also, have you seen Ted Burczak's work??? There is also an
>interesting article by Robin Blackburn 1991 in NLR where he notes that the
>Austrian ideas about dispersed knowledge can be used to argue that only
workers
>and not capitalists could effectively manage production. Apparently Pat
Devine
>(any relation?) and one of his students have been looking at some of this
>(that's the work Hodgson refers to and disagrees with). I have heard good
things
>about Sciabarra's book, but I haven't read it, and I know Prychitko has
been
>playing around with some related ideas but I haven't kept up on it.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Justin Schwartz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 10:44 AM
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: [PEN-L:7912] Re: RE: Critique of mathematical economi cs
>
>
>The question is: incentives for what. The Austrian argument that I accept
>foicus not on incentives to work hard and avoid shirking, but on incentives
>to gather accurate information....
>
>
