Knowledge Expectations Capital reformatted英文资料.pdf

KNOWLEDGE, EXPECTATIONS AND CAPITAL THE ECONOMICS OF LUDWIG M. LACHMANN: ATTEMPTING A NEW PERSPECTIVE Peter Lewin* Reprinted from Advances in Austrian Economics vol. 1, 1994, pp. 233-256. * Senior Economist: Criterion, Inc., Dallas, Texas. I am very grateful to Robert Formaini, Peter Boettke, Israel Kirzner, the members of the Austrian Economics Colloquium and especially to Mario Rizzo for helpful comments and discerning criticisms. The usual disclaimer applies especially where I have not followed their advice. Knowledge, Expectations and Capital There are various ways in which, in any discipline, we might look upon its history of thought. According to one view the contributions of past thought are given to us, like sculptures in a museum, as objects of interest and study but as something which has assumed a permanent form It is possible, however, to take a different view of the present role of the history of thought. According to this view the ideas contributed in the past do not at present necessarily exist in their final form. The answers which have been given are all possible answers to recurring questions, but there may be other answers. The problems which thinkers of the past have attempted to solve may have solutions other than those they proposed, but which still elude us. A thinker may have dealt with a complex of facts and problems some of which are linked by threads of which he may ha