In order for social cooperation to happen, humans must act. This is different than reflexive behavior, this is to substitute one state of affairs for another. This is aimed towards a goal, seeking to remove a felt uneasiness. Acting man chooses between one state of affairs and another, two states that cannot be held simultaneously.   The actor values one over the other. Human action doesn’t distinguish between vigorous activity and passive activity, all that matters is there is purposeful—a definite behavior—action.

Humans, over all other animals, has a will, he can think, suppress his instinct, emotions, and impulses. There are somethings we know without experience. For example, an increase in the quantity of money, all things being equal, will reduce the value. This seems so obvious, yet the empiricist will insist on testing it out first, which is essentially all modern economists. This is absurd as asking why socialism or fascism can’t work. We know these can’t work, a priori, because they can’t calculate. But an empiricist would say, “we didn’t control for Stalin and Hitler’s mustache.” Yes! That’s really what they think.  I hope the reader sees the empiricist method is preposterous.

Through the process of deductive reasoning, what was implicit in the premises, is now explicit. These are not half-truths, they are universal truths. Without them, no knowledge would be possible. If they weren’t universal truths, we wouldn’t know anything about anything, life would be non-stop tests. No thinking and no acting would be possible if there was not some sort of regularity. Even if there were no regularity, nothing could be learned from experience either. The empiricist, “nothing can be known for certain.” But this they are certain about?

Social cooperation is categorically different from biological competition. Social cooperation is catallactic competition. Catallactic competition would be company ABC competing with company ZYX for customers. They can exist side by side and never engage in a hot war. Biological competition would be a lion and zebra, there is a clear winner and loser. This competition is always a hot war. In catallactic competition, the companies are aiming at excellence to please the customer. In biological competition, the animals are aiming at excellence to survive.

To be clear, I am not saying all knowledge is a priori. Knowledge in the physical sciences is a posteriori, or does require experience. I am referring to the logic of social cooperation. We know, all things being equal, a greater supply lead to a lower price, an increase in the quantity of money leads to a lower value. “They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts. They are both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts. They are a necessary requirement of any intellectual grasp of historical events. Without them we should not be able to see in the course of events anything else than kaleidoscopic change and chaotic muddle.”

References

Ludwig von Mises; Human Action

Ludwig von Mises; The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science