Human Action, the Way Forward

The Misesian approach starts with the universal, realistic facts of human persons from which the logic of human action can be deduced. In moving from the logic of personal action to the logic of social interaction, praxeology inserts into economic theory the realistic empirical fact of the heterogeneity among (1) human persons; (2) natural resources, including land sites; and (3) capital goods. In contrast, mainstream economists employ a modeling approach. In the name of science, reliance on human judgment is to be expunged from economic analysis. This means formulating theory mathematically to avoid the ambiguities of verbal language, and statistical techniques supplant the human judgments of economists in assessing the relevance of causal factors.