Pe Mises Economics Blog, Matthew McCaffrey scrie despre subiectul întâlnirii din cadrul Serilor Mises:
What I argue in the lecture is that some classic writings on strategy (especially military strategy) discuss strategic reasoning in terms similar to economic reasoning, or even actively incorporate economic thinking into strategic theory. This is particularly true of famous works such as Sun Tzu’s Art of War, which incorporates ideas about scarcity, resource management, and the arrangement of incentives within hierarchical organizations. It also says a great deal about the creative, innovative, and “unorthodox” decision making characteristic of both excellent strategists and entrepreneurs. In a forthcoming paper, I explain in greater detail how Sun Tzu’s thought is grounded in the economic point of view.
This raises an interesting question though: are fields like strategy independent, unique branches of praxeology, or simply other avenues of applied economic reasoning? I do not think there is a clear answer to this question yet, but it may be that strategic decision making falls into the non-catallactic branch of economics; that is, the part of economics outside the sphere of exchange and economic calculation. However, further work needs to be done if we want to obtain a more complete picture of the larger network of praxeological studies.
In any case, one broader inference that may be obtained from the classics is that strategic decision making begins from the same starting point as traditionally economic behavior. That is, strategy (which involves execution in addition to planning) does not occur in a vacuum or in the abstract, but requires the use of scarce resources, especially time. Strategy must also take account of the purposes of the strategist, without which there is no goal for strategy to accomplish. In my opinion, this approach shows that strategy can be conceptualized in essentially praxeological terms. Others have also begun to see the similarities between Sun Tzu’s thought and economic reasoning. Mark Spitznagel, for example, argues that the Art of War can be applied to investment strategy from an Austrian perspective.
Materialul video de la întâlnire, aici.
