MENU

Not Incompatible: Ayn Rand and (Some) Austrian Economists

By Edward W. Younkins

April 19, 2023

SUBSCRIBE TO SAVVY STREET (It's Free)

One noteworthy exception is a 2005 symposium called “Ayn Rand Among the Austrians” that appeared in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.

Ayn Rand and Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, share the honor of being the leading proponents of free-market capitalism in the 20th century. Although Rand had personal relationships with both Mises and Murray Rothbard, there has not been much formal engagement between Randian and Austrian approaches—one noteworthy exception is a 2005 symposium called “Ayn Rand Among the Austrians” that appeared in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. In addition, Richard M. Salsman’s 1994 audio course, “The Philosophy of the Austrian School of Economics” explains the philosophy underpinning Austrian Economics and compares these ideas with those of Ayn Rand. It follows that these two schools should be brought together for further comparison, contrast, and analysis. Of course, it should be noted that Objectivism is a complete philosophical system whereas Austrian economics is just part of political economy. This essay will therefore be centered on Objectivism’s relationship to the Austrian school of economics and will explore their similarities and differences. The first section of this essay will explain the essential ideas of three key Austrian economists and the next two sections will discuss the potential complementarity and compatibility of Austrian Economics and Objectivism.

 

Menger, Mises, and Rothbard

The Austrian school of economics places economics on a sound, human basis through its emphasis on actions performed by free, intelligent, creative, and rational agents.

The Austrian school of economics places economics on a sound, human basis through its emphasis on actions performed by free, intelligent, creative, and rational agents. Austrian thinkers reject the use of mathematical models, stress the use of words and concepts, and employ the methods of methodological individualism and subjectivism (i.e., that tastes are one’s own). However, the Austrian school is anything but monolithic, as evidenced by the many disagreements among its members. Authors labeled as “Austrian” cannot be brought together within a unified and coherent analytical framework although, in general, Austrians share subjectivity, the inconsistency of an individuals’ plans and purposes, an emphasis on time, a focus on emergent institutional arrangements, and account for ignorance and information in social interactions.

Carl Menger (1840-1921), the father and founder of Austrian Economics, provided the scientific and theoretical foundation for the Austrian tradition toward the end of the nineteenth century. Menger formulated the concepts and principles which would be continued and elaborated upon by his successors such as Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and Murray Rothbard (1926-1995). In this essay, I emphasize the Mengerian essence of Austrian Economics as it is developed by these thinkers and exclude the thought of economists such as Frederich A. Hayek (1899-1992), Israel Kirzner (1930 –), and Ludwig Lachman (1906 – 1990) who took Austrian Economics down a very different path. These latter writers have greatly reformulated, altered, and deviated from Menger’s original message, principles, and concepts. Menger presupposed an Aristotelian essentialism about the natural order which includes the realm of economics. Like Aristotle, Menger viewed essences as metaphysical. Menger wanted to investigate essences of economic phenomena such as value, rent, profit, division of labor, and so on. His goal was to discover the invariant laws or principles governing economic phenomena. He said that economics must be constructed according to the model of theoretical science by elaborating exact universal laws. He argued that the status of economics as an exact science is based on the fact that it is possible to develop precise and universal concepts and laws to explain economic phenomena. Menger asserted that there are objective laws of nature and that goods had objective properties that made them capable of fulfilling men’s needs.

For Menger, the individual is placed at the origin of a proper explanation of economic phenomena. According to Menger, man, himself, is the point at which human economic life both begins and ends. Man, with his purposes and plans, is thus the subject of his own study. He said that the origin of all economic activity lies in the “subjective” values placed by individuals on things that they believe will satisfy their needs.

Menger, like the much later, Ayn Rand, argued that the ultimate standard of value is the life of the valuer.

Menger, like the much later, Ayn Rand, argued that the ultimate standard of value is the life of the valuer and espoused a type of contextually relational objectivity in his value theory. He defined value as the importance of a good in satisfying one’s needs. Menger, also distinguished between economic and noneconomic goods, developed a theory of marginal value, and investigated the implications of time and uncertainty.

Menger said that people value because they have needs as living, conditional entities. He explained that subjective values (i.e., based on one’s personal estimation) can be viewed as being individual, agent-relative, and objective. He noted that people can be mistaken regarding what their needs actually are and they can wrongly believe that a nonuseful thing is a good. For Menger, something is useful because a person thinks it is useful and because the causal relationship between the thing and a need actually exists. Mengerian agents live in a world of uncertainty where errors are possible. People could be mistaken about a good and its properties and its ability to satisfy their needs. He said that they may recognize their error once they acquire better information. And people’s needs may also change over time as they acquire knowledge in order to improve their plans of action. Menger explained that perfect knowledge never exists and that all economic activity involves risk.

Menger developed a number of fundamental Austrian doctrines including the causal-genetic approach, methodological individualism, the connection between time and error, and more. He included purposeful action, uncertainty, the occurrence of errors, the information acquisition process, learning, and time into his economic analysis. He was an immanent realist who considered a priori essences as existing in reality. As an Aristotelian essentialist he wanted to investigate the essences of economic phenomena. His goal was to discover invariant principles or laws governing economic phenomena and to elaborate exact universal laws. Menger acknowledged the coexistence of different but complementary approaches to economics—the realistic-empirical, and the exact. To find strictly ordered exact laws he said we had to omit principles of individuation such as time and space. This entails isolation of the economic aspect of phenomena and abstraction from disturbing factors such as error, ignorance, and external compulsion.

Holding that causality underlies economic laws, Menger taught that theoretical science provides the tools for studying phenomena that exhibit regularities. He distinguished between exact types and laws that deal with strictly typical phenomena and empirical-realistic types and laws that deal with truth within a particular spatio-temporal domain. Menger’s exact approach involves deductive-universalistic theory in the coexistence and succession of phenomena that admits no exceptions and that are strictly ordered. His theoretical economics is concerned with exact laws based on the assumptions of self-interest, full knowledge, and freedom. Menger’s exact theoretical approach involves both isolation and abstraction from disturbing factors.

Rationality did not imply omniscience to Menger. He explained that people need to learn the causal relationships between things and their properties and the ability of the good to satisfy their needs in order to make a reasonable decision regarding their economic well-being. Menger’s concern with causal connections led him to include a means-ends framework at the heart of his conception of economics.

Menger incorporated the peculiarly human elements of purposeful action and uncertainty, the occurrence of errors, the information acquisition process, learning, and time into his economic analysis. He explained that economic activities take place over time and in real time. Menger was the first economist to offer a subjectivist concept based on the personal appraisal of economic actors and to offer a causal-genetic analysis of the emergence of economic phenomena such as money. Menger’s Aristotelian essentialism offers a framework of basic and universal principles and concepts that underpins the core of his logic. His nondeterminist view of economic phenomena and use of natural language rather than formal mathematical models, provided a basis for marginal subjective value, and changed the essential character of economics.

Ludwig Von Mises’s goal, like that of Menger, was to formulate a total reconstruction of economics in order to attain for economics the status of a universal theoretical science. Mises continued the research program started by Menger by building time, uncertainty, social cooperation, and process into his system. Building on the work of Menger, Mises rebuilt economics upon the solid foundation of a general theory of human action.

Mises’s enterprise was to develop an edifice of irrefutable, coherent, universally applicable, formal economic theory using logical deduction and the sole axiom of human action without employing any other empirical or analytical assumptions. According to Mises, it is possible to deduce the entirety of the logic of economic behavior from the fundamental axiom that individual men act, but that it is impossible to deduce the concrete consequences or details of particular human actions because each person possesses free will. He explains that the universality of human action generates the universality of economic truths. It is possible to discover the essentially true features of human action which he saw as purposeful behavior.

Mises named the study of human action “praxeology.” He maintained that the categories of praxeology are universally valid because they reflect the structure of the human mind and the natural world. Mises said that the statements and propositions of economics are a priori, are not derived from experience, and do not proceed from inductive generalizations. He contended that economic theory rests on a body of truths independent of time and place. Included among these truths are the notions of causation, valuation, means and ends, scarcity, choice, opportunity cost, social cooperation, marginal utility, the time-preference theory of interest, the laws of exchange, and so on.

For Mises, the concept of action is universal, intuitive, a priori, and automatically built into each person’s mental structure.

For Mises, the concept of action is universal, intuitive, a priori, and automatically built into each person’s mental structure. He deduced a complete system of what he called praxeological laws exclusively from the central introspectively known axiom of human action which he viewed as a law of thought. Mises based all knowledge of the economic system on solely the axiom of action aimed at the satisfaction of human needs.

Misesian economics is descriptive, value-free, and apolitical. Mises explains that value judgments are subjective, and cannot be argued about. The value of goods is thus in the minds of acting people and the content of human action is determined by the personal judgments of each individual. According to Mises, economics is a value-free science of means, rather than of ends, that describes but does not prescribe. He says that whether people act to attain happiness or some other goal is irrelevant for  economics.

Austrian economics deals with chosen individual human aims and values. Mises says that human reason and freedom play roles in every action. Values are chosen and a person can decide to initiate a chain of causation because he has free will—actions are self-generated and goal-directed. Mises understands that the study of human action can be used to make a value-free case for freedom. Mises observes that voluntary social cooperation springs from human action because higher production and greater prosperity in society arise from the division of labor. Each person is more likely to attain his own goals in a free society. Misesian value-free economics thus seeks to show that only free-market capitalism can create a social order of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

Mises’s utilitarianism proceeds from the method of axiomatic reasoning from true premises—his utilitarianism is a priori. He deduces that division of labor and social cooperation are more effective and more efficient than social conflict as a means of attaining one’s self-interest. Social cooperation is voluntary, contractual, maximizes individual free choice, and results in greater prosperity in society. Mises views social cooperation and coordination as one of the means to happiness which is similar to the Aristotelian notion of eudaimonia or human flourishing. He says that although economics is value-free and apolitical, it is still the foundation for a free polity. Mises explains that value-free economics leads a person to form a free society because the achievement of one’s goal is far more likely when people are left free than when they are not. He maintains that it is by means of its subjectivity that praxeological economics develops into objective science.

Misesian praxeological economics is more rationalistic than Mengerian economics, works at a formal level, and assumes that people act in order to achieve goals. Action is determined by the choice of the actor, and economic phenomena are products of individual human action. For Mises, a dissatisfied or uneasy person acts when he believes his action can cause the desired effect in the world. Human action involves causality, time, change, and uncertainty. Real choice involves free will and can only occur in an uncertain environment with respect to the future. Otherwise, it would simply be reaction.

Mises explains that men act in real time, using scarce economic means, directed at ends to be attained in the future. Men, with uncertain and incomplete knowledge, must believe that these actions will make a difference and must act now in order to achieve their ends later. Because their time is scarce and finite, they prefer, ceteris paribus, to gain ends as close to the present as possible. They would rather have goods sooner than have them later.

Mises was dissatisfied with Menger’s Aristotelian methodology and value theory. He thought that Menger’s subjectivism was not consistent enough and therefore articulated a more thoroughgoing subjectivist position. Because Menger had included the category of imaginary goods in his system, Mises saw Menger as either having objectivist leanings or at least as being inconsistent in his formulations. For a total subjectivist such as Mises, the category, imaginary goods, was suspect. If the character of goods is solely defined by a person’s subjective evaluations then how could any good be more imaginary or more real than any other?

Like Menger, Mises’s idea of the subjective nature of value takes human ends as the ultimate given. He was not concerned with what or why people value but with how they meet their goals of achieving their values. For Mises, economics is a value-free science of means rather than of ends. Economics is a theory of the consequences of choice and action.

Apriorism is the most problematic and controversial aspect of Misesian praxeology. Mises’s praxeological thought has been continued and furthered by his student, Murray Rothbard, who contended that the law of human action could be viewed as a law of reality instead of as a law of thought. According to Rothbard, Aristotelian metaphysics and epistemology are consistent with Mises’s action axiom and are able to provide a superior foundation for Misesian praxeological economics. He explains that the action of human action is both self-evident and based on the nature of human beings and of the world around us. As a consequence, a person could derive the action axiom through induction and deduce the principles of praxeological economics from that axiom. It follows that a man becomes aware of the purposefulness of human action from a combination of introspection and the observation of goal-directed action from the outside. Once it is acknowledged that Mises’s action axiom could be derived through an inductive process, it will then be legitimate to follow and adopt his logical arguments that all the core principles and relationships of economics can be deduced from that axiom.

Rothbard developed a type of neo-Aristotelian natural law and natural rights theory.

Rothbard developed a type of neo-Aristotelian natural law and natural rights theory. He derives the content of natural law and speaks in terms of natural law and natural rights. He combined natural law theory using an Aristotelian or Randian approach with the praxeological economics of Austrians such as Mises. He differs from the neo-Kantian Mises in his epistemology and instead returns to the Aristotelian epistemology of Menger to find the action axiom as based in empirical reality. Rothbard believed Mises to be on shaky grounds with his extreme aprioristic approach to epistemology. However, he did embrace nearly all of Misesian economics.

Rothbard saw rights as essential to a libertarian social order. He thus advocated his nonaggression principle and the right to self-defense. Working largely within the Lockean logic of self-ownership, homesteading, and exchange, Rothbard became an ideologically committed zero-state economist who saw no role for government to play. For him, political exchange equals coercion and market exchange equals voluntary agreement. Viewing the state as a vehicle of institutionalized crime, he supported free competition in the provision of defense and judicial services.

Rothbard’s market-anarchist program is the instantiation of his libertarian moral theory which does not constitute a prescription for personal morality—it merely constructs a social ethics of libertarianism as a political philosophy. Basically, he holds that individuals can select their own personal values but should not endeavor to enforce their ideas of morality upon other people. He sees the nonaggression principle as consistent with diverse moral stances.

Rothbard derives a radical dualistic separation between political ethics and personal ethics. He distinguishes between the metanormative sphere of politics and the normative domain that is concerned with moral or ethical principles of one’s flourishing—there is a huge difference between having natural rights and the morality or immorality of the exercise of those rights. He considers nonaggression to be an absolute principle prior to any foundation for personal morality. An individual’s personal moral values are separate from, but dependent upon, the existence of a liberal social order. Being morally neutral regarding various individuals’ values and goals, Rothbard ended his ethics at the metanormative level. Considering the state to be a totally evil coercive institution, he was an anarcho-capitalist who advocated natural order with competing security, defense, conflict resolution, and insurance suppliers.

Rothbard contends that economics as a science is value-free and that economics and ethics are separate disciplines. He does go beyond economics to formulate a metanormative objective ethics that affirms the essential value of liberty. Rothbard explains that liberty deals with matters of private property, consent, and contract. He maintains that liberty supplies a universal ethic for human conduct and provides a moral axiom—the nonaggression axiom which holds for all persons no matter their location in time or space.

Austrian praxeological economists speak a different language from that spoken by the neoclassical economists who applied the mechanistic model of the natural sciences to the study of human behavior, thereby constructing an unrealistic and nonrepresentative economic model of perfect knowledge and pure competition. Neoclassical economists employ a positivist methodology and reduce scientific propositions to experienced, immediate data from which they draw their conclusions. Whereas the neoclassicals assume certainty and full knowledge, describe equilibrium states, and stress empirical testing, the praxeological economists are concerned with the implications of uncertainty and lack of full knowledge, describe states of disequilibrium, and reject mathematical methods. The Austrians substitute a conception of the human person as purposeful, creative, and entrepreneurial for the mechanistic and atomistic neoclassical worldview. Austrians, like Objectivists, espouse a critical stance toward neoclassical economics and adopt a strict individualist position and defense of the free market.

 

Complementarity of Austrian Subjective Value Theory and Ayn Rand’s Objective Value Theory

People value because they have needs as living, conditional entities. The predominant value theory among Austrian thinkers is Ludwig von Mises’s subjectivist approach. This approach takes personal values as given and assumes that individuals have different motivations and prefer different things. By contrast, some Austrians follow Carl Menger, the father of Austrian economics, in agreeing with Ayn Rand that the ultimate standard of value is the life of the valuer and that objective values support man’s life and originate in a relationship between man and his survival requirements. This approach sees value as a relational and objective quality dependent on the subject, the object, and the context involved. Objective values depend upon both a person’s humanity and his individuality. Each person has the potential to use his unique attributes and talents in his efforts to do well at living his own individual life. It is possible for a person to pursue objective values that are consonant with his own rational self-interest.

Austrian praxeological economics (i.e., the study of human action in a market context) has been used to make a value-free case for liberty. This economic science deals with abstract principles and general rules that must be applied if a society is to have optimal production and economic well-being. Misesian praxeology consists of a body of logically deduced, inexorable laws beginning with the axiom that each person acts purposefully. Mises was off base with his neo-Kantian epistemology, which views human action as a category of the human mind. Fortunately, Murray Rothbard demonstrated how the action axiom could be derived using induction and a natural law approach.

Although Misesian economists hold that values are subjective, and Objectivists argue that values are objective, these claims are not incompatible because they are not really claims about the same things. They exist at different levels or spheres of analysis. The methodological value-subjectivity of the Austrians complements the Randian sense of objectivity. The level of objective values dealing with personal flourishing transcends the level of subjective value preferences. The value-freedom (or value-neutrality) and value-subjectivity of the Austrians have a different function or purpose than does Objectivism’s emphasis on objective values. On the one hand, the Austrian emphasis is on the value-neutrality of the economist as a scientific observer of a person acting to attain his “subjective” (i.e., personally-estimated) values. On the other hand, the philosophy of Objectivism is concerned with values for an acting individual moral agent, himself. There is a distinction between methodological subjectivism and philosophical subjectivism. Whereas Austrians are methodological subjectivists in their economics, this does not imply or necessitate that they are moral relativists as individuals.

Austrian economics is thus an excellent way of looking at “social science methodology” with respect to the appraisal of means but not of ends. Misesian praxeology therefore must be augmented. Its value-free economics is not sufficient to establish a total case for liberty. A systematic, reality-based ethical system must be discovered to firmly establish the argument for individual liberty. Natural law provides the groundwork for such a theory, and both Objectivism and the Aristotelian idea of human flourishing are based on natural law ideas.

Austrian economics and Objectivism agree on the significance of the ideas of human action and values. The Austrians explain that a person acts when he prefers the way he thinks things will be if he acts compared to the way he thinks things will be if he fails to act. Austrian economics is descriptive and deals with the logical analysis of the ability of selected actions (i.e., means) to achieve chosen ends. Whether or not these ends are truly objectively valuable is not the concern of the praxeological economist when he is acting in his capacity as an economist. There is another realm of values that views value in terms of objective values and correct preferences and actions. Rand’s Objectivism is concerned with this other sphere and thus prescribes what human beings ought to value and act to attain.

When thinkers from the Austrian school speak of subjective knowledge they simply mean that each person has his own specific and finite context of knowledge that directs his action. In this context “subjective” merely means “subject-dependent” (Tarr, 2019). Subjectivism for the Austrians does not mean the rejection of reality—it only focuses on the view that consumer tastes are personal. This is the type of knowledge that a person needs to make plans to attain his particular goals.

Austrian economists contend that values are subjective and Objectivists maintain that values are objective. These claims can be seen as compatible because they are not claims about the same phenomena. These two senses of value are complementary and compatible. The Austrians view actions from the perspective of a neutral examiner of the actions, and Objectivists suggest values and actions for an acting human being as a moral agent, himself. The Austrian economist does not force his own value judgments on the personal values and actions of the human beings that he is studying. Operating from a different perspective, Objectivists maintain that there are objective values that stem from a man’s relationship to other existents in the world. For the Objectivist, the purpose of ethics is to live a flourishing and happy life by recognizing and responding to the significance of human action.

It is possible for these two schools of thought to be combined into an integrated framework.

It is possible for these two schools of thought to be combined into an integrated framework. At a descriptive level, the Austrian idea of demonstrated preference agrees with Rand’s account of value as something that a person acts to gain and/or keep. Of course, Rand moves from an initial descriptive notion of value to a normative perspective on value that includes the idea that a legitimate or objective value serves one’s life. The second, deeper view of value provides an objective standard to evaluate the use of one’s free will.

An ethical system must be developed and defended in order to establish the case for a free society. An Aristotelian ethics of naturalism states that moral matters are matters of fact and that morally good conduct is that which enables the individual agent to make the best possible progress toward achieving his self-perfection and happiness. According to Rand, happiness relates to a person’s success as a unique, rational human being possessing free will. We have free choice and the capacity to initiate our own actions in a way that enhances or hinders our flourishing as human beings.

 

Compatibility of Praxeological Economics and Randian Philosophy

Praxeological economics and Objectivism can be viewed as complementary and compatible disciplines. Austrian economics teaches us that social cooperation through the private property system and division of labor enables individuals to prosper and to pursue their flourishing and happiness. In turn, the philosophy of Objectivism informs us how to act. In making their life-affirming judgments, men can refer to and employ the data of economic science.

The Aristotelian, Mengerian, Rothbardian, and Randian perspectives see reality as objective. There is a world of objective reality that exists independently of human beings and that has a determinate nature that is knowable. It follows that natural law is objective because it is inherent in the nature of the entity to which it relates. The content of natural law, which derives from the nature of man and the world, is accessible to human reason.

There are similarities between Menger and Rand. In fact, Menger’s writings on his economics of well-being are the closest to Rand’s doctrines that have ever emanated from any economist. They both espouse a contextually-relational objectivity in their theories of value in which value is seen as a relational quality dependent upon the subject, the object, and the context of the situation involved.

Even though Menger’s value theory was sound, the epistemology on which it rests is not as convincing as it could have been if he had recognized, as Rand did, that concepts as universals are epistemological (and contextual), rather than metaphysical. Menger would have had to view essences as epistemological, and the mind as epistemologically active but as metaphysically passive.

Mises and Rand were passionate critics of collectivism. Whereas Mises criticized the economic and political functioning of collectivism, Rand attacked the morality of collectivism (Boettke, 2019). They agree that collectivism in the form of people, races, or nations do not exist independently or separately from the individuals who comprise them. In addition, they both dismissed positivism’s rejection of the human mind as real and as the tool of knowledge about the world, man, and his actions. They also believed that free-market capitalism is the best possible arrangement for society (Ebeling, 2021). Their promotion of rationality, free choice, and subjective (i.e., personally-estimated) and objective values (in their respective contexts) make their worldviews compatible. Mises’s arguments for capitalism in terms of its utility can be interpreted to be in agreement with Rand’s criterion of man’s life as the standard of value. There is a great deal on Mises’s praxeology (or science of human action) that is consistent with Objectivist principles. As stated by Walter Block (2005, 266) on the majority of issues Rand and Mises “are as alike as two peas in a pod.”

Rothbard and Rand both adopted the Aristotelian view that action is a law of reality that is known from experience. Each developed and defended an objective system of ethics that would underpin a free, rights-based, society. Unlike Rand, Rothbard separated politics from personal morality. Nevertheless, they promoted a similar individualist perspective.

There is much common ground between Rand and the Austrians.

Objectivism endorses a theory of objective value and an ethics that reflects the primacy of existence. Ayn Rand’s Aristotelian perspective on the nature of man and the world and on the need to exercise one’s virtues can be viewed as complementary with the praxeology of Austrian economics. The Objectivist worldview can provide a context to the economic insights of the Austrian economists. For more detailed discussions with respect to the intersection and compatibility of these traditions see Younkins (2005), Johnsson, (2005), and Touchstone (2015).

There is much common ground between Rand and the Austrians and much to be gained through the intellectual exchange between Objectivism and Austrian economists. Their views tend to be complementary and mutually reinforcing. Objectivism can be viewed as an ethical and logical augmentation of Austrian economics and Austrian praxeology can be seen as the ideal means for Objectivists when addressing economic issues. Economics would focus on attempting to discover objective economic principles, but would leave ethical issues to philosophy.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

References

Boettke, Peter J. 2019. Mises, Rand, and the Twentieth Century. In Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew (eds). Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand’s Political Philosophy. University of Pittsburgh Press: 384-400.

Block, Walter. 2005. Ayn Rand and Austrian Economics: Two Peas in a Pod. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. 7 no.2 (Spring): 259-69.

Ebeling, Richard M. 2021. The Case for Freedom in Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and Ayn Rand. Future of Freedom. (January).

Johnsson, Richard C. B. 2005. Subjectivism, Intrinsicism, and Apriorism: Rand Among the Austrians? The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. 7, no.2 (Spring): 317-35.

Menger, Carl. [1871] 1981. Principles of Economics. Translated by James Dingwall and Bert F. Hoselitz. New York: New York University Press.

______. [1883] 1985. Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences with Special Reference to Economics. Translated by Francis J. Nock. New York: New York University Press.

Mises, Ludwig von. [1949] 1963. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

______. [1933] [1960] [1976] 2003. Epistemological Problems of Economics. Translated by George Reisman. Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Rand, Ayn. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House.

______. 1964. The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism. New York: New American Library.

______. 1966. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. New York: New American Library.

______. 1979. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. New York:

Rothbard, Murray N. 1957. In Defense of Extreme Apriorism. Southern Economic Journal. (January): 314-20.

______. 1970. Man, Economy, and the State. Los Angeles: Nash Publishing.

______. 1982. The Ethics of Liberty. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press.

Salsman, Richard M. 1994. The Philosophy of the Austrian School of Economics. 6 audio lectures. New Milford. Connecticut: Second Renaissance Books.

Tarr, Robert. 2019. Economic Theory and Conceptions of Value: Rand and the Austrians versus the Mainstream. In Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew (eds). Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn rand’s Political Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press: 327-380.

Touchstone, Kathleen. 2015. Rand and the Austrians: The Ultimate Value and the Non-interference Principle. Libertarian Papers. 1 (2016): 169-204.

Younkins, Edward W. 2005. Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. 7 no. 2 (Spring): 337-74.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Visited 1,189 times, 1 visits today)