Laura Davidson, Walter E. Block
A Critique Of Definitions in Economics from an Austrian Perspective: Microeconomics
Summary:
In the physical sciences, it goes without saying that all practitioners use words in the same manner. A mere verbal dispute would be anathema in this arena of intellectual discourse. There is no dispute, , as to the means of words such as “gravity,” “mass,” “genus,” “species,” “oxygen,” “x-ray,” etc. Matters are not as salutary in the social sciences. The present paper is an attempt to place economics, the queen of the social sciences, on a par with physics, chemistry, biology, etc., or at least to make an attempt in this direction. Systematic knowledge, the sine qua non of science, requires good communication. But this, in turn, can only be achieved, if its necessary condition is attained: precise definitions. In the present paper, we discuss in this regard the microeconomic concepts of entrepreneurship, monopoly, derps, indifference, development and rent seeking.
