Stephen Yearwood
2 min readSep 25, 2020

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The essence of praxeology is its focus on human actions. The author of this article does not claim any prescriptive role for praxeology, but there does seem to be at least an implication that the sovereign individual must be allowed to act, as Homo economicus, with at most an absolute minimum of constraints. Besides, if it is merely a descriptive exercise, with no implications for governance of the economy as a whole or the conduct of individuals within the economy, what would praxeology be but a mental exercise that starts with a simple truism from which nothing of interest follows?

The fact that human beings act was also recognized by Warren J. Samuels in "Welfare Economics, Property, and Power" (in Perspectives of Property, edited by Gene Wunderlich and W.L. Gibson). He all but defined "social power" as the ability to effect choices, i.e., choose among perceived alternatives and take action to bring that choice to fruition.

Anyone can observe that human beings have no choice but to effect choices. That makes choosing for oneself integral to human being. That makes respecting people's capacity to choose for themselves — beginning with choosing whether/how/to what extent to be involved whenever any choice is being effected — the ethic of justice. A society governed by that ethic would have maximum liberty, political democracy, and market-based economy with a "democratically distributed income." ["Real Justice" here in Medium] I have found how a democratically distributed income could provide the means to make the economy fully self-regulating, with no unemployment, poverty, taxes, or public debt (among other good things). ['"For Crying Out Loud, Accept That A Solution Actually Exists" also here in Medium]

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Stephen Yearwood
Stephen Yearwood

Written by Stephen Yearwood

M.A. in political economy (money/distributive justice) "Please don't confront me with my failures/ I'm aware of them" from "These Days," as sung by Gregg Allman

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