Calculation and Knowledge

Competition is a process of the formation of opinion: by spreading information, it creates that unity and coherence of the economic system which we presuppose when we think of it as one market.

Hence, it is scientifically meaningless to say that the "probability of Jerry Ford being elected in 1976 is three-eighths," since elections are not homogeneous events repeated a large number of times. And yet a large amount of modern social science and of its mathematizing rests on this faulty view of probability theory.

"The state has only one role in the novels and it is entirely negative: it makes and enforces the fugitive slave laws."

The demand for a medium of exchange is the composite of two partial demands: the intention to use it in consumption and production and the intentio

If pushed too far, Cowen's line of thought could lead to an undue subjectivism, in which people's perceptions and classifications, rather than what actually occurs, would be the sole issues of importance.

Interviewed by Terry O’Neill and Ron Gray on the “RoadKill Radio” internet radio program, Vancouver, Canada; 11 August 2009.

Recorded at Mises University 2009.

"Mises must be compared to thinkers like Voltaire or Montesquieu, Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill."

"Costs of production do not determine prices of goods. Prices of goods determine costs of production."

If the current level of output and employment is made to depend on inflation, a slowing down in the pace of inflation will produce recessionary sym