A-equals-A.com

This essay, written specifically for A-equals-A.com on 5/27/10, explores some of the differences between the Causal-Realest / Austrian method of applied logic vs. the "Trial and Error" empirical method used by market interventionist.  This essay explains why the politics of Statists favor statistical tinkering in economics over a much sounder method of deductive reasoning.   

"In [Europe] and in America in the late 19th century, it is well-known that the rebels against laissez-faire and the classical political economy stressed their replacement with induction from economic history and statistics. That was the goal of the German Historical School and its Verein für Sozialpolitik, and of the young, German-trained exponents of the 'new political economy' of government intervention in the 1870s and 1880s...

...Suffice it then to say that a leading cause of the proliferation of governmental statistics is the need for statistical data in government economic planning." - Murray Rothbard

This excerpt was taken from an article written by Murray N. Rothbard, originally appearing in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1960, pp. 659–665. Reprinted in The Logic of Action Two: Applications and Criticism from the Austrian School. Glos., UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 1997, pp. 217–225.]

Read more: The Politics of Political Economists - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Institute http://mises.org/daily/4302#ixzz0ngIjvfBO