Abstract
In this chapter Neurath’s controversial contributions to the socialist calculation debate are confronted with the criticism of two well-known opponents, Ludwig von Mises and Max Weber. Each side’s arguments are considered at a certain level of abstraction so as to allow what are lasting points of significance in Neurath’s proposals to shine through more clearly. It is argued that while these points are closely interwoven in their presentation with his schemes for marketless socialism, they are conceptually independent of them. Suitably so, they have proven influential in just this independent capacity.
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Notes
- 1.
For work that shows, contrary to the first impressions one might have, the implications of Neurath’s work in visual education and museology for his comprehensive modernist enlightenment agenda, see, e.g., Burke et al. (2013) and Groß (2015) and her chapter in this volume on the former and Kraeutler (2008) for the latter.
- 2.
Compare Carnap’s remarks on “scientific humanism” and socialism in his intellectual autobiography (1963, 82–4). Neurath’s views on economics do not appear to have had much influence outside of the left wing, not even on Karl Menger , the son of the originator of Austrian economics, who edited, much to the displeasure of that tradition’s third generation, a second expanded edition of his father’s foundational text (1923).
- 3.
For discussions of Neurath’s role in the socialist calculation debate and the development of ecological economics see, the pioneering work of Martinez-Alier (1987/1990, 1995) and since then O’Neill (1996, 1998, 2004, 2006), Uebel (2005, 2007a, 2008, 2018), O’Neill and Uebel (2015); for an overview of the development of Neurath’s own thought in and on economics, see Uebel (2004) and of logical empiricist philosophy of social science in general, Uebel (2007b).
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
Schäffle’s criticism concerned the practice of socialism and so differed from the critique of the consistency of Marx’s system launched by Böhm-Bawerk (1896/1949), a former student of his.
- 7.
According to an obituary in Berliner Volkszeitung (quoted in Small 1904) one banker bought 10,000 copies of Quintessenz for distribution amongst the educated public to stimulate discussion. Schäffle, it may be added, was not an apologist for the existing capitalist order: the second edition of his Bau und Leben des sozialen Körpers (1896) outlined numerous measures of state intervention to ameliorate “the social problem” that were curtly dismissed by Mises (1925) in the course of his review of Cohn (1920) who also showed sympathies for Neurath’s position; for an informed appreciation of Schäffle’s work, see Hodgson (2013).
- 8.
Kautsky’s (often reprinted) Delft address stirred Nicholaas Pierson, an economist and former Dutch prime minister, to publish a riposte (1902/1935) which was lionized some 30 years later in Hayek (1935) but until then had remained untranslated and so was much less known than Schäffle’s three main criticisms which soon became standard warhorses.
- 9.
- 10.
Prior to the publication of Neurath’s socialization plans Mises’ and Weber’s arguments against socialism lacked the argument(s) they were deploying against Neurath; see Uebel (2007a).
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
Note that this argument was already implicit in the passage quoted above from Neurath and Schumann (1919).
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
For discussion of another methodological difference between Mises’s and Hayek’s argument that matters for empirical social science, see Uebel (2017).
- 18.
Note that this conclusion is established only as far as Neurath’s proposals for calculation in kind are concerned. Whether Hayek’s argument holds against more recent elaborations of suggestions first made by Oskar Lange that computing machines should be able to effect the calculations needed, namely that V. Kantorovich’s method of linear programming be employed for the task (Cockshott 2008), or that Hayek’s own argument has limitations that speak against the across-the-board applicability that it is often credited with (O’Neill 2012), cannot be discussed here.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
Mises (1929/1960, 85) wrote that “everything that we regard as human action […] is instrumentally rational: it chooses between given possibilities in order to attain the most ardently desired goal.” In this quotation “instrumentally” is restored from the original German: Mises evidently considered it universal and exclusive and explicitly rejected Weber’s distinctions.
- 22.
Note that the goals and means of an instrumentally analyzed situation could be subjected to consideration from the perspective of value-rationality and the decision made on purely instrumental grounds could be modified – but from instrumentalist perspective, Weber (1921/1978, 26) noted, “value-rationality is always irrational.”
- 23.
- 24.
Note, incidentally, that the talk of “rationality” with regard to economic calculation was initiated by Mises and Weber and that Neurath here reacted to it.
- 25.
Neurath made this comment still before he could have known of the market-socialist model of Lange (1935–36) which subsequently dominated the socialist calculation debate; whether he knew of Taylor (1929/1964) is unclear as well, but he certainly was acquainted with the German-language discussion following Mises’ intervention in which virtually all contributors adopted money for its commensurating role in economic calculation, including Polanyi (1922) and (1924).
- 26.
Already in 1909 Neurath (1910a/2004, 294) stated: “If we want to compare the orders of life of two nations with each other, we cannot describe them as the sum of some elementary constituents and compare these individually. We cannot reach a sum by saying: more meat is eaten in the one country, fewer clothes are worn in the other. Neither do we compare the artistic achievements of architecture so as to say: this hall is more functional than that one, but less beautiful; let us add up advantages and disadvantages. In comparing two works of art we look at one as a whole and look at the other as a whole.” Some 28 years later he stated about the concept of standard of living: “We cannot regard it as a weight made up of the sum of the weights of the various parts. We cannot even specifically enumerate all the things which might be counted in the standard of living. Nevertheless, it can be shown that this concept suffices for both our theory and practice” (Neurath 1937/2004, 516).
- 27.
In very his last monograph Neurath (1944/1970, 40) wryly commented on his views of monetary calculation and calculation in kind being regarded as “left deviation” in the Soviet Union.
- 28.
For discussion of the substantive convergence see O’Neill and Uebel (2008) and a highly interesting comparison see Lessmann (2007). Needless to say, still beyond Putnam and Walsh’s anti-positivist rhetoric there are some substantive disagreements about Weberian methodology and meta-ethical matters that remain which must, however, be resolved on another occasion.
- 29.
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Uebel, T. (2019). Rationality and Pseudo-Rationality in Political Economy: Neurath, Mises, Weber. In: Cat, J., Tuboly, A. (eds) Neurath Reconsidered. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 336. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02128-3_9
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