Attempts at Liberty (3) - Seeking a Format - Economics

Image credit. Continued from Attempts at Liberty (2) - Writing Policy.

Taking the Dinghy to Shore - on Course to the Port

Having studied the subject of freedom extensively, I feel like I am in the middle of an Ocean, far away from where I am heading. With a view to Attempts at Liberty I wonder: where to start, where to end. How to parcel the thing and what to pack into each compartment?

Pressure is growing - will I never come to a closing? My command of the subject should more than suffice to write up a comprehensive survey of it.

So what do I do to get ahead and rapidly move toward delivery of an output?

What I am going to try is this: I shall come up with ten clues (chapter titles) and write on the respective topics indicated by the titles essays of between 5 and 10 pages. No more. In this way I might be able to finish a draft of around 100 pages in a reasonable period of time. I might already have a finished product by then, or else: I can take it from there and add extensions to the core manuscript. 

So, as a matter of brainstorming, I shall jot down below chapter titles/subjects just as they come to mind on a gloomy January morning.

Concepts Like Buoys

First to mind come concepts like

Economics

Politics,

Law

History

Government (the State)

Philosophy,

and these challenges:

Economics

I am no longer sure that a certain type of economics (implying a certain type of economy) is uniquely related to what may legitimately called freedom. In my original approach, I took a Misesian view, explaining liberty as a vast microeconomic enterprise, a competitive system in the service of the consumer. I am afraid, things are more complicated than that. And, I have come to accept that macroeconomic concern are to be taken seriously. It is not a good idea to cut them out from subcultural or ideological conceit, ("a good liberal disdains Keynes"). Equally important, I see no way of deriving a specific economics from the principles of freedom - to the contrary, freedom seems to require a vibrant competition for visions of the economy, not least because the subject is far less mature than its chieftains would like to make us believe.

So, this chapter should discuss these problems, perhaps starting from an attempt to explain the microeconomics of freedom, only to use this as a foil on which to explicate its problems and the need for  of practising economics as an open scientific process.

Taking up the book's running theme of paradoxes: I might discuss the paradox of freedom that consists in supposedly anti-freedom economics coinciding with the main objectives of freedom: personal autonomy, productivity, peace and wealth - as achieved during the Keynesian era (1945-1975).

Which are the indispensable ingredients of freedom present in the economies of free countries, what was missing in the failed economies. Where is the residual of our economic ignorance taking us in terms of new developments in economics?

The common "deficiency" of all economic partisans: all of them argue in terms of the common weal, none of them is in a position to defend the existence of such commonality. We are divided on the issue of "the public purpose", not least because we insist on being divided. How do we cope with our incommensurables? Freedom provides the tools that improve our chances of coexisting comfortably in a state of peaceful mutual outrage. 

To be continued.