- 著者
-
橋本 努
- 出版者
- The Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought
- 雑誌
- 経済学史学会年報 (ISSN:04534786)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.42, no.42, pp.118-128, 2002 (Released:2010-08-05)
- 参考文献数
- 84
The Symposium on Austrian Economics held at South Royalton, Vermont, in 1974 was a pivotal event for the revival of the Austrian School of Economics. Graduate students of New York University have initiated various interesting studies under the instruction of Israel Kirzner in the 1970s. According to Kirzner, the doctrinal vitality of the Austrian Economics was revived through Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek and not through Fritz Machlup. Although a tension has been maintained between this group and neoclassical economics, it has created its own theories from within. In the 1980s, this school attracted interest in regard to its policy implications of so-called neo-liberalism. After the collapse of certain communist countries in 1989, this school was viewed as the main intellectual source for explaining why the ideology of socialism failed. Since the 1990s, this school has devoted its research to empirical matters and its methodological principles have been interpreted in a more pragmatic way. The Austrian Economists are now concerned with this school's development rather than its justification.The core theory of the Austrian Economics lies in the fields “the knowledge theory” and “the process theory of the market.” Roughly speaking, there are three major versions of the core theory in the recent development of the Neo-Austrian School of Economics. The first is the Rothbardian catallactic theory, which emphasizes rational actions in every transaction in the market and is less concerned with the coordination problem of the market. The second is the Kirznerian entrepreneurial theory, which emphasizes the capacity of alertness rather than the action itself, and devotes much concern to the problem of market coordination. The third is the Lachmannian kaleidic process theory, which emphasizes radical uncertainty and an ever-changing market process where the coordinating forces of the market are not sufficient for attaining a stable and conventional market economy.Based on these three versions of the Austrian theory, its current research proceeds in various directions. The basic question of this school regards how market order is possible under the condition of the insufficient coordination of the market process. The leading Austrians are now investigating this question from various points: for example, R. Koppl's phenomenological and linguistic game theory, Y. B. Choi's convention-paradigm theory, D. Lavoie's hermeneutic theory, and so on.On the other hand, this basic question is related to the following question: how can we constitute a good condition for utilizing the function of “the invisible hand” for better growth of a society under the condition of insufficient coordination? D. Harper. P. Lewin, and so on now study this question. There is also a derived question regarding the ethics of a market economy, which M. Rizzo and L. Yeager are now studying.