Mises argues that monetary calculation is more or less what we mean by "reason" and "rationality." He also argues it's only possible under the right set of social institutions.
Question: is the same argument that Hayek makes, or at least an application of it, when he says that "reason didn't create our culture?"
Rationality, it would seem, is not something we find in the heads of individual humans, but is instead the emergent outcome of humans interacting with a particular social-institutional ecology.
"Monetary calculation is the guiding star of action under the social system of division of labour. It is the compass of the man embarking upon production. He calculates in order to distinguish the remunerative lines of production from the unprofitable ones, those of which the sovereign consumers are likely to approve from those of which they are likely to disapprove. Every single step of entrepreneurial activities is subject to scrutiny by monetary calculation. The premeditation of planned action becomes commercial precalculation of expected costs and expected proceeds. The retrospective establishment of the outcome of past action becomes accounting of profit and loss.
The system of economic calculation in monetary terms is conditioned by certain social institutions. It can operate only in an institutional setting of the division of labour and private ownership of the means of production in which goods and services of all orders are bought and sold against a generally used medium of exchange, i.e., money....
It was economic calculation that assigned to measurement, number, and reckoning the role they play in our quantitative and computing civilization. The measurements of physics and chemistry make sense for practical action only because there is economic calculation. It is monetary calculation that made arithmetic a tool in the struggle for a better life. It provides a mode of using the achievements of laboratory experiments for the most efficacious removal of uneasiness." - Mises, Human Action, pp. 229-30.
Money is the root of all evil
Fuck the system
Your life is a lie
Greed and desire for power are much more likely causes of evil. Money itself is just a medium of exchange.
I'm glad you are enjoying your book.
Definition always seems to be big problem. Economists have the habit of defining things in such a way that suits their own agendas.
Rationality is a very interesting one. According to some definitions, everyone is rational while according to other definitions nobody is rational.