The “Incompleteness” of Menger’s Subjectivism, As Viewed by Kirzner and Lachmann
“Value is thus nothing inherent in goods, no property of them, nor an independent thing existing only by itself. It is a judgement economizing men make about the importance of goods at their disposal for the maintenance of their lives and well-being. Hence value does not exist outside the consciousness of men.”[13]
“The maintenance of life depends neither on having a comfortable bed nor on having a chessboard, but the use of these goods contributes, and certainly in very different degrees, to the increase of our well-being. Hence there can also be no doubt that, when men have a choice between doing without a comfortable bed or doing without a chessboard, they will forego the latter more readily than the former.”[14]
“...unempirical when tested by reality in its full complexity. But what else does this prove than that the results of exact research do not find their criteria in experience in the above sense? The above law is, in spite of everything, true, completely true, and of the highest significance for the theoretical understanding of price phenomena as soon as one looks at it from that standpoint appropriate for exact research. If one looks at it from the point of view of realistic research, to be sure, one arrives at contradictions…but in this case the error lies not in the law, but in the false perspective.”[19]
“Arbitrary judgment, error, and other influences can, and actually do, bring it about that acting men take different roads from a strictly given starting-point to a just as strictly determined goal of their action. It is nevertheless certain that, in the above circumstances, only one road can be the most efficient.”[21]