Poverty and the offspring's size

Poverty doesn't arise merely from having babies but specifically from not endowing them with capital.

A not negligible part of capital is what we usually call morals.

Much of morals is learnt within the family.

A big family can perfectly be ideal for learning such values as parsimony, humbleness, collaboration, creativity, and respect to authority.

Poverty has much more to do with not teaching values to children than with the offspring's size itself.

The pure arbitrageur

Arbitrageur is the agent in the role of discovering the opportunity for arbitrage. It is him who decodes an up-to-now non-apparent cheaper homogeneous good into an apparent one. In order to do so, he might have to look through transformations in time, place, and material manufacture as productive stages yet to be accomplished; but, to be sure, the arbitrageur qua arbitrageur doesn't produce. He just fore-sees the opportunity to buy cheap and sell dear.

The three stages for advancing the praxeologic science

First definition. Then explanation. At last (only at last), debate.

Traders in money

Since we accept money because of its exchange value, we are traders in money.

Statitistics: a way of dealing with ignorance

For an agent, random is any occurrence such that he doesn't definitely understand its causes.

Safe sex

The condom is useful to protect just the body.

If you want to protect the soul too, use the sacrament of matrimony instead.

Be humble

In the field of praxeology, a suspicion of having arrived to a discovery is a strong symptom of insufficient reading rather than of outstanding genius.

Best wishes

I don't dream of a Castro dead, but of a Castro conservative.

Maybe not so different

"In addition to the law of marginal utility, there is another factor influencing the rankings of each individual's value scale. It is obvious that the amount that Johnson will supply at any price is limited by the stock of goods that he has available." Rothbard, Murray. Man, Economy, and State. Page 126.

"Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it. If a commodity were in no way useful -in other words, if it could in no way contribute to our gratification- it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labor might be necessary to procure it." Ricardo, David. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. 1817 -third edition, 1817-. Chapter I, section 1, paragraph 2. Page 17-18.

What is rescuable in the labor theory of value

Every purposeful action aims to improve the value of goods; this is, to bring them closer to the achievement of ultimate ends.

This is true since, given an ultimate end, a good of lower order is more valued than one of a higher order.

Falsifiability in the pure logic of choice

The fundamental axiom of purposeful action isn't itself fasifiable, but every single other axiom in order to unfold a theory based on the scientific method of pure logic of choice (subsidiary axioms) has to be falsified in order to test the validity of a theory derived from such axiom. (1)

(1) Confront against Friedman's The Methodology of Positive Economics. Originally in: Essays in Positive Economics. The University of Chicago Press, 1953.

Believing in the pure logic of choice

An assumption needed to apply the pure logic of choice to others is that they undertake purposeful behavior. In principle, it could be conceivable that other people who externally seem to act purposefully, simply act by instinct or in a mechanical way or randomly.

The assumption can not be falsified since the hypothesis that mind is the ultimate first praxeologically relevant cause of decision is not itself external or material.

It has to be accepted that, in this respect, the pure logic of choice with respect to others lays on an act of faith.

It has to be taken into account, that the praxeologist not only believes, as Milton Friedman's instrumentalism would be fully pleased to require, that agents behave as if they would have a purpuse, but believes that they actually behave in such a way.

Minimum wages

Minimum wages are of those blunt symptoms of general ignorance about economic laws. The existence of minimum wages isn't of benefit to anyone but to their professional defenders (ILO's advisors and similar apparatchiki).

Exchange value

Exchange value on a right, the importance of what I can get by handing over the property on such a right, is the one social link which can keep peace among selfish people. (The only other social link is love: the disposition to undertake human actions just for the sake of contributing to the happiness of the other.)

Exchange value can be improved by others making better offers. This is how the efforts by others to improve their productivity benefits me.

On the definition of good

A good can only be caracterized as such ex post facto. Before a would-be good being effectively bought (autistically or interpersonally exchanged for a price), there's no praxeologic way of distinguishing it from a general condition of welfare.

Interpersonal versus autistic exchange

The distinction between interpersonal and autistic exchange is engineerial, not praxeologic.

What and what is not production

Is there a praxeologic relevance in differentiating between changing what's external to the mind in order to accommodate it to a given scale of values and changing the scale itself in order to accommodate it to a given "external-to-the-mind"?

Yes, there is. A change in the value scale, since is internal to the mind, has no human action manifestation whatsoever.

A change in the outmind can occur by way of either human action or not. Every change in the outmind which brings it closer to the (subjetive) satisfaction of wants is production.

Every successful (in terms of effective satisfaction of wants) human action is at once human action and production. Unsuccessful human action is human action but not production. External changes turning into satisfaction of wants occurred without the concourse of human action are production but not human action.

Every human action aims at production. So, is there a relevant role for the concept of consumption in praxeology? Nope. Consumption is a thymologic, not a praxeologic, concept. There where production ends and consumption begins is the exact frontier between the realms of praxeology and thymology.

Production without human action is production at no cost. (1)

(1) Confront against Israel Kirzner's An Essay on Capital. 1966 -Augustus M. Kelly, Publishers-. Page 5: "Any program of production [...] involves costs." However, here the word program must be interpreted as referring to (by definition deliberate) human action exclusively; this is, excluding "non-human-action production". This interpretation is backed by the sentence in Kirzner next to the previously quoted: "As seen by the economist the cost to [the agent] of the production program that he adopts, consists in the opportunities that he has rejected in order to exploit the program that he has adopted."

Worker and employer: two strong parties

Frequently, the relation between worker and employer is seen as that of a weak party (the worker, of course) facing a strong one (the abusive employer).

In many cases, this is a very misleading picture. Indeed, a more accurate way of describing the relative power of these parties is that of a strong one (the employer) facing an as well strong one (the worker who can dismiss his employer as a new opportunity appears).

The best way of protecting an employer is allowing free competition among firms, a very important part of which is competition for employees.

When the worker is devoid of his power by erecting barriers to entry of competition, then you do have a weak party facing a strong one. This way, abuse turns unavoidable. Passing legislation to supposedly protect the artificially weakened party, too often results in no more than smuggling abuse.

The first battlefront for unions truly moved by the interest of the worker should be tearing down barriers to entry of competition. Owners of firms privileged by protectionism can well lose a substantial portion of profits due to this, but industrious workers have nothing to lose but their chains.

And bear in mind that to expect from an employer unleashed from competition to remain kind to the worker is naivety, pure and huge.

That's an easy one!

The weekly publication The Economist asks what went wrong with economics.

Regrettable though it is, the answer sets so simple: scorning praxeology.

Money proper versus money representatives

There's a distinction praxeologically very relevant to do: money proper and money representatives.

The distinctive feature of money proper, vis-à-vis a money representative, is that money proper absolutely cancels a debt.

The distinctive feature of a money representative, vis-à-vis money proper, is that a money representative serves merely as a sort of IOU. It doesn't matter whether or not the creditor sometime decides to claim debt cancellation. It doesn't matter if the debt is against a specific debtor or against whoever who happens to fulfill certain more or less predetermined requirements. What matters is that a money representative, unlike money proper, doesn't cancel a debt.

This classification doesn't exactly follows Mises's Appendix B to his outstanding The Theory of Money and Credit. I consider Mises's categories as innecesarily tainted by historic development rather than praxeologic relevance.

The rather materialistic distinction between commodity monies and fiat monies is a nothing but a rough approximation to the important distinction pointed out above.

Distinction between money proper and money representatives belongs to the (praxeologic) pure theory of posesion. As such, the institution of legal property plays a major role. This could result in problems to define concrete assets. For instance, I'm not pretty sure if the Costa Rican colones which I carry in my pocket are no liability to anyone or if I could go to court to demand that the Central Bank of Costa Rica give me something in exchange for colones. Currently, as the Central Bank is commited to free sale of dollars (receiving exclusively colones), my colones could somehow be seen as money representatives of dollars proper.

This sheds light on other important aspect of money representation. Effective substitutability requires a reasonable expectation of the price of the credit instrument (money representative) in exchange for the asset which cancels the debt (or alternatively for another money representative, not homogeneous with the original).

As money qua money (this is: without taking into account its use value, but exclussively its exchange value) requires the expectation of it being accepted in an eventual future exchange, it could be argued that money qua money is a representative of something else, that money money qua money is (praxeologically though not legally) nothing but a representative! Ironic as it sounds, this is precisely the core of Macleod's credit-theory of money. (1)

(1) On the difference between use value and exchange value, see Menger's Principles of Economics, chapter VI.

1949

A rich intellectual tradition about to be forgotten.

A lot of wise men compelled to abandon their motherland forever.

Many mocking the now foreigners.

Many treating them as radicals.

Some of the wise men explicitly choosing to deny the old tradition.

Some furtively moving to other fields of research.

A man with the firm conviction of preserving what nobody cares of anymore.

It seems fiction but it's the real-life story of how Human Action was written allowing this way new generations the joy and honor of getting linked to the Austrian School of Economics.

Green policy

A way of spurring tree planting is spending a lot of paper. This will rise tree demand, encouraging suppliers to offer more trees.

Illegal drugs

The one case I have heard of to keep the illegal status of some drugs is the damage on addicts.

However, so far I have never seen junkies in a rally defending the current illegal status of some drugs or fighting for further prohibition on others, say, alcohol or tobacco.

Military lesson from Central America

If you don't have an army you'll never need it. (Costa Rica, Panama)

If you have an army, you will eventually find a use for it. (Currently, Honduras)

A recondite source of money supply

Not only coin minters or check issuers are money suppliers. Every single agent who is in disposition to sell the money he owns adds to the supply of money.

Say's law

If nobody is prepared to buy there can not be sale. Only it is sale where there is purchase.

Keynes could hardly have been more misleading by interpreting Say's law as: "demand is created by supply". (1)

(1) Keynes, Maynard. Preface to the French edition of "The General Theoryof Employment, Interest, and Money". 1939.

Family is not a legal category

Everything which is really meaninful in the family, the mother's affection for his son, the son's respect for his father, the love among brethren, or the spouse's devotion are all values which are not ultimately defensible by compulsory law.

A man can be physically compelled to feed his son but not to love him, to avoid visiting a mistress but not to violate the eight commandment.

The family is based on values, thus can not be defended trough coercion but only through education on values, an education which itself can not be coercively imposed but only voluntarily accepted.

The article 51 of the Constitution of the Republic of Costa Rica accurately (though needlessly) states that the family is a natural element of the society as well as its foundation, however aspires to an utopia when it declares the State as its protector.

To be sure, the one thing the government can do for advancing the wealfare of the institution of the family is to laisser-faire-et-laisser-passer. Everything else is counterproductive.

Family is not a legal category. Therefore it can not be defended through coercion, this is: by government.

Slavery as freedom, under the sacrament of matrimony

Under the sacrament of matrimony, the wife is a property of the husband. This alone would count for common slavery. However, at the very same time the husband is a property of the wife.

Under the sacrament of matrimony, every spouse belongs to itself only through its spouse. The husband is his own owner as far as he belongs to his wife. The wife is the freer the more she belongs to his husband.

Under the sacrament of matrimony, delivering all doesn't mean losing but receiving all.

Under the sacrament of matrimony taking care of the other is taking care of oneself, loving the other is not just like loving oneself but actually loving oneself.

Under the sacrament of matrimony, marriage is the epitome of the Church.

Freedom is daughter of the market

It is not freedom what is a necessary condition for the development of the market. Quite the opposite, is the market order what allows the birth of freedom.

Michael Moore as an equilibrating force of the market

As someone who doesn't understand enough the complexities of the market as to feel himself able to scholarly criticizing it, I can't but feel a deep suspicion of Michael Moore's superficial critiques to the market order.

Nevertheless, I feel obliged to split Moore's criticism to the market system from his complaints to specific companies.

I think that "Moore, The Company Critic" is a way of broadly transmitting information valuable for exchange decisions. In this sense, Moore is a particularly valuable piece in the intricate information complex which we use to call the market.

Teenage motherhood

Currently in Costa Rica there's a policy which looks for teenage mothers to remain in school.

By lowering the oportunity cost of teenage motherhood, this policy is encouraging teenage motherhood.

The more you help a teenage mother, the more you promote teenage motherhood, ceteris paribus.

Costa Rican policy on teenage mothers is a subsidy to irresponsibility.

Oil depletion never to happen

If people don't value oil, they don't extract it, so there's no depletion.

If people value it, they are going to try to buy it. The more the buy, the scarcer it turns. The scarcer it turns, the more expensive it is; so the less demanded it is and the slower it is extracted.

Extraction is going to arrive to a halt before complete depletion occurs.

Mises versus Rothbard on praxeology

From reading and comparing Mises's Human Action and Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State, I conclude that you can learn better praxeology from Mises but more praxeology from Rothbard.

To me, these two books aren't substitute but complementary goods.

Problems are always for free

A situation which an agent wants to be "solved" is always a condition of his environment. Nobody is ever to incur (not even can he) in a cost for something which perceives as creating uneasiness.

Absolutely anything which is perceived as a problem, as something which provokes uneasiness, occurs in itself with no cost to the agent.

It's solution what can be costly.

Systematic failure of expectations

What is fundamentally relevant to answer in praxeology is not how agents form expectations but why expectations can fail systematically.

Since a systematic failure praxeologically analyzable can only occur with respect to the value of money and the interest, an expectations theory is only of avail in monetary theory and in theory of capital.

While a systematic failure of expectations on, say, choice of technology or industry be only viewed as a psychologic or otherwise statistic affair but not liable to praxeologic analysis, this failure is can't be a part of praxeology. By the way, historically people have learnt to avoid this kind of non praxeologic failure of expectations, so these failures tend to be more and more shortlived and innocuous.

The problem with systematic failure of expectations on money value and interest is precisely that the phenomenon is such that experience isn't enough guarantee of protection in the presence of governmental intervention.

Entrepreneur versus worker

The entrepreneur is, by definition, an ultimate decision taker. (1) Entrepreneurial human action is never based on obeying someone else's commands.

A human action undertaken by obeying other agent's command is not entrepreneurial but laboral. This is: labor is a human action commanded by someone else. So understood, labor can't be but social. Robinson Crusoe alone in his island can't be a worker. He'll remain an entrepreneur while not in the company of someone else's who gives him commands.

Human action only can be either entrepreneurial or laboral. The materialistic classification of goods of higher order among capital, labor, and land is an atavism of past political conflicts irrelevant to praxeology.

A command is understood as issuable only by agents and obeyable only by agents.

(1) Compare to Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State, page 64.

Production and valuation as opposed processes

Lower order goods give value to higher order goods used to produce the first ones. Value goes from lower to higher order goods.

The process of production goes all the way back. Higher order goods serve to produce lower order goods. Production goes from higher to lower order goods.

The role of the entrepreneur is guessing a production process which back-matches a process of deriving value. This and only this is what the role of the entrepreneur is all about.

Governments are market institutions

Governments too are institutions which are constrained by this complicated system of incentives, competition, consumer sovereignty, and (summing up) spontaneous order which we usually call the market.

Governmental institution, in its productive activities, depends on the same praxeologic laws which apply to any other firm. A government which sells its products at more expensive prices than other governments or gives less quality in exchange for a given amount of money compared to others will receive less and less resources till it goes, sooner or later, to the bankruptcy; this is, to a situation of revolution in which governmental structure is fundamentally modified.

Governments open to competition (in the form of at least free migration in and out, access to information on the performance of foreign governments, and checks and balances) are more suitable to perform well and finally survive than those trying to impose barriers of entry to competition.

Although usually the epicenter of central planning of society, government is itself a sort of spontaneous ordering and, as such, it evolves in ways which can't be predictable but on the point that they will tend to survive if satisfy consumer sovereignty or disappear otherwise.

So, quoting Mises at length:
"A statesman can succeed only insofar as his plans are adjusted to the climate of opinion of his time, that is to the ideas that have got hold of his fellows' minds. He can become a leader only if he is prepared to guide people along the paths they want to walk and toward the goal they want to attain. A statesman who antagonizes public opinion is doomed to failure. No matter whether he is an autocrat or an officer of a democracy, the politician must give the people what they wish to get, very much as a businessman must supply the customers with the things they wish to acquire." Theory and History, page 187.

Cost-pushing and demand-pulling as monetary phenomena

So called cost-push inflation and demand-pull inflation don't have to be viewed as explanations contrary to the idea that inflation is a strictly monetary phenomenon. Increasing prices through cost-pushing and demand-pulling are indeed present in inflationary episodes and can validly be recognized from a monetary viewpoint. They have, however, to be viewed not only as manifestations or symptoms but as causes of inflation, via either money supply or money demand.

This is true even if you use the monetarist frame. For instance, remember of Friedman (1) setting down wages as a determinant of the velocity of money. According to this, a rise in wages (as in a policy of rising minimum wages) could not necessarily be reflected in unemployment but could rather put pressure on prices. In the extreme case, we would have:

(↑w)L+rK=
(↑v)M=
(↑P)Q

This is: we could have, following the necessary logic consequences of Friedman representation of v, a cost pushing on prices within the equation of exchange (or at least the Friedmanite version of it).

(1) Friedman, Milton. The Quantity Theory of Money−A Restatement. 1956 -University of Chicago Press, 1987-. Page 293. See particularly equation 13.

Gini as an envy coefficient

Gini coefficient of incomes can be interpreted as a measure of envy.

If it's high, people don't ask if there are some lazier and others more diligent. It's bad anyway because some earn more than others.

If it've risen, it doesn't matter if that occurred because some went farewell or the arriving of wealthy people. It' bad anyway because some earn more now than others.

In usual interpretations of the Gini coefficient, it doesn't matter poverty, it doesn't matter effort. The one thing it matters is inequality. And the more inequality there is the worse. What can be that but pure and blatant envy?

Le marché c'est moi

Some people complain about "market cruelty", "wild capitalism" and such terms.

As aesthetic judgements, this sort of terms can't be described as objetively wrong, but when using them we shouldn't forget that every time we buy a cheaper good leaving the producer of a more expensive one without a gain, every time we "betray" the firm we worked in by moving to another which pays us better, and in sum every single time we choose an option necessarily leaving others, we become part of that very cruelty and wilderness we are complaining of.

Coase Theorem of the use of resources re-expresed in terms of information

Even if you have the possession on some resource, it could be that the cost of using it be so valued by you that you prefer to leave it to other agent's control.

The more knowledge the other agent has on how to use the resource in order to give utility directly to you or to someone else which can pay something you value more than the resource itself, the more possible that you prefer to leave the resource to that other agent.

Professing to be wise, they shewed themselves fools

Holy Scriptures are full of parables and other metaphors because they have to reach people in very different places and times and levels of education.

It is intriguing how western modern man, self-considered the wisest among those of all lands and epochs, is particularly shortsighted to these metaphors.

Take for instance the Creation Story. In which everybody else has always seen a metaphor about the unique dignity of human life, the modern man looks for endergonic nuclear reactions during the first supernovas.

Of course, the modern man finds the Holy Scriptures far more overcome and therefore futile than anybody else; but, to be sure, this is not because of a privileged education but due to a complex of superiority rooted in a mere engineering specialization.

Permission to freely interpret the Holy Scriptures is but a step away from taking them into account whatsoever. Today, more than ever, we must avoid to read the Holy Scriptures without the aid of tradition and authority as that embodied in the Church. Modern man, raised to see Holy Scriptures with the eyes of a haughty, wise, amender instead of a humble, ignorant, pupil, needs more than anybody else of a loving but severe guide from Clergy.

Rules structure

A rules structure is a set of divisions of rights which formally has internal coherence.

Coercion

Coercion is not a human action against someone else's will but against some specific rules structure.

Confront this against the assertion: "Coercion occurs when one man's actions are made to serve another man's will, not for his own but for the other's purpuse" (1). If we follow this definition, I could say that anytime you undertake a service for another you are suffering coercion. If a service is being sold, it would surely be argued, then you are not suffering coercion since you are serving no another man's will but yours. But I would counter-argue: so, since due to the human action axiom you undertake any action but to serve your own will, there cannot exist coercion whatsoever.

That's why I like much more the definition of coercion "as the invasive use of physical violence or the threat thereof against someone else's person or (just) property" (2).

(1) Hayek, Friedrich. The Constitution of Liberty. 1960 -paperback edition, 1978-. Page 133.

(2) Rothbard, Murray. The Ethics of Liberty. 1982 -New York University Press, 1998-. Page 219.

Nostalgia for taboo

There are no many tabooes nowadays. This, more than a triumph for knowlegde, seems to me a loss for aesthetics, for economy of information, and ultimately for civilization.

Morals

Morals is information used to choose final ends.

What the heck is constructivism?

One of the terms which most has troubled me to really catch in is constructivism.

I have been trying to collect all the necessary conditions which define a particular phenomenon as an instance of constructivism.

By now, this is my collection:

1. Coercion. Constructivism in order to be relevant as a social phenomenon has to imply the violation of formerly defined rights of property. Merely defining in my mind an utopia is not constructivism. It is not even if I establish a campaing to persuade other people to voluntarily adopt my utopia. It is not constructivism when I plan a Victorian styled village inside my land and convince other people to buy a house there. I am simply entrepreneurly guessing a demand for Victorian styled villages.

And that's all. If the presence of intention or planning would be the characteristic feature of constructivism, every single human action would have to be deemed constructivist. So, it should be clear that intentionality per se doesn't necessarily implies constructivism.

Neither give I a damn for the praxeologic pertinence of identifying either animism (purposes of the things themselves) or artificialism (purposes of the makers of the things) as influences of specific human actions. These categories are maybe interesting for the thymologist but certainly not for the praxeologist.

So, I don't see any relevance whatsoever in the use of the term constructivism as something essetially distinct from coercion. To me, constructivism is a quite useless concept.

Aesthetics of sex under the sacrament of matrimony

By taking the sacrament of matrimony, the male also becomes a priest. It is the altar which is changed. The woman is the living altar of the husband. The female flesh although, at difference of stone, is physically corruptible, has a soul more adamant than diamond.

In the sexual intercourse under the holy sacrament of matrimony, mass celebration follows the carnal liturgy of love. By it, full communion between priest and altar is achieved. This solemn act, by being open to life, actualizes immortality. Sex becomes therefore into a means to love instead of a selfish end, a social instead of autistic human action.

Priest and altar are the exclusive congregation of this mass. In it, the priest offers all his life to his altar as his supreme worship to God. If Eucharist is performed by the priest, he drinks from the the most sacred chalice, which is in the altar.

What is conservatism to me

This post is about definition. Therefore, in the core it can't be judged as right or wrong from a scientific view point although it can be assessed from a logic perspective, especially in order to analyze its utility. Agreeing with its assertions only could ultimately achieve a convention but not, per se, to find the truth.

In his essay Why I am not a Conservative, Friedrich Hayek supplies reasons for not to regard himself as a conservative. This way, he was attempting to refute the perception which many had about him. Nevertheless, even after the publication of the essay in 1960, conservatives as conspicuous as Robert Nisbet continued considering him a conservative. There are reasons for this: Hayek was a declared foe of coercion; this is: of changing the distribution of rights. (As a matter of anecdote, I became a conservative thanks to Hayek.)

Conservatism of rights can collide with the fundamental classical liberal dogma of freedom only in a society allowing for legal slavery. In that unique scenario, the liberal would fight for changing the distribution of rights while a coherent conservative would defend the current distribution of rights.

What does a conservative conserve
There are several kinds of conservatism because there are several issues which may be desired to conserve. Two main kinds of conservatism are norms conservatism and moral conservatism.

A norms conservative pursues to conserve rights (or being redundant: property rights). Obviously, the existence of such rights has to have a refference to a concrete rules structure.

A moral conservative wants to conserve moral values: specific uses of freedom (i.e. property on oneself) and after all advices on how not to use freedom which transgression does not imply coercion (this is: violation of another's property). It is important to take into account, nevertheless, that to a norms conservative this conservation only can be done through moral means and not through coercion.

Conservatism as political ideology
Conservatism is an political ideology (an ideology which can be used by, say, a political party in order to guide its program) consisting in defending rights legitimately established in a concrete rules structure.

In the parliament, the conservative congressman radically defends the current rules structure and fiercely attacks bills looking for changing the rights frontiers but only fixing new frontiers where there were not. The conservative congressman typically proposes few laws and makes a lot of political control. In particular, this person never will propose a bill to re-distribute rights and will always analyze carefully bills which he presents to discard such re-distributions. Bills developed by him will pursue sanctioning and clarifying frontiers already draft.

In the executive branch, the conservative administration follows a tame obedience to the parliament. If it offers a bill will be exclusively to fine tune the State management.

The judiciary is called to be the most conservative of all political powers.

What's the role of data in praxeology

Praxeology is a purely logic discipline. As such is aprioristic: its content is completly alien to facts of reality. Nevertheless, it is not totally disentangled from them. Some roles which data can perform in praxeology are:

1. Helping leading the specific fields in which praxeology must be developed.

2. Accompanying praxeology in the solution of problems, which usually requieres not of mere praxeology, but of other sciences.

Science of money versus science of value

The essence of difference in such dichotomic terms as producer-consumer, income-expenditure, and the like has its very core in the use of (objetive) money. Such dichotomies cannot be valid in a science of (subjetive) value.

Maybe the most common and general false dichotomy in this sense is between "economic" and "non-economic". Assertions such as "Man has not just economic interests but he has social, politic, moral, sensual, and affectional ones." bluntly neglects the meaning of "economic" which the economist gives (or rather: should ideally give) to the term.

Given the particular realm of economics and its method, the qualificative "economic" can be validly given to any volitive action. The fact that you aren't choosing between an amount of money and a peach, but between saving your father from a fire or securing your life to watch over your baby son is beside the point from an economic point of view. The economist qua economist must acknowledge the same pattern of behavior in both phenomena and their susceptibility to be analized with economic theory.

Although there is a valid and huge domain of non-economic phenomena (including everything in which no volitive action is being analyzed), usually the qualificative "non-economic" is used for non-monetary, ultimately economic, phenomena.

Why doesn't economics limits itself to monetary phenomena? First of all: if you have a method (praxeology) which effectively allows you analyzing some sort of phenomena why should you reject ad portas such field of analysis? Second, and most important it's an argument due to the fact that much of the critique to free markets is based in the suposition that market only means fighting for exclusively and madly hoarding money in spite of love, peace of mind, etc. To reveal the inaccuracy of this critique, it's basic for economics to clearly explain that free markets are about better ways to pursue your goals, notwithstanding wheter they are more time with your family, enjoying the beauty of a dusk in the hills, or happiness for helping others.

It's a shame that even so prestigious (and deservedly so) as James Buchanan fall in the error of thinking that "economic motivation is not pervasive over all human behavior" (1). They don't seem to have understood Kirzner's essay (2) on what economics is about.

(1) Buchanan, James. What should Economists Do? 1979 -Liberty Press-. Page 66.
(2) Kirzner, Israel. The Economic Point of View. 1960 -Institute for Humane Studies, 1976-.

Six questions to an anarcho-capitalist

1. Are you a constructivist?

2. Why, at the beginning of society, did emerge proto-state governed arrangements instead of something akin to anarcho-capitalism?

3. Why are governments omni-present in every single society but haven't there ever existed a sustained case of anarcho-capitalism?

4. Does have anarcho-capitalism to be triggered through legal reforms, an anarcho-capitalist revolution, or should we just wait for it to spontaneously happen?

5. What, in case of anarcho-capitalism being attained, would prevent from state to emerge once again?

6. Is not the one logical fate of an anarcho-capitalist society that one particular firm of services or police begins to gain power, being by that very feature more demanded so increasing its power, until it becomes alone, turning itself in a usual government?