Subjectivism and Economic Analysis: Essays in memory of Ludwig ...

MISES AND LACHMANN ON HUMAN ACTIONThis is significant in terms of the history of Austrian theory, becauseLachmann is consequently unable to link the methods of thehistorian with those of the social scientist, including the economist.At one level, Lachmann attempts to forge this link by arguing thatplans are ‘observable’:To understand an action means to understand the plan whichis being carried out here and now. A phenomenon of humanaction is an observable event; so, in principle, is the making ofplans.…Plans, strategic, economic or otherwise, areobservable events.(Lachmann 1971:12)However, even if individual actions are observable events, themaking of individual plans is not necessarily so. Further, given thedistinction between following a plan and acting according to a plan,we cannot deduce the nature of a plan being followed from resultantactions. Consequently, Lachmann is forced to admit there exists anapparently unbridgeable gulf between the respective methods of thehistorian and the social scientist:There seems to be no reason why a method which is useful inthe explanation of individual action should be less so in theexplanation of classes of such actions…. It is true that inexplaining recurrent patterns of action, the essential subjectmatterof all social sciences, we cannot provide suchexplanation in terms of purposes, as elements of plans,because the purposes pursued by millions of people are ofcourse numbered in millions. But often we are none the lessable to provide explanations in terms of the elements commonto all these plans, such as norms, institutions, and sometimesinstitutionalized behaviour.…As long as we are able toaccount for the recurrence of patterns of action in terms ofsuch elements of plans, we are successfully employing theclassical method of interpretation.(Lachmann 1971:22–3)Although Lachmann commences his argument by stating that themethods of the historian are equally applicable to the socialscientist, he is forced to admit that the social scientist is interestednot in individual plans as such, but in the ‘elements common to allthese plans’. Because Lachmann has not incorporated norms, from55