My name is
Michael Valcic and Kaleidic Catallaxy will be the blog where I’ll post my
thoughts on various aspects of economics from a Lachmannian and Misesian point
of view. The name Kaleidic Catallaxy was chosen to stress two notions that I
believe are paramount in explaining human action.
Firstly, as George Shackle explained it, kaleidic, stemming from the word
kaleidoscope, implies a “…society, interspersing its moments or intervals of
order, assurance and beauty with sudden disintegration and a cascade into a new
pattern”.
This view stresses that we live in a world where individual actors’ subjective
valuations, expectations and knowledge are in flux. Some actions may spur
coordination, while other actions may destroy them and bring about a variety of
new elements. The word catallaxy, as used by Mises and Hayek, stresses that
instead of viewing the market as an ‘economy’ – a view where actors have common
values and goals – the various properties of a market are outgrowths of the
many unique values and goals of the human actors within it.
I’ve had an interest
in the social sciences, especially economics and history since I was an adolescent. Hearing stories about daily life affairs in
socialist Yugoslavia from my grandparents with all of their struggles piqued my
interest in economics and comparative institutional analysis. I began to seriously look at the works of
Marx and Engels and Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose in an effort to gain
some understanding. Eventually, at some
point in 2007, I discovered Mises’ essay, “Economic Calculation in the
Socialist Commonwealth”, which was an enlightening first introduction to Austrian
economics. I soon began to read the
other works of Mises, Rothbard, and Böhm-Bawerk, among others. I would eventually start reading the works of
Lachmann around 2010 and have been tremendously influenced by his thought ever
since.
Why would I
wait until now to start a blog? Well, I
honestly didn’t care much about writing about economics, especially from a radical subjectivist position, but after
an event held in tandem by the Boston and Manchester Austrian Economics groups,
I have changed my mind. I presented a brief sketch of Lachmann’s life and important
ideas at this event, – see a write up of it by my friend, Andrew Criscione, here
– which generated a positive reception.
On top of this, there seems to be a dearth of blogs coming from a similar
viewpoint. So why not start now!
Using Lachmann’s
own terms, it seems that his work has been lost “in the wilderness”
in the mainstream, as well as in orthodox Austrian thought. With this blog, I will aim to raise some
interest in his work and attempt to find a way out of the wilderness and back to civilization.
Shenoy, Sudha R.. Towards a Theoretical Framework for British
and International Economic History: Early Modern England. (Auburn, Ala:
Mises Institue, 2010), 47.