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For the economist,
value-neutrality (understanding that each actor's values are
subjective and that, as an economist, one may not condemn
those individual values) is much like the imaginary
construct of the Evenly Rotating Economy; it is a necessary
methodological tool for use in economic appraisal. It is not
a source of facts; it is not meant as a basis for real-world
action; it does not affect reality. Rather, "value freedom
is a methodological device designed to separate and isolate
an economist's scientific work from the personal preferences
of the given economic researcher" (Younkins 2004a, p. 3).
Mises' value-neutrality in the economic realm does not mean
that his ideas cannot be integrated with Objectivism's
strong value-objectivity. Indeed, his definition of value as
"the importance that acting man attaches to ultimate ends"
(Mises 1963, p. 96) is perfectly complementary to Rand's
definition of value as "that which one acts to gain and/or
keep" (Rand 1964, p. 27). Each school of thought uses the
concept of "value" to describe the goals which acting man
strives towards. "A value is an object of human action"
(Merrill 1991, p. 100). Each man's goals are subjective in
the sense that they relate to his specific circumstances,
and objective in the sense that they relate to concrete
reality.
Where
Austrian economics is primarily descriptive in nature,
Objectivism goes on to prescribe what acting humans
ought to value. The objectivist believes that for each man,
his own life is the highest value he may strive toward. Each
man makes a basic choice: to live or to die. The man who
chooses to live, must (to be rationally consistent) also
choose those smaller ends which will further the ultimate
value which he has chosen, his own life. "The fact that
living entities exist and function necessitates the
existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any
given living entity is its own life" (Rand 1964, p. 27).
Rand's position on this is the same as that of Aristotle;
she holds that value is objective in the sense that there is
one ultimate value that correlates with the natural end
("telos," or goal) of the entity. The ultimate end for a
living entity is to continue its existence.
Although this appears at first glace to be a circular
argument ("a living entities lives in order to continue its
own life"), and hence a pointless claim, one can see after
some thought that it is not a meaningless argument, when
applied to human beings. Humans can, and in fact often do,
act contrary to the furtherance of their own lives. Rand
controversially used the term "altruism" to refer to
non-life enhancing behavior of a particular sort which she
felt to be the most common. Altruism, in the objectivist
sense, is the approach to life which places sacrifice as the
highest ideal.
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The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right
to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the
only justification of his existence, and that
self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and
value (Rand 1982, p. 61). |
The important thing to remember when discussing the
objectivist concept of altruism is that there is a very
strong difference between "altruism" and "benevolence." The
objectivist does not claim that, for instance, Mother
Theresa acted irrationally. Her actions were benevolent:
she simply desired the happiness of others as her goal. She
did not act to destroy herself she acted to help others.
This is a concept which any economist understands perfectly;
no human acts contrary to reason or to the laws of economics
when he or she desires the happiness of others. However, the
objectivist believes that when a human acts according to the
principles of altruism, he is acting contrary to reason,
since he is denying (in deed, if not in word) that his life
is his highest value. For the altruist, sacrifice is his
highest value; since sacrifice means giving up a higher
value in favor of a lesser, then the logical conclusion of
altruism is death.
This is why it is
important to state the principle that "an ultimate value
for any given living entity is its own life" (Rand 1964, p.
27). Man, of all the animals, has the strange option of
choosing to act contrary to his own welfare on a continual
basis, or of choosing to live according to principles which
will help him achieve his own highest value: his life. Thus
we see that for the objectivist, as well as for the Austrian
economist, the term "value," when used in reference to man,
means "goal pursued by a acting being with volitional
consciousness" values are goals, not ethical codes
of action.
Interestingly enough, it
is not Mises, but his predecessor Carl Menger who agrees
more explicitly with Ayn Rand's value theory. "Menger and
Rand agree that the ultimate standard of value is the life
of the valuer" (Younkins 2004b, p. 7). Menger specifies in
his definition of value that man's life is its source.
Following in the footsteps of Aristotle, he claims that:
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the attempt to
provide for the satisfaction of our needs is synonymous
with the attempt to provide for our lives and
well-being. It is the most important of all human
endeavors, since it is the prerequisite and foundation
of all others (Menger 1981, p. 77). |
For Menger, "Man
becomes the ultimate cause as well as the
ultimate end in the process of want satisfaction" (Younkins
2004b, p. 1). Without human beings, who are capable of
choice and subjective desires, the concept of value is
nonsensical. It is the fact that existence exists which
makes valuation possible which makes choice possible
which makes the desire for economic activity and
satisfaction of economic wants possible. Without human life
there would not be human action; Menger recognizes this and
bases his value theory on man much more explicitly than does
Mises. It is "life, the process of self-sustaining and
self-generated action, which makes the concept of 'value'
meaningful" (Younkins 2004a, p. 7). Value is necessarily
based on life.
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The importance of the individual
and his volitional consciousness |
Both Austrian economics and Objectivism recognize that only
the human individual can hold and act upon the kind of
values which are worthy of study(3).
Values cannot be held collectively; neither can the values
of two different rational beings be compared to one another.
The study of the individual actor is therefore of utmost
importance to both the Austrian economist and the
objectivist.
Humans are the only "animals" which are capable of action
and rationality; capable of choosing to be or not to be; and
capable not only of living, but of choosing how to
live. Man may, and generally does, choose life. According to
Mises, "To live is for man the outcome of a choice, of a
judgment of value;" (Mises 1963, p. 20) or, according to
Rand, "Man has to be man by choice
" (Rand 1964 p. 27). It
is this unique aspect of mankind which makes the study of
human action so fascinating, and so paradoxical.
The
economist cannot go about his work in the same way that, for
instance, a biologist can, for a very interesting reason.
The economist cannot create scientific experiments, in the
sense that a biologist can, because humans act, and more
specifically, because humans learn in a sense that no other
animal does. If the economist were to attempt to create a
valid scientific experiment (even disregarding such issues
as the morality or immorality of using humans as
experimental subjects), it would be impossible for him to
study humans as they act "naturally," since humans act
differently when they know they are being observed! The
economist could not create a repeatable study, since each
human is so drastically different from every other human
that the observing economist could never build a controlled
experiment. Human action itself prohibits the use of
"scientific" methods in the observation of such; the very
subject of the economist's study prevents him from using the
methods of the traditional, physical sciences. "There
cannot be controlled experiments when we confront the
real world of human activity" (Rothbard 1977, p. 58).
Austrian economics is the only branch of economics which
studies man with the special tool available to study him
with: namely, reason. Only man can be studied in a
completely rational way, because only man is equipped with
reason. This is why the scientist cannot study giraffes by
relying on reason alone, but must resort to empirical
sources for his work. The scientist who wishes to study
human action (the economist), however, can study this
subject from the inside out, as it were, since he is himself
a man and has an understanding of the motivations of other
men(4). Each man is an individual
entity, not to be compared with other men too closely; each
man has a subjective scale of values (different from that of
his neighbor) and a means-end framework for achieving those
values (also different from that of his neighbor.
Central to the method of the Austrian economist is the
adherence to methodological individualism, meaning
that this form of economic study "deals with the actions of
individual men" (Mises 1963, p. 41). Man acts as part of a
social whole, and the economist must never forget or ignore
that fact, but what the individual actions of individual men
are what make up the social whole. Human action cannot be
studied in the aggregate; the Austrian economist believes
that to make sense of his discipline he must focus on the
individual man. "A great deal may be learned about society
by studying man; but this process cannot be reversed:
nothing can be learned about man by studying society" (Rand
1967, p. 15). The Austrian economist always remembers that
man is part of a social whole, but he places the emphasis of
his study on the individual actor.
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