ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Menger’s Views on Markets and the Instruments of Trade Hereto related, with respect to a contemporary argumentative Rothbardian line.
Author: CAMPAGNOLO Gilles
It is sometimes said that Carl Menger’s Grundsätze (1871) did not deal with market as a whole, that Menger was interested only with analyzing exchange between dual partners. The founder of the Austrian school truly regarded theoretical research in economics as beginning with subjective needs directed towards oneself and then, with exchange procedures between two partners. That was his path to accurate analysis and he offered a rational framework of concepts, both causalist and realistic. Among contemporary Austrians, Rothbard (deceased 1995) displayed his criticism against “triangular Intervention”, a scheme that he regarded as evil in economic life while only the market does justice to traders. His 1970 book Power and Market, Government and the Economy decisively orientated such economic discourse against “Interventionism”. But to what extent did “Libertarianism” fit within Austrian thought? and what arguments did Rothbard advocate? Were they true to Menger’s intuitions or did they turn the “Austrian school” from a positive description of rationales to a normative advocacy of free-trade? Starting from stating Menger’s conceptual framework, we shall then turn to questions like the following: are availability of goods (Verfügbarkeit) and so-called “marketability” (Absatzfähigkeit) mere tools of knowledge or imperatives for agents to follow (if capable)? Menger’s ideas may be interpreted in many ways and that they legitimate views later held by Rothbard is unclear. Sticking to texts and specially referring to Menger Archives that we have already extensively surveyed, we shall point at some “Austrianness” in views of the market, its “justice and its instruments. References are to Menger’s Gesammelte Werke and also unpublished annotations in Archives. They also include the following (unpublished in the GW) Campagnolo, G.: HOPE « Money as Measure of Value. An English Translation of Menger’s Essay in Monetary Thought », (Duke UP), n° 37/2, Summer 2005, pp. 245-262. On Rothbard, we use references given in our extensive work : Campagnolo, G.: « Seuls les extrémistes sont cohérents », Murray Rothbard et l'École austro-américaine dans la querelle de l’herméneutique, Lyon, ENS-Éditions (Series Contemporary economics), Dec. 2006, (references in pp. 137-148)
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