Natural Rights, Positivism & Austrian Economics

Judge Andrew Napolitano presents the case for natural rights (as opposed to positivism) as the foundation of the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution. He makes his case at the Mises Institute, named after Ludwig Von Mises a past professor from NYU and one of the founders of the Austrian School of economics.

The libertarian Austrian School also claims Frederich von Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Carl Menger as founders along with Mises. The Austrian School rejects much of the mathematicization of contemporary economics, preferring instead a teleological approach to the study of human action. Human actors are rational beings and so in the Austrian School the purpose of human action must be studied with respect to desired ends.

This emphasis on means and ends stands in rather stark contrast to the more positivistic approach of modern economics which tends to be expressed with respect to causes and effects. The difference between the schools of thought is subtle. Modern economics infers causes and effects using advanced statistical models–but the underlying mathematics is based on the experimental methods of the physical sciences. For instance the Black-Scholes options pricing model shares characteristics of the heat equation first developed by Joseph Fourier in 1882.

The Austrian model posits voluntary and purposeful human action taken with ends in mind as the proper focus of study. Knowledge and reason drive individual behavior and without planning to do so, through market mechanism they create spontaneous order, to use Hayek’s famous terminology. It is a spontaneous order that no one human being could ever plan or produce because no one person or organization could ever acquire sufficient information and knowledge to do so. But freely transmitted price signals from voluntary transactions in the market provide the necessary knowledge and information for spontaneous order.

The 1 hour lecture by Judge Napolitano, shown below, connects the Natural Law School and the Austrian School and is well worth watching.

Judge Napolitano at the Mises Institute

JFB

Judge Napolitano on Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and the Constitutional Order

With each passing day the failure of the welfare state to accomplish its stated objectives becomes more and more obvious. Needless to say failure hasn’t dimmed progressive enthusiasm for the politics of command and control.

The progressive project, still lauded by much of the academe, got its start in America with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Progressive politics depended then, and continues to depend today, on the continuing evisceration of the U.S. Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights and the structural separation of powers designed to limit the power of government in order to protect individual liberty.

In the video that follows, in a conversation with Nick Gillespie of the libertarian Reason Magazine, Judge Napolitano explains the underlying philosophy that guided Roosevelt and Wilson and traces its effects on the modern era.

Judge Napolitano on Reason TV

JFB

Judge Napolitano Discusses Impeachment on Reason TV

After 6 months of studied silence, On Liberty Watch is going to re-open. In addition, the website will be revamped a bit over the next few months. The mission however, remains the same: the defense of liberty. The inanity of the state of the culture and politics demands it.

In the meantime, here is a video of Judge Andrew Napolitano discussing the current impeachment proceedings with Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine.

JFB