Austrian Economics, Praxeology and Intervention

Praxeology is defined by Rothbard (1962, p. 64) as “The formal implication of the fact that men use means to attain various chosen ends.” While men use means to attain ends in areas other than economics (e.g., war, voting), the dismal science is the only deeply elaborated subdivision of praxeology. Rothbard (1962, p. 63) defines praxeological economics in contrast withpsychology [and]…the philosophy of ethics. Since all these [three] disciplines deal with the subjective decisions of individual human minds, many observers have believed that they are fundamentally identical. This is not the case at all. Psychology and ethics deal with the content of human ends; they ask, why does the man choose such and such ends, or what ends should man value? Praxeology and economics deal with any given ends and with the formal implications of the fact that men have ends and employ means to attain them.¹