The Mystery of the Marginal Pairs
What was earth-shattering about the advent of economics, according to Ludwig von Mises, was its unprecedented discovery of regularity in the social realm. Just as Kepler, Galileo, and Newton had discovered that there were immutable laws that regulate the movements of physical bodies, the early economists discovered that there were immutable laws that regulate market phenomena. [1] Key among these discoveries was the realization that prices are not arbitrary numbers that people simply tack on to commodities.
What was earth-shattering about the advent of economics, according to Ludwig von Mises, was its unprecedented discovery of regularity in the social realm. Just as Kepler, Galileo, and Newton had discovered that there were immutable laws that regulate the movements of physical bodies, the early economists discovered that there were immutable laws that regulate market phenomena.[1]
Key among these discoveries was the realization that prices are not arbitrary numbers that people simply tack on to commodities. There are causal laws that regulate their formation.
One of these laws has even become a household term. Everyone has at least heard of “supply and demand,” although most do not really know what it means. Those who have taken an introductory economics course may have heard that prices settle at the level at which “supply equals demand.”
The great Austrian economist Eugen von B
Filed Under: Economy
