Mises Economic Thought

To most of domestic readers, their knowledge about Austrian school ofeconomics rests on a very general level which is all most misleading because of theconfine of ideology and the trend of mathematic formalization in mainstreameconomics. Thus the interpretations about the original literatures are very few,especially for Mises's contributions. Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was seen as thepioneer and spiritual leader of Modern Austrian Economics, but until quite recently,his thoughts attracted relatively little attention from domestic scholars, which almostbecomes a blank of relevant research. This research of Mises's economic thoughtstries to not only fill the blank in domestic literatures of Austrian Economics, but alsodirectly challenge the dominated ideology and methodology in mainstream.On the one hand, Mises's idea is usually regarded as a representative of radicallibertarianism. He was well known for putting forward the proposition about theimpossibility of Economic Calculation in the Socialism Commonwealth (1920). Thisargument was proved by the failure of the socialism practice for more than half acentury, but his idea of free economic order with private property and division oflabor is not completely accepted by the public. On the other hand, Mises advocatedanother methodology different from that in mainstream. As a neo-Kantian, he deniedthe possibility of arriving at laws by induction and defended the possibility of a purelya priori system of economic theory which he labeled "praxeology." In doing so hemeant to free economics from a reliance on "psychological" considerations in oldAustrian Economics and from the inappropriate mathematical methods of physics inmainstream, then sought only logical sanction for economic laws.The structure of this article is very simple. The whole article is divided into 3parts. The first part, that is the first two chapters, tries to give a brief introduction ofthis research background and the relevant literatures summary, also to review thehistory of Austrian School of Economics. Then the second part, also the main part ofthis article, focuses on Mises's main four contributions to economic thoughts. And thelast part, also the last chapter, give the conclusion of the whole articles, and point outthe possible further research fields about Austrian school of economics. In the second part, Mises's main contributions are concluded into 4 points whichrespectively consists in the following 4 chapters (3-6th chapter): (1) Methodology ofpraxeology, (2) Monetary theory and Economic Calculation problem, (3) BusinessCycle theory, (4) Entrepreneur and market process. By and large, every chapter in thispart makes a study like this: firstly reviews Mises's thoughts in the relavant field, andthen discusses the relevant ideas from others including modern Austrian Economicsand other mainstream economics, and finally draws a conclusion or point out therealistic significance about this review and discussion.Let's take the 5th chapter titled with Business Cycle Theory as an example.Applying with the business cycle theory of Austrian Economic School, this chaptertries to interpret the origin of the crisis and how to tackle with it. The 5th chapter isdivided into 3 parts, the first part is a brief introduction of the business cycle theory ofAustrian School and a discussion related to the theories of Keynesianism to show thatsuch theories only pay attention to the superficial and neglect the essentials. Then thesecond part particularly illustrates the root cause of the crisis, and puts forward thepolicies held by Austrian Economic School as the settlements. And the last part focuson present finance environment and renovation problems in China, points out that thereform of the free market direction should be insisted. The structure of other chaptersfrom the 3rd to 6th is similar with that above.All in all, the whole research intends to arouse more attention to the thoughts ofAustrian Economics, and attemps to give some distinctive ideas to the mainstreameconomics.