The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics is nominally a brand new
journal. But, in terms of its mission and guiding spirit, it is a
continuation, in an expanded and improved form, of the first ten volumes of
the semi-annual Review of Austrian Economics, whose founding editor
was the late Murray N. Rothbard.
The QJAE features the same Editors who succeeded Rothbard in the
editorship of the RAE beginning with volume 8, number 2. Our mission
now, as it was when we adopted it from Rothbard, is "to promote the
development and extension of Austrian economics" and to promote the analysis
of contemporary issues in the mainstream of economics from an Austrian
perspective. With a quarterly journal, which will be vigorously promoted by
a publisher of wide academic renown, Transaction Periodicals Consortium of
Rutgers University, we are confident that we will be even more successful in
fulfilling this mission than before.
The editorial policy of the QJAE is shaped by our Kuhnian perspective
on the development of science, including and especially economic science.
Thus, we do not believe the future of the Austrian School lies in courting
the acceptance of the mainstream economics profession by demonstrating that
the realism or coherence of mainstream theories may be marginally improved
by the incorporation of a handful of watered-down and shopworn subjectivist
or market-process caveats. That way lies co-optation or irrelevance. While
we do not share his epistemological relativism, Thomas Kuhn has reminded us
that scientific progress occurs not by a process of smooth and
ever-broadening consensus among different approaches, but via jarring and
revolutionary paradigm shifts.
If our ultimate goal is not to become a cautionary footnote to mainstream
economics, what is it then? It is to completely displace the crisis-ridden
but entrenched positivism by a vital and full-blown praxeological paradigm.
To this end, the QJAE offers a forum for those interested in further
elaborating and refining the system of praxeological economics, or in
pioneering its application to new areas of interest. This forum is open, as
well, to articles expressing cogent criticisms of Austrian economics that
are useful in provoking a rethinking and clarification of crucial points of
its theory, policy, or method.
As was the case during our tenure with the RAE, we will not shy away
welcome articles employing Austrian economic theory to evaluate and demolish
faddish and foolish developments in mainstream economics, which have
proliferated so rapidly of late, a sure sign of a paradigm in the latter
stages of crisis and self-liquidation.
As a means of appealing to a broader readership, we also encourage the
submission of articles that subject an important contribution, or even the
entire oeuvre, of a Nobel Laureate in economics or of a rising young star of
the profession to the rigorous scrutiny of praxeological economic theory.
Recognizing that a healthy diversity of viewpoints exists within Austrian
economics, the QJAE will continue the policy, followed in previous
volumes of the RAE, of inviting and airing different views on issues
of key importance. We believe that the controversies aired in the last few
volumes of the RAE - about the nature and consequences of free
banking, the interpretation of the socialist calculation debate, and whether
problems of calculation or knowledge or both are at the core of Austrian
economics - manifest the tremendous vitality of the praxeological paradigm.
Therefore, we intend to continue to invite contributions that elucidate and
help to resolve these issues, while cultivating reasoned debate on any new
issues that may pique the research interests of Austrian scholars.
Like the production of economic goods and services, the discovery of new
economic truth cannot be centrally planned; rather it depends on the free
interaction of individual minds. If the QJAE comes to serve as a
useful arena for that interaction, we will have fulfilled the mission we
assumed as editors.
Walter Block
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Joseph T. Salerno
