Viennese kaleidics: Why it’s liberty more than policy that calms turbulence

Richard Wagner ()

The Review of Austrian Economics, 2012, vol. 25, issue 4, 283-297

Abstract: The idea of a kaleidic economy or society is strongly associated with George Shackle and his vision of Keynesian kaleidics. This essay asserts that the central thrust of the Austrian tradition in economic analysis can be described by the term Viennese kaleidics. In either version of kaleidics, the analytical stress is placed on treating time seriously and not just notionally. Either version of kaleidics leads to recognition that economic processes are better treated as turbulent than as equilibrated. While that turbulence is a natural feature of the unavoidable incompleteness of intertemporal coordination, it is subject to mitigation. This essay explains how it is that individual liberty and private ordering is generally superior to state policy and public ordering in calming the turbulence that naturally characterizes a kaleidic economy. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Keywords: Kaleidic economy; George Shackle; Time and economics; Monetary non-neutrality; Private vs. public ordering; B20; D20; D80; E30; E52; E62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11138-012-0172-x

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