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Social EpistemologyVol. 24, No. 2, April–June 2010, pp. 75–98

ISSN 0269–1728 (print)/ISSN 1464–5297 (online) © 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/02691721003749877

Weber’s Sociological Elements in Mises’ Economics of Human ActionMilan ZafirovskiTaylor and FrancisTSEP_A_475509.sgm10.1080/02691721003749877Social Epistemology0269-1728 (print)/1464-5297 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis24020000002010MilanZafirovskizafirovski@unt.edu

This essay analyzes the relations between Austrian Praxeology and sociology. It argues thatPraxeology is not only a codification and ramification of pure market economics but alsoto some degree the Austrian school’s variant or proxy of sociology. This argument particu-larly applies to Mises’ Praxeology as the general theory of human action, with Weber’s soci-ology understood as the science of social action, taken as Mises’ acknowledged sociologicalsource, inspiration or anticipation. The essay develops and substantiates the argument byidentifying certain sociological premises, concepts and observations in Mises’ Praxeology,which are classified into the fields of general sociology, economic sociology and politicalsociology. The essay builds on and contributes to the growing economics and sociologicalliterature on the relationship between Austrian economics and Weberian (and other)sociology.

Keywords: Sociology; Praxeology; Economics

In recent years, contemporary Austrians have become increasingly interested in explor-ing the relations between the Austrian school of economics and sociology, especiallythe connections between Weber’s sociological and Mises–Hayek’s economic theory.Lachmann (1971) perhaps initiated or reignited (after Mises’ earlier insights) this inter-est by identifying and emphasizing what he calls the “legacy” of Max Weber in contem-porary Austrian economics. More recently, developing this line of inquiry, Langlois(1986) and Boettke (1998) re-examine and re-emphasize Weber–Austrian links inrespect with analyzing human action, rationality and social institutions. In particular,Boettke and Storr (2002) explore the connection of Weber’s economic sociology or

Milan Zafirovski is Associate Professor at the University of North Texas. His research interests are interdiscipli-nary, comparative, and global studies. He is the author of eight books and around 70 articles in refereed economicsand sociology journals and other outlets in America, Europe and elsewhere. In addition, he is a co-editor ofInternational encyclopedia of economic sociology published in 2006 as well as an advisory/area editor in the area ofeconomic sociology for the Encyclopedia of sociology (edited by George Ritzer) published in 2007. Correspondenceto: Milan Zafirovski, Department of Sociology, P.O. Box 311157, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203,USA. Email: zafirovski@unt.edu

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“social economics” with Mises’ and Hayek’s theoretical and methodological writings.Notably, they propose that Mises–Hayek’s economic theories and methodologies“complement and extend” Weber’s sociological theory and methodology, in that allthese writers share a “sophisticated form of methodological individualism” that canovercome the “shortcomings” of conventional economics and sociology and supply the“analytical structure for a post-classical political economy” (Boettke and Storr 2002;for a different view, see Anderson 20041). In addition, contemporary Austrians indi-rectly explore these connections by exploring those of Weber’s disciple and Mises’student, Schutz, to Austrian economics, even devoting a “Special Issue on AlfredSchutz Centennial, 1899–1999”2 (edited and introduced by Boettke and Koppl 2001).Contemporary Austrians and other economists have also examined the relations ofAustrian economics to sociological or social theories other than Weber’s, includingDewey’s epistemological ideas (Boettke, Lavoie, and Storr 2001) and critical realism’sontological socio-economic theory (Lewis 2005). However, for the present purpose,their exploration and emphasis of the connections between Austrian economics,especially Mises’ version, and Weber’s sociology is the most interesting and pertinent,starting with Lachmann’s rediscovery of the Weberian legacy, and indirectly culminat-ing in the special issue on their disciple and student Schutz.

The present article follows on this line of inquiry in contemporary Austrian econom-ics by re-examining the connections between Weber’s version of sociology and Mises’theory of human action or Praxeology. At least two reasons justify this focus onWeber’s sociology and Mises’ Praxeology. First, their theoretical and methodologicalconnections have been most pertinent, explored and emphasized within contemporaryAustrian economics (Boettke and Storr 2002; Lachmann 1971) as well as economicsociology (Swedberg 1998). Second, as known, Weber and Mises (plus the youngHayek) were contemporaries for a certain period of time (until 1920, the year ofWeber’s death), personally knowing, respecting and admiring each other3 (Anderson2004; Swedberg 1998). Hence, Ludwig von Mises and Max Weber are the major figures,sort of socio-economic heroes, in this essay.

Against this background, the essay purports to elaborate on and contribute to thegrowing literature of the connection of Mises’ Praxeology and the Austrian school ofeconomics overall to the Weberian variant of sociology. In general, Mises definesPraxeology as the general theory of human action in society, which is similar, if notidentical, to Weber’s earlier definition of sociology in the sense of a science of socialactions. Hence, in general definitional terms, Mises’ Praxeology constitutes theAustrian school’s version, restatement or proxy of Weberian sociology as its anticipa-tion, and to that extent more than pure economics (including market catallactics ormarginal-utility theory) as instead a special case of sociology. Both Mises’ Praxeologyand Weber’s sociology are socio-economic, mostly ontological (in the sense of criticalrealism; cf. Lewis 2005), theories and analyses of the complex reality and operation of,to use the title of Weber’s magnum opus, Economy and society, including Polity(Boettke and Storr 2002). In short, the Weberian variant of sociology as the science ofsocial action (it will be argued) anticipates and even inspires Mises’ project of Praxeol-ogy as the theory of human action.

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Mises’ Praxeology can be considered the Austrian school’s variant or proxy ofWeber’s sociology in virtue of entailing or generating certain explicit or implicit socio-logical elements (assumptions, concepts and observations) through its theory ofhuman action in society. For example, Mises explicitly assumes that (private) propertyrepresents what he calls, apparently following or evoking Weber, a “sociological cate-gory.” Further, Mises uses terms such as “social body,” “social interaction,” “socialprocess” and the like to describe the nature of markets, the determination of marketprices and the operation of free competition, as by implication what Weber denotes“sociological categories of economic action” rather than mechanical, natural or biolog-ical phenomena. In so doing, Mises implies that the market process, as the essentialfeature of the capitalist economy, is an eminently social one, a complex set of human(inter)actions, so a sociological or praxeological category (Jakee and Spong 2003).Another, perhaps most famous, instance of Praxeology cum sociology is what Misesdenotes as his “economic and sociological” study of socialism or communism and bycomparison capitalism; that is, comparative socioeconomic systems. Another generalinstance is Mises’ “interpretation of social and economic evolution”. The remainder ofthe essay identifies and discusses additional instances in this respect.

For the purpose of the essay, the most pertinent sociological elements within Mises’Praxeology are classified into the following headings: first, general sociology; second,economic sociology; and third, political sociology. The remainder of the essay is orga-nized around these themes. The first section examines elements of general sociology inPraxeology, particularly the origins or anticipations of Mises’ theory of human actionin Weber’s sociological theory and methodology. The second section identifies anddiscusses elements of economic sociology or “sociological categories of economicaction” within Praxeology. Corresponding elements of political sociology (oreconomy), as a study of the relations between polity and society (or the economy), inPraxeology are identified and discussed in a third section. A last section concludes.

General Sociology and Praxeology

From Weber’s Sociology to Mises’ Praxeology

In general, Praxeology can be considered Mises’, and consequently the Austrianschool’s, version of, alternative to, or different name4 for, sociology in Max Weber’ssense. To recall, Weber defines sociology in the sense of a general science of socialaction or human action in society, including both its economic and non-economicspheres. Admittedly influenced and inspired by Weber’s conception of sociology,Mises defines Praxeology in an almost identical or similar manner, as the “generaltheory” of human action in society. Specifically, in Weber’s conception, sociology is a“science concerning itself with the interpretative understanding of social action andthereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences” (1968, 4). Similarly,Mises specifies the subject or scope of Praxeology in terms of the category of humanaction, in Weber’s sense. Further, just as Weber considers social action to be the “objectof cognition” and its understanding the “specific function” of sociology, so Mises

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(1966, 21) treats it as involving “all the concepts and theorems” of Praxeology. AndMises treats these praxeological principles as valid for every type of human action“without regard to its underlying motives, causes, and goals.” In short, what Webercalls (interpretative) sociology, Mises denotes as Praxeology, both being defined interms of a general science of human action in society, including economy.

In addition to Mises’ original statements, the Weberian (but not the Durkheimian,5

for example) sociological interpretation of Praxeology is also supported by some of hisstudents and followers, including Hayek and other members of the Austrian School.Thus, in his review of Human action (German edition), Hayek (1941, 127) notes thatMises “proceeds to vindicate the autonomous character of the method of the socialsciences by systematically building up a general theory of human action [i.e.] (revivingan older French term)—the science of Praxeology.” And Hayek knows well and mayadd that, by doing so, Mises essentially continues Weber’s earlier efforts to preciselyaffirm, as Lachmann (1976, 56) emphasizes, the “autonomous character of the methodof the social sciences by systematically building up a general theory of human action”or sociology; that is, to maintain the “methodological independence of the theoreticalsocial sciences of the natural sciences.” For instance, Weber (1968, 15)6 does so bystating that social science, including both sociology and economics, “can accomplishsomething which is never attainable in the natural sciences, namely the subjectiveunderstanding of the action of the component individuals”. This is a statement thatMises essentially adopts and elaborates with the result that, like Weber’s sociology, hisPraxeology is “independent of natural science”7 (Smith 1999). Consonant withHayek’s early description, Mises’ followers or other Austrian economists describePraxeology in explicitly or implicitly Weberian terms; namely, “sociological Praxeol-ogy” (Prychitko 1994), the general science or theory of human action in economy andsociety8 (Chipman 2004; Langlois 1988; Smith 1999), and the like.

If the “core of Mises’ thought” (Smith 1999, 195) is “sociological Praxeology,” thento better understand the latter requires understanding its relation to, notably its contin-uation of or affinity with, Weber’s conception of sociology (see below). That is exactlywhat some of Mises’ followers suggest by noting that “in reading [Human action] onemust never forget that it is the work of Max Weber that is being carried on here [justas] has been carried on by others [within the Austrian school, including Hayek]”(Lachmann 1951, 413). These include the later members of the Austrian school, notablythe participants in the famous Mises seminar held in Vienna from 1920 to 1934. Directlyor indirectly prompted by Mises, these participants—including, alongside Hayek,Machlup, Haberler, Morgenstern, Rosenstein-Rodan, Schutz, and so forth—reportedlywere “extremely interested” in Weberian sociological theory and methodology; forexample, interpretive understanding (Verstehen) and ideal types9 (Swedberg 1998,205). In this sense, Mises carried on the “work of Max Weber” and these youngerAustrian members (e.g. Hayek, Schutz) the Misean praxeological rendition or interpre-tation of Weberian sociology, in addition to and combination with their independent“encounters” with the latter. What Mises has been to Hayek, a precursor, teacher andinspiration (Langlois 1988, 685), Weber was to Mises, although both disciples haveoften modified and even gone beyond the teachings of their respective teachers.

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That Praxeology (especially as set out in Human action) essentially continues the“work of Max Weber,” including Weberian sociological theory and (especially)methodology, is often acknowledged or implied by Mises himself. For example, Misescites Weber’s proposition (from an early polemical essay in economics) that “marginalutility theory, and more broadly, any subjective theory of value are not psychologically,but ‘pragmatically’ founded, that is, on the use of the categories of ends and means”rather than psychologically based on the so-called Fechner law10 of psychophysics assometimes contended by marginalist and other economists. Admittedly, in this Webe-rian proposition, “we have the origin of the Misean Praxeology [and even], theHayekian ‘pure logic of choice’” (Lachmann 1976, 56). Further, Mises (1966, 126n)surmises that “if Weber had known the term ‘Praxeology,’ he probably would havepreferred it [to pragmatical].” Mises therefore implies that his project of Praxeology isessentially a continuation of Weber’s “pragmatical” sociology, being both analyticallygrounded on the notions of ends and means or purposive human action in economyand society. Thus, Mises adopts and develops Weber’s emphasis on “the cardinalimportance of means and ends as fundamental categories of human action”(Lachmann 1976, 56) in an attempt to reaffirm, in Hayek’s words, the “autonomouscharacter” of the social sciences, including economics and sociology, and their meth-odology and theory vis-à-vis physical science. Admittedly, Weber “can hardly be calledan Austrian economist but he made a contribution of fundamental significance to whatin the hands of Mises became Austrian methodology” (Lachmann 1976, 56). In otherwords, Weber’s sociological theory and methodology crucially contributed to, andeven in a sense became, Mises’ Praxeology and so the Austrian school’s version ofsociology or general social science. This will also be shown by considering the majormethodological features of Praxeology, as done next.

Methodological Features of Praxeology

While the main theoretical feature of Mises’ Praxeology is a general theory of humanaction in society analogous to Weber’s sociology, its key methodological featuresinclude some versions of Weberian Verstehen, ideal types and value-free analysis, aswell as deduction and abstraction (apriorism). Thus, “what in the hands of Misesbecame Austrian methodology [Praxeology]” essentially adopts, although with variousmodifications and elaborations, Weber’s fundamental methodological principles,especially Verstehen and value-free analysis, as well as, although to a more ambivalentand lesser extent, ideal types.

First, Mises (1966, 27–42) proposes that Praxeology develops “meaning-concepts”(Weber’s term) on the ground that “understanding, a mental process, makes us recog-nize social entities.” This manifestly embraces, reflects, or evokes Weber’s Verstehen orthe method of subjective interpretation and comprehension of meanings actors endowtheir actions (Boettke and Storr 2002). It is also manifest in Mises’ (1966, 51) sugges-tion that the “task of the sciences of human action is the comprehension of the meaningand relevance of human action”,11 an apparent restatement of Weber’s view that theconcern of sociology is the “interpretative understanding” of social action. Similarly,

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Mises (1957b, 253) argues that “men have ideas and seek chosen ends, while the cellsand organs of the body lack such autonomy,” thus implying that, unlike the first, thesecond are not subject to and incapable of the “comprehension of the meaning,” whichadopts or echoes Weber’s methodological assertion that “we do not ‘understand’ thebehavior of cells” but only that of humans. Second, more explicitly, Mises embracesand reinforces Weber’s methodological principle of value-free analysis in socialscience, including economics and sociology. Thus, carrying on Weber’s advocacy ofwert-frei sociology, Mises (1966, 10) advocates that Praxeology, including economics,“abstains from any judgment of value” on the ground that its role is not “to tell peoplewhat ends they should aim at” and thus “not a science of the choosing of ends,” butrather of the “means to be applied for the attainment of ends chosen.”12

Third, although less explicitly and more ambivalently than in the previous two cases,Mises adopts, or carries on with adaptations and modifications, Weber’s use of idealtypes, as do some other “younger” Austrian economists like Machlup, plus Schutz(Langlois 1986). What Mises proposes as “praxeological concepts” are in essence meth-odological equivalents, counterparts or proxies for Weberian ideal types (despite hisoccasional distinction between the two13). For instance, invoking Weber’s “conceptu-ally pure” or “ideal type” of social action as the main concern of sociology, he suggeststhat Praxeology “is not concerned with the changing content of acting, but with its pureform and its categorical structure” (Mises 1966, 47). As it stands, Mises’ “pure form”of human action, as a praxeological concept, is in essence equivalent or at least compa-rable with the Weberian “ideal type” of social action. If so, both Weberian sociologyand Misean Praxeology concern the “ideal types” of human action in economy andsociety, despite often different definitions or uses of the same methodological tool (andMises’ qualifications or misgivings). This Weberian or charitable interpretation ofMisean Praxeology in terms of ideal types is also corroborated or suggested by Mises’(1966, 236–237) own statement that its specific methodology is the “method of imagi-nary construction [as] a product of deduction, ultimately derived form the fundamen-tal category of action.” Predictably, his case in point is what he calls the “imaginaryconstruction of a pure or unhampered market economy [i.e.] the market notobstructed by institutional factors.” Prima facie, Mises’ “method of imaginaryconstruction” does not seem very different from, but is instead a different term for,Weber’s ideal-type methodology. Weber (1968, 6) proposes that the imaginary or theo-retical “construction of a purely rational course of action serves the sociologist as a type(ideal type) which has the merit of clear understandability and lack of ambiguity.”Further, one can plausibly presume that Mises adopted the “method of imaginaryconstruction” from or was inspired by what Weber calls the “procedure of the imagi-nary experiment” as the methodological protocol of constructing ideal types. Notably,Mises’ “imaginary construction of a pure or unhampered market economy,” or amarket “not obstructed by institutional factors,” is apparently a case of Weberian idealtypes. This is what Weber (1968, 9) suggests, remarking that such:

concepts and “laws” of pure economic theory are examples of this kind of ideal type [bystating] what course a given type of human action would take if it were strictly rational[i.e.] directed to a single end, the maximization of economic advantage.

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At least Weberian sociology’s ideal types contributed to or became “imaginaryconstructions” or “praxeological concepts” in Mises’ Praxeology and Austrianmethodology.

Some other methodological features of Mises’ Praxeology include an emphasis ondeduction and abstraction, a rejection of mathematical methodology, and a sharpdemarcation of the discipline from psychology and history. Mises (1966, 66–68) char-acterizes Praxeology, including economics, as a “deductive system” of which the “start-ing point” is the fundamental category of human action in economy and society. Inother words, Praxeology is premised on what he calls an “aprioristic theory” of humanaction, although intertwined with the “interpretation of historical phenomena.” Hence,in methodological terms, Mises’ Praxeology (as especially exposited in Human action)is often described as “dedicated apriorism” (Smith 1999). On the other hand, like mostAustrian economists, including Wieser and Hayek, and in contrast to neo-classical(Walrasian) economic theory, Mises rejects or suspects the use of mathematical meth-odology in Praxeology, including economics. In no uncertain terms, he urges thatmathematical methodology “must be rejected not only on account of its bareness [but]as an entirely vicious method, starting from false assumptions, and leading to fallaciousinferences” (Mises 1966, 350). Like other Austrians, he specifically objects that the“main deficiency of mathematical economics is not the fact that it ignores the temporalsequence, but that it ignores the operation of the market process”, adding that this typeof economics “made what it made without mathematics” (Mises 1960, 116). Predict-ably, the key target of the Austrian school’s criticism of mathematical economic theoryis the Walrasian general-equilibrium model as its “analytical core” (Kirzner 1997). Thelatter is, in Wieser’s ([1914] 1967, 51–52) words, a “static” conception using the “meth-ods of mathematical physics” that are “not suited to the subject-matter of economics.”Overall, coming closer to classical than neo-classical economists, Mises (1966, 357)describes economics, and by extension Praxeology, as “essentially a qualitative science.”

Also, Mises is adamant that Praxeology must be demarcated strictly from othersocial sciences such as psychology and history. Thus, he contends that purposeful orrational human action, rather than the “psychological events” resulting in such actions,differentiates Praxeology as defined from psychology (Mises 1966, 12). In virtue ofdealing with purposeful human action as a “manifestation of the mind” and decipher-ing à la Weber the “meaning which acting men attach to their actions,” Praxeology is a“moral science” and uses what Mises (1966, 27–28 and 142) calls “teleologicalmethods.” In contrast, psychology is seen as devoid of such methodology. Also, Mises(1966, 30–32) regards Praxeology as substantially different from history, as “two mainbranches” of the science of human action—the crucial difference being that the first isa “theoretical and systematic, not a historical” discipline.14

In turn, Mises treats economic science as a branch of Praxeology, even the “best elab-orated part” of a “more universal science” of human action. In particular, he suggeststhat catallactics or the economics of market exchange be built on the “solid foundationof a general theory of human action, Praxeology” (Mises 1966, 7). Mises specifies thesubject matter of catallactics as involving “all market phenomena with all their roots,ramifications, and consequences” and proposes that economics is “mainly concerned

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with the analysis of the determination of money prices of goods and services exchangedon the market.” In essence, Mises defines and conceives economics in terms ofcatallactics (a term coined by an obscure English economist, Whately, in the early 19thcentury) or the theory of markets, as do some other Austrian economists (most nota-bly, Hayek). As Mises (1966, 234) puts it, the domain of “catallactics or economics inthe narrower sense is the analysis of the market phenomena [i.e.] those actions whichare conducted on the basis of monetary calculation.” He suggests that to attain its goal,economics qua catallactics should begin from a “comprehensive theory of humanaction” or Praxeology of which it is a part in virtue of dealing with the “actions of livingmen,” not just material “goods and services.” Further, Mises (1966, 234) proposes thateconomics or catallactics should not limit itself to economic action, “but must deal alsowith actions which … are called ‘noneconomic’”. This extension appears as a sort ofproposal for rational choice theory in the sense of what contemporary economists(Becker 1976) advocate as the economic approach to all human behavior or “imperial”economics (so not a sociological element in the strict sense). Also, his statement thatthe general economic theory15 of choices and preferences (i.e. marginal-utility concep-tion) becomes the “science of every kind of human action,” on the grounds that“choosing determines all human decisions,” signifies that pure economics or marketcatallactics (notably marginalism) tends to ramify into rational choice theory as itsextension beyond the realm of markets and the economy.

Mises’ early followers (for example, Rothbard 1951, 944–946) identify the followingcategories or divisions of Praxeology: (a) the theory of isolated individual or Robinson-Crusoe economics; (b) the science of voluntary interpersonal exchange with barterand money medium of exchange (i.e. catallactics or the economics of markets as“praxeological-catallactic” phenomena); (c) the science of hostile actions or war; and(d) the theory of games. In this view, divisions (a) and (b) are the “only fully elabo-rated” branches of Praxeology, with (c) and (d) being “largely unexplored,” which isanother way to say that economics is a more developed discipline than the other socialsciences, including sociology. Yet, it is acknowledged that economics developed as a“component part of the general, formal theory of human action” (Rothbard 1951, 946)or what Mises calls Praxeology and Weber sociology. Also, Mises’ other followers orsympathizers acknowledge that catallactics or the theory of market exchange is“included” and “embedded” within Praxeology as the “general science” of humanaction (Smith 1999, 195). This is also another way to state, as Mises (1960, 68–69) does,that economics is the “branch of a more comprehensive science of sociology” inWeber’s sense of a general science of human action in economy and society. This leadsto considering elements of economic sociology within Mises’ Praxeology next.

Economic Sociology and Praxeology

The Conception of Sociology and its Relations to Economics

In the context/function of identifying and examining elements of economic sociologywithin Mises’ Praxeology, it is instructive briefly to consider his conception of general

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sociology, especially its Weberian variant, in relation to economics. First, it is useful toremember that in Austria and Germany, like the rest of Europe, the “line betweeneconomics and fields like sociology was less clearly drawn when Weber was writing [the1890s–1910s]” (Caldwell 1997, 1879n), just as it was for Menger, Böhm-Bawerk andWieser (the 1870s–1910s) and in part their successors, including Mises and Hayek (the1910s–1930s). Keeping this in mind, in Human action (conceived and mostly writtenduring the 1920s and 1930s) Mises uses the term sociology with “two different mean-ings.” One meaning is “descriptive sociology,” defined as the study of “those historicalphenomena of human action which are not viewed in descriptive economics” (Mises1966, 30).

The second sense in which Mises uses the term is as “general sociology,” character-ized as studying “historical experience from a more nearly universal point of viewthan that of the other branches of history.” Notably, Mises (1966, 30) invokesWeberian sociology as a case in point, remarking that Weber “in his main treatise[Economy and society] deals with the town in general, i.e., with the whole historicalexperience concerning towns without any limitation to historical periods, geographi-cal areas, or individual peoples, nations, races, and civilizations.” Mises thus inti-mates that general sociology, especially its Weberian formulation,16 is essentiallycoterminous with Praxeology. By contrast, he seems to relegate descriptive sociology(and economics) to the field of historical, empirical or inductive sciences, and thusoutside Praxeology as a general, deductive or aprioristic science. In turn, Misesattempts fully to differentiate and emancipate general sociology, understood asPraxeology, from history as a science. Thus, he states that “[general] sociology prom-ised to substitute true science for the rubbish and empty gossiping of the historiansin developing an aposteriori science of ‘social laws’ to be derived from historicalexperience” (Mises 1966, 308). This statement is indicative not only of an attempt atdifferentiation and emancipation, but also for its implied understanding of Praxeol-ogy as general sociology, thus supporting the key thesis of this essay. For “true” socialscience is no doubt, in Mises’ view, Praxeology (including especially economics), sothe latter term becomes interchangeable with general sociology. In sum, Mises’conception of (general) sociology as a “true” and near-universal science of humanaction is no different from that of Praxeology, also defined in these terms (althoughperhaps even more universal?).

If the above interpretation is correct, then to say that, as does Mises, economics is the“best elaborated part” of Praxeology implies that it is also part of (general) sociology.This is not just an implication or perhaps (as critics may charge) questionable interpre-tation, because that is what Mises often explicitly says. Thus, he unambiguously statesthat “economics is the best elaborated branch of a more comprehensive science ofsociology, extending its field but expressing the same logical apparatus” (Mises 1960,68–69). Hence, when Mises (1966, 3 and 234) suggests that economic or catallacticphenomena “are embedded in a more general science” and so can hardly be “disen-gaged from the comprehensive body of praxeological theory,” “sociology” or “Praxe-ology” stands for “a more general science,” and “sociological” may easily substitute for“praxeological.”

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In retrospect, these (for most neoclassical economists, surprising and dubious) state-ments reflect not only Weber’s sociological views, but also those of some earlierAustrian economists on the relationship between economics and sociology. At thisjuncture, particularly indicative and relevant for Mises’ conception of sociology–economics relations are the views of Wieser, a historical sociologist-turned-marginalisteconomist.17 Developing Menger’s early insights or intimations, Wieser ([1914] 1967,151) considers economics to be “an advance guard of sociology” and suggests that“modern economic theory needs to be completed by a sophisticated theory of societyin order to be convincing.” By “modern economic theory,” Wieser means, first andforemost, the marginal-utility or subjective theory of value and prices, which he signif-icantly describes as one of “sociological fields.”18 In general, for Wieser ([1914] 1967,151), “economics is only one phase of social science, but it has developed more rapidlythan the main body of the theory of society.” This anticipates or logically leads to Mises’view of economics as the “best elaborated branch of a more comprehensive science ofsociology.” As Mises’ former student, Alfred Schutz, puts it, “for Mises [and otherAustrian economists] economics is only a part of sociology, though the most highlydeveloped part” (Schutz, 1967, 243).19

Elements of Economic Sociology

The above considerations prepare the ground for identifying and examining elementsof economic sociology or sociological economics within Mises’ Praxeology. It is to benoted that Mises provides no explicit systematic definition of economic sociology as aspecific discipline (unlike Schumpeter as well as Lachmann). Indeed, he even hardlyuses the term (incidentally, perhaps first used by Menger’s marginalist colleague andcontemporary, Jevons; cf. Swedberg 1998). Given Misean Praxeology’s links withWeberian general sociology, one can plausibly assume that Mises’ missing definition ofthis discipline would be based on Weber’s. At least, Mises would not have serious prob-lems with Weber’s definition of the “field of economic sociology” as a branch of generalsociology (or social economics) examining “sociological categories of economicaction” (or “sociological relationships in the economic sphere”), specifically the “anal-ysis of the various ways in which non-economic social events influence economicevents.” The same can be said of Wieser’s ([1914] 1967, 151–153) implied definition,largely influenced by Weber, of economic sociology (more precisely, social economics)as an “nquiry into the social relations of the economy” or an “explanation of theeconomic process [introducing] sociological phenomena” and involving the “sociolog-ical problems of economic theory.”

Hence, economic sociology would be a logical part of Mises’ Praxeology, alongsidetheoretical economics or catallactics, just as it was a part of Weber’s general sociology(or his project of social economics, also including economic history). Economic soci-ology, thus defined, is exemplified (if only implicitly) in what Mises describes as acomparative “economic and sociological study” of socialism and capitalism. This holdstrue in so far as the methodological differentia specifica of economic sociology isprecisely an integrated “economic and sociological study” or what Hayek called (in

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reference to Wieser’s essay Social economics as part of Weber’s project of Grundriss derSozialökonomik) a “synthesis” of economics and sociology in analyzing the economy.This “economic and sociological study” lends credence to claims that there areelements of the discipline of economic sociology within Mises’ Praxeology. Forinstance, Mises (1950, 5) explicitly aims at “examining the problems of the socialistconstruction of society on scientific lines, i.e., by the aid of sociological and economictheory.” More specifically, he extols the virtues of “sociological comparisons betweenthe two [and other] systems.” This is what he also does by suggesting that the “socio-logical–economical treatment of the problems must precede the cultural–historical–psychological” and describing his analysis as “directed above all to the sociological andeconomic problems of Socialism.” In particular, Mises proposes the “sociologicalconcept of the socialist community.”

Another instance of this synthesis of economics and sociology is implied in whatMises proposes (in Theory and history) as a general “interpretation of social andeconomic evolution,” an integrated sociological and economic analysis of the evolu-tionary development of the economy and society. In general, Mises sees economicevolution as a special case of social or cultural evolution, the latter in turn beingcategorically distinguished from its biological form, including Darwin’s “principle ofnatural selection.”20 The “evolution of society” (Mises 1957b, 252) both logically andhistorically involves that of the economy, as its particular form or aspect, which is amajor premise of dynamic economic sociology. Consequently, Mises implicitly consid-ers what Mill, following Comte (Hayek 1950, 1721), calls economic dynamics (andstatics), in the sense of an inquiry into the evolutionary development of the economy,to be a branch of social dynamics (and statics) as the study of societal evolution. Inparticular, in the context of analyzing mass phenomena he suggests that “one mayappreciate the endeavors of [French sociologist] Gabriel Tarde to describe imitationand repetition as fundamental factors of social evolution” (Mises 1957b, 261) andconsequently in its economic sub-type.

Mises’ economic and sociological analyses of socialism versus capitalism and theevolution of the economy and society are far from being the only elements or sub-fieldsof economic sociology within his Praxeology. At least two additional such elements orsub-fields can be identified and considered, such as the sociology of the market and thesociology of distribution, discussed next.

Sociology of Markets

Within Mises’ Praxeology, what Weber terms the sociology of the market is the logicalsociological complement of catallactics (the pure economic theory of exchange). Inparticular, this holds true of Weber’s approach, the main premise of which is that themarket, including use of money or price formation, as he puts it, “constitute[s] socialaction” or, as Mises might add, involves and results from human actions as the subjectmatter of Praxeology. This is precisely what Mises (1966, 234 and 335) implies whenstating that the market process is an “interaction of men” and that prices have their“origin in human action,” consequently suggesting that markets are praxeological (i.e.

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“praxeological-catallactic”; cf. Rothbard 1951) or sociological phenomena (in Weber’ssense of social action).

Generally, Mises makes various explicit or implicit statements that directly or indi-rectly belong and contribute to what some economists (Boulding 1970, 153) proposeas the “economic sociology of the market” as an analysis of the social context ofmarkets, including prices. In this respect, Mises (1966, 230) implicitly defines thesociology of markets as an inquiry into the “social setting” of free enterprise, the marketand prices. Thus understood, the sociology of markets incorporates and analyzes “allfactors that influence the behavior of parties in the market [so] consequently also non-economic and irrational factors, as misunderstanding, love, hate, custom, habit andmagnanimity” (Mises 1960, 94). Mises’ somewhat unexpected (given his view ofhuman action as intrinsically rational by contrast to Weberian views22) inclusion of“non-economic and irrational factors” into the sociology of markets (and, by implica-tion, catallactics) probably reflects Weber’s proposition that “all economic activity in amarket economy is undertaken and carried through by individuals acting for their ownideal or material interests [i.e. non-rational or rational motives].”

Notably, echoing Weber, he describes the market as the “foremost social body” inthe operation of which nothing is “automatic or mechanical” (in apparent reference toneoclassical economics, especially Walrasian general equilibrium theory). Marketprocesses are “social phenomena” in virtue of being the “resultant of each individual’sactive contribution” (Mises 1966, 315). In short, markets represent what Mises terms a“market society,” or what modern economic sociologists call social structures, ratherthan, to use Walras’ description of free competition, “self-regulatory and automaticmechanism[s].” Consequently, for Mises, the market economy as a whole constitutes asocial or praxeological system involving human action and interaction, not anoverarching automatic mechanism nor, for that matter, a biological state of nature.Specifically, he describes the market economy in the following terms: a specific (laissez-faire) “type of social organization” (Mises 1966, 281), a “social system for material andspiritual advancement of civilization” (Mises 1957a, 120), “a social system in whichindividuals act” (Mises 1962, 84–92), even the “only feasible system of social coopera-tion” (Mises 1960, 196), and the like.

One specification or elaboration of Mises’ treatment of the market as the “foremostsocial body” is considering price formation a social process. In his view, the pricing ofcommodities and means of production is a “social process,” in that it is “consummatedby an interaction of all members of the society,” which results in the “price structure ofthe market” (Mises 1966, 337–338). In other words, Mises (1966, 396–397) considersprices the “resultant of a certain constellation of market data, actions and reactions ofthe members of a market society [i.e.] the offshoot of the actions of individuals andgroups of individuals.” Hence, he substantially follows (minus the conflict dimension)Weber’s view that market prices are “determined by the conflicts of interests inbargaining and competition” between actors (“power constellations”) as well asWieser’s link of exchange value with “economic intercourse” (subject to the operationof the marginal-utility “law”). In short, like Weber and Wieser (at least in his Socialeconomics), Mises regards market prices as “social phenomena” (Caldwell 1997, 1863).

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Another, related elaboration of Mises’ treatment of the market as the “foremostsocial body” is treating competition as a distinctly societal phenomenon. Mises is cate-gorical in distinguishing market-economic and other societal competition from itsnatural or biological forms. He insists that biological competition in the form ofDarwinian “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest” à la Spencer “must not beconfused” with societal competition defined as the “striving of individuals to attain themost favorable position in the system of social cooperation” (Mises 1966, 273–274).Notably, he suggests that market-economic competition is a special case of socialcompetition, and is therefore different from its biological form. Mises (1966, 274–275)holds that market (catallactic) competition, defined in terms of “emulation betweenpeople who want to surpass one another,” is a “social phenomenon” and “not a fight”in the sense of “survival of the fittest” or “natural selection” in the biological sphere.Further, he argues that “viewed sociologically, fighting and [market] competition areextreme contrasts.” Consequently, Mises rejects what he calls the “monstrosity” ofsociological Darwinism for becoming a “romantic glorification of war and murder”;for example, for being “peculiarly responsible for the overshadowing of liberal ideasand for creating the mental atmosphere which led to the [first] World War and [other]social struggles.”23

Sociology of Economic Distribution

Another element or sub-field of economic sociology implicit in Mises’ Praxeology iswhat can be described as the sociology of income and wealth distribution. This sub-field, defined as the analysis of the social setting of the pricing of factors of production,is part of the sociology of the market in the broad sense, just as distribution analysis(the marginal-productivity principle) is a special case of price theory (the law ofmarginal utility) within economics. What Mises calls the “pricing process” in themarket involves the determination of prices not only for commodities (goods of the“first-order”), but also the means of production (“higher-order” goods), and thus ofdistributive shares or rewards. Consequently, Mises’ treatment of market pricing as a“social process” can be taken to apply to the price formation of production factors ordistribution, just as to that of final products or consumption. That distribution is asocial or praxeological process is also implied in his treating of income as a “categoryof action” (Mises 1966, 393).

Moreover, Mises defines property “as a sociological category” in terms of the “powerto use economic goods” or the “capacity to decide on the use of productive goods”(1950, 37), while stressing that the sociological and legal notions of ownership are“different,” a difference Weber also stressed. This makes property an importantinstance of Weber’s “sociological categories of economic action.” It evokes Weber’ssociological concept of property as the “exploitation of control over important meansof production” in relation to others subjected to institutional (legal) exclusion fromthis use. Mises (1953, 414) provides another definition of the notion of (private) prop-erty as a “sociological category” by describing it as a “social system”24 or a set of “socio-logically equivalent” relationships. Still another definition is implied in considering

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private ownership of production factors the “fundamental institution” of a marketeconomy or capitalism in contrast to socialism or communism resting on public prop-erty (Mises 1966, 682). In turn, this institutional definition resembles or evokesDurkheim’s institutionalist conception of property and related market phenomena(e.g. contract), notably his view that “institutions relating to distribution” (wages,profit, rent, interest), alongside those concerning production and exchange, belong tothe “subject matter of economic sociology”.

In sum, Mises’ Praxeology contains or implies certain elements of economic sociol-ogy, particularly in the form of the sociology of markets and the sociology of (incomeand wealth) distribution, as well as the “economic and sociological study” of compar-ative economies (socialism versus capitalism). This suggests that catallactics or puremarket theory, while arguably its primary branch, does not fully exhaust Praxeologybut is integrated with, or complemented by, economic sociology in Weber’s sense of astudy of the “sociological categories” of human action in the economy.

Political Sociology and Praxeology

Mises’ Praxeology also contains elements of political sociology, understood as an anal-ysis of the relations between polity and society (including the economy). Theseelements can be divided into: first, the relationship of freedom to society as its socialfoundation; second, the connection of political liberties and democracy with a freemarket economy; and third, authoritarianism and its social underpinnings.

Freedom and Society

First and foremost, Mises argues that freedom is a “sociological concept” that is “mean-ingless” in “conditions outside society.” It is a “sociological concept” due to the factthat “only within the frame of a social system can a meaning be attached to the termfreedom” (Mises 1966, 279). Thus, he suggests that freedom exists and “makes sense”only within human society. For Mises, within the Hobbsian state of nature, “there is nofreedom.” Hence, Mises recognizes the eminently social foundation and constitutionof (the meaning and practice of) liberty.

In retrospect, in so doing, Mises (perhaps unwittingly and reluctantly) continues thetradition of classical political sociology, notably its analysis of the relationship betweenfreedom and society. To understand better Mises’ seemingly unexpected or atypical(non-individualist?) proposition that freedom has a meaning and really exists “onlywithin the frame of a social system”, it is useful to compare it with classical politicalsociology as represented by Weber, Durkheim and others. A major premise of classicalpolitical sociology is that human liberty, including both economic and political free-dom, has a real existence, basis or meaning only in society and its institutions andculture. Thus, Weber holds that liberty in general (“freedom of the human will”) isessentially “embedded” in society, specifically defining “freedom in the legal sense” interms of “possession of rights” defined and granted by social institutions and rules(laws, conventions). So a fortiori does Durkheim ([1893] 1965, 386) when he contends

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that freedom is a “conquest of society over nature” and results from “social action,”rather than being an “inherent property of the state of nature” as assumed by Hobbes(and in a sense Freud). In particular, Durkheim ([1893] 1965, xxxiii) treats so-calledjust liberty as the “product of a set of rules and institutions.”

Hence, just as does classical political sociology, Mises, considers liberty to be a socio-logical category in virtue of having a real meaning and existence only in society. This isalso implicit in his contention that freedom is “indivisible” (Mises 1956, 40). Toconsider freedom “indivisible” is to regard it as being integral or holistic—that is, asinvolving both economic and non-economic, private and public, material and spiri-tual, formal (political) and informal (civil) liberties—and to that extent a sociologicalcategory. Predictably for a liberal (in the classical sense25), Mises (1953, 413) arguesthat “all the marvelous achievements of Western civilization are fruits grown on the‘tree of liberty’, as an indivisible or sociological category.”

Political Democracy and the Market Economy

A second, more specific element of political sociology within Mises’ Praxeology is theassumed connection of political freedom and democracy with a free market economy.Thus, he argues that “there is no kind of freedom and liberty other than the kind whichthe market economy brings about [and] the freedom of man under capitalism is aneffect of competition” (Mises 1966, 283–285). As it stands, this is an apparently strongargument establishing an inviolable link between human liberty and economic free-dom. In turn, Mises (like Hayek and other Austrians) also develops a weaker argumentby distinguishing market freedoms, presumed primary and original, from political andcivil liberties, supposed secondary and derivative. The weaker argument, while almostcommonly accepted by Austrian and other contemporary libertarian economists (e.g.Friedman), is still controversial for most non-economists, including sociologists andother social scientists, in so far as it establishes (to use Veblen’s terms) an invidiousdistinction between primary original market-economic freedoms and secondaryderivative political and civil liberties.

At any rate, Mises’ weaker argument leads to a relaxation of this claim that “there isno kind of economic liberty other than the kind which the market economy bringsabout” and that the market freedom of “man under capitalism is an effect of competi-tion.” This restatement relaxes the strict equivalence between liberty as such andmarket freedom, and thus implicitly recognizes the (at least secondary) existence andpertinence of non-market liberties as well. Consequently, Mises’ weaker argumentadmits that market-economic freedom, now matter how crucial or determinative, is aparticular element or form of liberty in general, co-existing and interacting with non-economic, including political and civil, liberties. This is what his followers, likeFriedman, acknowledge by stating that “freedom in economic arrangements is itself acomponent of freedom broadly understood” (Friedman and Friedman 1982, 8)—andone can expect that Mises would probably not disapprove of this statement. Such anexpectation is, in addition to his conception of indivisible-integral freedom, justified byMises’ (1957a, 25) statement that “both the market and democracy are mechanisms of

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social selection [economic and political]” and by implication respective forms ofliberty, and related statements.

In particular, Mises emphasizes the source of political freedom and democracy in thefree market or capitalist economy. Thus, he argues that political democracy is “insepa-rably linked with capitalism” and, alternatively, establishes an opposition between a“dictatorial state” and the market as an “economic democracy” (Mises 1957a, 34–35).The latter suggests that, interestingly, Mises usually defines the market (or capitalism)in terms of democracy rather than the other way round; namely, democracy as freecompetition in politics (as does Schumpeter) or the political marketplace (as inmodern public choice theory). He proposes these essentially identical definitions of thefree market economy: a “democracy in which every penny plays the part of a votinglist,” “a democracy whose representatives enjoy an always revocable mandate,” a“democracy of consumers” (Mises 1950, 512). In short, he defines the market as a“spontaneous democracy, in which the superior efficiency of economic freedom isrealized” (Mises 1962, 111–113).

In retrospect, this definition is not identical to but rather in tension with Schum-peter’s prototypical public-choice definition of democracy as free competition inpolitics or a political marketplace, unless one argues or implies (as Mises perhapssometimes does) both—that is, “market is democracy, democracy is market”—whichis apparently tautological. These definitions justify considering Mises, unlike Schum-peter, as belonging more to the tradition of political sociology/economy (andeconomic sociology) than of public choice theory, or at least equally to the first field asthe second. In addition, the definitions implicitly acknowledge the co-existence and co-dependence of (the “superior efficiency” of) economic freedom and political liberty ifdemocracy is defined in these latter terms, thus suggesting the weaker argument orjustifying a charitable non-reductive (non-economistic) interpretation of Mises’liberalism.

Authoritarianism and its Social Underpinnings

A third, related element of political sociology in Mises’ Praxeology involves authoritar-ianism and its societal determinants and effects. Of course, this element is the obverseof the previous two since authoritarianism or totalitarianism (usually used as inter-changeable terms in Mises’ works) is the antithesis of liberty in general and of politicaldemocracy, as well as economic freedom, in particular. By implication, Mises suggeststhat authoritarianism or totalitarianism is the “most objectionable form of govern-ment” (as described by Popper 1966), and in extension of socio-economic structure,including polity, economy and civil society (Boettke and Storr 2002).

Mises suggests at least two defining intertwined characteristics of authoritarianismas a complex sociological category, notably as both a political and cultural phenome-non. A first, political or administrative, characteristic of authoritarianism is what Misesrefers to as the “dictatorial state” placed especially in opposition to the free market as“economic democracy.” In turn, this “dictatorial state” can be either theocratic or secu-lar, as suggested when considering the second characteristic of authoritarianism. A

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second, cultural or ideational, characteristic of authoritarian social systems is theconcept of absolute and eternal values as a “necessary element of (totalitarian)ideology” (Mises 1957b, 114) that rationalizes the “dictatorial state.”

In this sense, Mises implies that a historical instance of authoritarianism or totalitar-ianism is theocracy premised on and rationalized by the concept of “absolute and eter-nal” values of religious or sacred character. Thus, he notes that theocracy or the “oldtheocratic–aristocratic ideology” revolves around the supposed “acts of the omnipres-ent and omniscient Deity” (Mises 1966, 710). Notably, by treating theocracy as aninstance or source of authoritarianism, Mises intimates that (extreme) conservatismoverall has inherent authoritarian tendencies, in so far as theocracies are usuallyconservative social systems and ideologies (although not always vice versa; namely,non-theocratic or secular conservatives). This is also what he implies in observing that“rigid” conservatism “survives only” (Mises 1957b, 197) in religious or theocraticdoctrines and practices, and consequently generates or sustains a “petrification” of old,usually authoritarian, traditions and institutions (Mises 1966, 821).

The conservative–authoritarian link is even more manifest and unequivocal in theobservation that the:

foremost aim of despotic government is to prevent any innovations that could endangerits own supremacy. Its very nature pushes it toward extreme conservatism, the tendency toretain what is, no matter how desirable for the welfare of the people a change might be.(Mises 1957b, 372)

And, by implication, conversely: extreme conservatism (re)generates or reinforces“despotic government” by preventing “any innovations that could endanger its ownsupremacy.” Hence, Mises implies that authoritarianism or totalitarianism, as definedby “despotic government,” and extreme or rigid conservatism are intertwined andmutually reinforcing. His case in point involves the old European, especially German,conservatives advocating a “return to monarchical absolutism, status privileges for thenobility, and censorship [and thus] fighting for a lost cause” in light of what hedescribes as the irresistible democratic process to “government by the people”during the “heyday of liberalism” in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Mises1957b, 348). In sum, Mises considers extreme conservatism, including theocracy as aconservative-religious phenomenon par excellence, to be an instance of authoritarian-ism or totalitarianism.

In a similar vein, Mises (1966, 61) specifically describes collectivism or communismas a “doctrine of war, intolerance, and persecution,” and thus as a functional equivalentof theocracy or other extreme religious–political conservatism. In particular, he impliesthat both theocracy or extreme conservatism and communism or socialism rest on the“concept of absolute and eternal values,” although religious in the first case, and secularin the second, thus on a totalitarian ideology justifying the theocratic–conservative andcommunist–socialist “dictatorial state”, respectively. Another commonality betweenthe two is implied in Mises’ somewhat surprising assertion (in his book Socialism26)that “Conservatism can only be achieved by Socialism [sic]!,” contrary to the standardcontradiction between the two. Overall, Mises suggests that extreme (theocratic or

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other) conservatism and state socialism are both (to use Popper’s words) “enemies” ofan open democratic society, notably what he calls “Enlightenment and liberalthought.” In sum, Mises’ political and cultural accounts of authoritarianism ortotalitarianism are intertwined, with the “dictatorial state” and “totalitarian ideology”reinforcing each other in a sort of authoritarian vicious circle for society.

Concluding Comments

The foregoing has re-examined the theoretical and methodological relations of theAustrian school’s, specifically Mises’, project of Praxeology to sociology. The key thesishas been that Praxeology, understood as the “general science of human action,” repre-sents the Austrian economics school’s variant of sociology. To be more precise, thisholds true, first and foremost (or perhaps solely), of Praxeology in relation to theWeberian rendition of sociology as the “science of social action.”

As acknowledged by Mises himself and other Austrians (e.g. Hayek, Lachmann),Weber’s sociological theory and methodology crucially influenced Praxeology. In thissense, Praxeology is Mises’ reformulation of Weber’s sociology. Weber’s sociology andMises’ Praxeology have the same subject-matter—human action in economy andsociety—and adopt a common, subjective-individualist methodology such as “sophis-ticated” methodological individualism (Boettke and Storr 2002) or perhaps method-ological interactionism (Lewis 2005). The argument developed in this paper hasjustified considering Mises and Weber the key players in this praxeological “game”within the Austrian school.27

Notes1 [1] Anderson (2004, 3) claims that, “although similar in some respects,” Weber’s and Mises’ (and

other Austrian) theories and approaches “are two genuinely different ways of doing sociol-ogy.” But this view is exceptional within contemporary Austrian economics, as Boettke andStorr (2002) suggest.

2 [2] For example, Kurrild-Klitgaard (2001) analyzes the relations of Alfred Schütz and theAustrian School in respect of rationality, ideal types and economics. In turn, Forstater (2001)examines Schutzian–Weberian themes in Adolph Lowe’s political economics to illustrate theuse of phenomenological and interpretive–structural methods in economics and sociology.

3 [3] Anderson (2004, 4) comments that Weber and Mises “were not only acquainted, they sharedan admiration for each other’s work. Mises considered Weber a ‘great genius’ and his death ablow to Germany.” Likewise, Weber (1968, 107) comments that Mises’ Theory of money andcredit is the “monetary theory most acceptable to him.”

4 [4] Mises (1966, 3) adds that French philosopher Alfred Espinas first used the term Praxeology in1890 in his article “Les Origines de la technologies” (published in Revue Philosophique) andlater in a book with the same title published in 1897. Curiously, Mises does not mention andtreat Marx’s conception of praxis as the variant of or stepping-stone to Praxeology. In fact, theoriginal or literal meaning of Praxeology is the science of praxis or human practices andactions. Marx’s key statement in this respect is that “people make their own history, but not incircumstances of their own choosing” (Lewis 2005, 308).

5 [5] Secondarily, Mises’ Praxeology sometimes looks like another name for sociology in general,including in part the non-Weberian positivist versions espoused by Durkheim et al. (yet see

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Parsons 1967). This is what he suggests by his secondary inclusion of the “study of society,societal relations, and mass phenomena” (Mises 1966, 651), or what sociologists call macro-sociology à la Durkheim, into the primary subject matter of Praxeology as the “study of allhuman actions.” In doing so, Mises approaches or evokes, but albeit does not fully adopt,Durkheim’s conception of sociology as the “study of society,” “societal relations” (social facts,notably structures and institutions), and “mass phenomena” (collective representations andeffervescence), but this rapprochement is secondary and atypical. Moreover, Lewis (2005,301–303) suggests that it is ambiguous or in tension with the primary thrust or tone of Praxe-ology; namely, Mises “reductionist assertion that ‘definite actions of individuals constitute thecollective’,” in so far as it recognizes that “social structures are causally efficacious” relative toagency, not just conversely. Lewis (2005) proposes that critical realism, which stresses theontological “interplay of social structure and human agency,” resolves these “tensions andambiguities” in Mises’ Praxeology and its versions in contemporary radical subjectivistAustrian economics, by the concept of structural–material causation.

6 [6] Weber (1968, 15) adds that natural scientists “do not ‘understand’ the behavior of cells butcan only observe the relevant functional relationships and generalize on the basis of theseobservations.”

7 [7] Mises occasionally makes concessions to the methodology of physical science and to thatextent what Hayek dismisses as “scientism” or positivism. For illustration, Mises (1966, 2 and184) contends that “one must study the laws of human action and social cooperation as thephysicist studies the laws of human nature [i.e. by] the scientific methods of Praxeology.”Further, he says that the “reality of the laws of Praxeology is revealed to man by the same signsthat reveal the reality of natural law, namely, the fact that his power to attain chosen ends isrestricted and conditioned. The [natural and praxeological] laws [are] independent of thehuman will [i.e.] primary ontological facts rigidly restricting man’s power to act” (Mises 1966,761). Still, Mises’ Praxeology is in general a far cry from and even refutation of Comtean“social physics” but an elaboration of Weberian interpretive sociology.

8 [8] According to Chipman (2004), Eugen Slutsky (a Russian economist) provided in a paper(from the 1920s) cited by Mises, Hayek and others (e.g. Lange) an “abstract formulation” of atheory of human action or Praxeology as the underlying basis of economics. In turn, Langlois(1988, 684–685) comments that the “basis of the Misesian system is that there are certaincategories of human action so fundamental to human beings that they are incontrovertible.For Mises, then the a priori nature of these fundamental categories guarantees not only thelogical validity but also the meaningfulness of theoretical propositions.”

9 [9] Swedberg (1998,302) adds that, for such participants as Haberler, Weber’s interpretative soci-ology (verstehende Soziologie) was among the favorite subjects of the Mises seminar.

10[10] The (Ernst) Weber–Fechner law of psychophysics postulates decreasing psychological orphysiological sensitivity as stimuli (e.g. temperature, weight, light) increase their duration ormagnitude; that is, as Max Weber ([1908] 1975, 26) put it, the “strength of a stimulus mustincrease in geometric ratio if the perceived strength of sensation is to increase in arithmeticratio.” Among early neoclassical economists, Edgeworth “flirted” with the law “at first butlater rejected it as arbitrary (Stigler 1950, 376), by contending that the principle of diminish-ing marginal utility can be “confirmed” by “ratiocination” from “simpler inductions” in theFechner law. Also, Edgeworth’s main influence and predecessor Jevons (in reviewing Mathe-matical Psychics) placed the Fechner law among the “empirical bases” of marginalism. Bycontrast, early Austrian economists like Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser were opposed to or skep-tical of such confirmation of the law of marginal utility by this or other psychological andphysiological principles. For instance, specifically referring to Weber’s essay, Böhm-Bawerk([1884] 1959, 430–431) registered the “divergence” between psychology and economics,while warning against converting this difference into an “outright opposition.” In turn,according to Stigler (1950), Weber’s “famous essay” was a definitive demonstration that theFechner psychological law should be ignored by economics. Notably, Böhm-Bawerk admits

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what Weber (and other economic sociologists) argues; namely, that “habit, custom, human-ity, nationality and the like” represent “other highly important factors of social economy”,alongside enlightened self-interest.

11[11] Mises (1966, 51) adds that the comprehension of human action is attained by “two differentmethodological procedures: conception and understanding. Conception is the mental tool ofPraxeology; understanding [is] of history.” This seems to self-contradict his statement thatunderstanding, as a proper method of the science of human action, “makes us recognize socialentities.” One way to resolve this seeming contradiction is provided by Weber’s definition ofsociology as a science employing the “interpretative understanding” and the “causal explana-tion” of social action. This is what Parsons (1965, 174) suggests, noting that Weber “combined‘interpretative understanding’ with the ‘causal explanation of the course and effects’ of action.”Specifically, if Mises’ “conception” (theory, explication) is deemed equivalent to Weber’s“causal explanation,” then, like sociology, Praxeology can employ, without contradiction ortension, both “different methodological procedures” (“conception and understanding”).

12[12] In general, apparently following on or echoing Weber, Mises (1957a, 34) argues that “scien-tific theory of what must and ought to be does not exist. Science is competent to establish onlywhat is—it never can dictate what ought to and must be, nor to fix ends toward which peopleaspire, because people have different ends (or value judgments).” Also, Mises (1960, 201)adds, apparently targeting both theology and Marxism or socialism, that “science does notdeal with the transcendent but with what is accessible to thought and experience. Science isradically opposed to metaphysics and ideology since it does not deal with the transcendent,i.e. with what that is inaccessible to experience.”

13[13] Mises (1960, 59–60) contends that ideal types in Weber’s sense are “specific notions employedin historical research [so] concepts of understanding [but] entirely different from praxeologi-cal categories and concepts.” He adds that in many cases a “term used by Praxeology to signifya praxeological concept serves to signify an ideal type for the historian,” citing the concept of“entrepreneur” in pure economics as different from the ideal type “entrepreneur” ineconomic history and descriptive economics (Mises 1960, 61). In particular, he insists thathomo oeconomicus is not an ideal type in “Weber’s sense,” on the ground that ideal types are“not an embodiment of one side or aspect of man’s various aims and desires [but] the repre-sentation of complex phenomena of reality” (Mises 1960, 62). At this juncture, Mises distin-guishes praxeological concepts as theoretical, universal, or general and belonging to thetheory of human action (including pure economics) from ideal types as historical, empiricalor concrete and used in historical research (including economic history). In Weber’s frame-work, Mises’ distinction is one between ideal types with varying degrees of generalization,abstraction, or scope, given that an ideal type is a more or less theoretical, abstract (“pure”) orgeneralizing construct of specific actual and historical phenomena. Hence, in a Weberianinterpretation, praxeological concepts and ideal types are essentially interchangeable method-ological tools; namely, both are what Mises, apparently echoing Weber calls, the “representa-tion of complex phenomena of reality.”

14[14] Mises (1966, 29–30) adds that both Praxeology and History have “nothing in common” withphilosophy of history, as represented by Hegel, Comte and Marx, in the sense of the “true,objective, and absolute meaning of life and history.”

15[15] Mises (1966, 3) adds that “out of the political economy of the classical school emerges thegeneral theory of human action, Praxeology,” but this remark is somewhat in tension withstating that “economics becomes a part, although the hitherto best elaborated part, of a moreuniversal science, Praxeology.” Also, he states that “economics widens its horizon and turnsinto a general science of all and every human action, into Praxeology,” but this is again inuneasy relationship with the suggestion that economics or catallactics “must start from acomprehensive theory of human action” (Mises 1966, 199).

16[16] For example, targeting Comte et al., Mises (1957b, 200) notes that these positivists “acceptedthe thesis that it is possible to derive from historical experience a posteriori laws which, once

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they are discovered, will form a new—not yet existing—science of social physics or sociologyor institutional economics.” In particular, he dismisses Comte’s project of sociology as “socialphysics, shaped according to the epistemological pattern of Newtonian mechanics [as] soshallow and impractical that no serious attempt was ever made to realize it” (Mises 1957b,241). Similarly, Mises rejects Durkheimian sociology, although primarily for reasons of meta-physics or romanticism rather than positivism or scientism (in contrast to Hayek) as inthe case of its earlier Comtean version. In Mises’ (1957b, 242) view, “without any value [are]the writings of those who termed sociology their arbitrary metaphysical effusions about therecondite meaning and end of the historical process which had been previously styled philos-ophy of history. Thus, Emile Durkheim and his school revived under the appellation groupmind the old specter of romanticism and the German school of historical jurisprudence, theVolksgeist.” Lastly, and perhaps most vehemently, Mises repudiates Marxism, including theMarxian sociology of knowledge. Thus, in an apparently dismissive and sarcastic tone, heremarks that “it is the task of a ‘sociology of knowledge’ to unmask philosophies and scientifictheories and to expose their ‘ideological’ emptiness. Economics is a ‘bourgeois’ makeshift, theeconomists are ‘sycophants’ of capital. Only the classless society of the socialist utopia willsubstitute truth for ‘ideological lies’” (Mises 1966, 5).

17[17] Schumpeter (1956, 301) comments that historical sociology (or sociological history) wasWieser’s “first interest, and it was to be the last [for] the chief work of his later years centeredin sociology,” as indicated by his “great sociological book” on power (Das Gesetz der Macht)published at the age of 74. Also, Wieser contributed to Weber’s project of Grundriss derSozialökonomik during the 1910s by writing an essay entitled Theory of social economy (trans-lated and published in English as Social economics). Moreover, the young Hayek (1992, 138)reportedly praised Wieser’s essay as the “greatest synthesis [of economics and sociology] inour time [the 1910–20s],” although it seems that Mises has been more influenced by or recep-tive to this “synthesis.” In passing, Schumpeter (1956, 150/162) contrasts Wieser and partlyMenger to Böhm-Bawerk, described as advancing “an analysis of the general forms of thesocio-economic process [in which] the sociological framework is only hinted at.”

18[18] In particular, Wieser ([1914] 1967, 152–153) suggests that the theory of values and prices is afield of sociology in noting that the “fact that economic value is a commensurable quantity inwhich the motives which lead to an economic intercourse are clearly expressed made possiblemore rapid and certain progress in explaining these relations than in other sociological fields.”

19[19] Examining the relations between Alfred Schutz and the Austrian School of economics, Pren-dergast (1986, 23) comments that its members “always believed that economics was a branchof general sociology, as a universal science of social phenomena.” In particular, he remarksthat Weberian interpretive sociology “is for Schutz what general sociology was for Menger,”and adds that “whereas economics reduces social action to one type, the rational-instrumen-tal, interpretive sociology studies the interplay of rational, value-rational, emotional, andtraditional action” (Prendergast 1986, 23). Another analysis of the relations of Schutz’s sociol-ogy and Austrian economics, with similar implications, is found in Pietrykowski (1996).

20[20] Mises (1957b, 212) specifically states that Darwin’s principle of natural selection is not a “lawof historical evolution.”

21[21] For Hayek (1950, 17), “it is questionable whether the introduction of the terms statics anddynamic into economics (by S. Mill following Comte’s similar division in sociology) wasbeneficial.”

22[22] By contrast to Weber, who distinguishes rational and non-rational (e.g. traditional andemotional) actions, as well as two different types of the first (aim-rational and value-rational),Mises argues that human action is by assumption or necessarily rational in the specific senseof Weberian instrumental-purposive rationality. Consequently, Mises suggests abandoningthe concept of rational human action as tautological or pleonastic. However, despite suchcategorical statements Mises occasionally adopts or echoes the Weberian distinction betweenrational and non-rational actions. For illustration, he does so by stating that “no other

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distinction is of greater significance than that between calculable action and noncalculableaction” (Mises 1966, 199), as an apparent variation of Weber’s between instrumental andvalue-rational, traditional and emotional actions, or formal and substantive rationality. Recallthat Weber defines formal rationality in terms of monetary calculation (“quantitative specula-tion or accounting”) and so as identical to “calculable action,” and substantive rationality bypursuit of “ultimate values” and thus as equivalent to “noncalculable action” in which, asMises puts it, things “are not sold and bought against money.” Yet, unlike Weber, he seems toequate economic and rational actions by contending that “every rational action is an act ofeconomizing” (Mises 1960, 148). In another contrast with Weber, who considers social actionthe chief content of sociology, Mises (1966, 42 and 143) treats it as a “special case of the moreuniversal category of human action,” contending that the “social or societal element is acertain orientation of the actions of individual men.” This is due to their respective differentdefinitions or descriptions of social action. Mises defines social action as characteristic of a“social collective,” contrary to human action defined as an attribute of individuals, thusimplicitly adopting Durkheim’s rather than Weber’s definition. Still, the difference from thelatter is only apparent or superficial, because what Weber denotes and defines as socialaction—one of individual actors that “takes account of the behavior of others and is therebyoriented in its course”—is essentially identical to Mises’ human action as defined and differ-ent from Durkheimian collective actions, including mass behaviors. In short, Mises andWeber only use different terms for the same concept: (individual) human action in economyand society. Further, Mises (1966, 11) defines human action in general—“purposeful behav-ior”—in the same way as Weber defined action as such; that is, behavior to which the “actingindividual attaches a subjective meaning [or purpose].”

23[23] Also, Mises (1950, 175) describes sociological Darwinism as “not a social theory, but a theoryof unsociability” due to its being “unable to explain the phenomenon of the rise of society.”

24[24] Mises (1953, 414) adds that the system of private property is the “only social system that hasbrought about civilization” in apparent repudiation of socialism or communism defined asthe (inefficient) system of public ownership.

25[25] In reviewing Mises’ Human action, Hayek (1941, 126) comments that the “result is a reallyimposing unified system of liberal social philosophy [but is not] just a simple restatement ofthe laissez-faire views of [19th-century Liberalism].” Further, Smith (1999, 196) claims thatno social scientist other than Mises “was better at articulating the primacy of the individualand the need to define and nurture individual rights.”

26[26] Mises makes the seemingly surprising assertion (“Conservatism can only be achieved bySocialism”) in the section on “Christian Socialism”. So, the surprise perhaps disappears or isweakened in his specific remark that “Christian Socialism appears to be conservative becauseit desires to maintain the existing order of property, or more properly it appears reactionarybecause it wishes to restore and then maintain an order of property that prevailed in the past”(Mises 1950, 141). Hence, the above assertion can be modified by substituting “ChristianSocialism” for “Socialism”. Mises also comments that, for Christian Socialism, just as its secu-lar or state form, “Enlightenment and liberal thought have created all the evil which afflictsthe world today.”

27[27] A theoretical qualification or disclaimer is needed to pre-empt possible objections of sociolog-ical reductionism. Namely, to argue that Praxeology represents the Austrian economicsschool’s variant or proxy of sociology is not completely or nominally valid in so far as Mises’(and Hayek’s) “science of human action” opposes or contrasts with some sociological, espe-cially what are seen as collectivist and positivist Comtean–Durkheimian, schools, as does, forthat matter, Weber’s subjectivist theory. To paraphrase Popper, such an opposition simply“falsifies” the thesis of Praxeology as sociology in general. In this respect, Praxeology can beand usually is deemed the Austrian school’s individualistic, non-positivist and market-economic alternative, counterpart or substitute for sociology in the meaning or form ofperceived Comte–Durkheimian sociological collectivism, positivism and anti-economism,

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imputed and strongly rejected by Mises, Hayek and others. Still, as Lewis (2005, 307–308)implies, Mises, as well as Hayek, also by incorporating “society, societal relations, and massphenomena” into, rather than excluding them from, the subject of Praxeology, admit, along-side the prime or explicit causality of individual agency, the secondary or implicit “causal effi-cacy of social structure,” and so seeming “tensions and ambiguities” to be resolved by theconcept of material–structural causation.

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