Collected Works of Israel M. K – serie

The third volume of The Collected Works of Israel M Kirzner presents a collection of writings on capital theory that serve both as a discourse in the history of economic thought and as conceptual clarification in one of the most complex subjects in economics. This edition explores the notions of capital and interest in light of the controversies surrounding these topics. The first essay in this volume is Kirzner's introduction to the 1996 edition. The second essay was published as a stand-alone book in 1966 and presents Kirzner's capital theory, focusing on multi-period production plans. In the third essay Kirzner offers an interpretation of Ludwig von Mises's view of capital and interest. The fourth essay, written in the late 1980s, is Kirzner's attempt to clarify the difficulties found in interest theory. Finally, the fifth essay deals with Sir John Hick's capital theory in light of Kirzner's own Austrian position.

This volume comprises several of Kirzner's previously published papers on the subjects of methodological subjectivism and the history of entrepreneurship theorytopics of primary importance in Kirzner's economic thought because one cannot fully understand entrepreneurship theory without considering subjectivism. The volume includes Kirzner's seminal paper "Methodological Individualism, Market Equilibrium, and Market Process," in which "Kirzner conceptualized the role of the entrepreneurial function in the market process for the first time in his work." According to the editors, that paper "opened the door to Kirzner's research on the market process, leading six years later to the publication of Competition and Entrepreneurship. In doing so, it paved the way to the modern Austrian theory of the market process."

"Discovery, Capitalism, and Distributive Justice" makes Kirzners case for the idea that entrepreneurial profit is both essential for an economy and profoundly just. Asserting that the problem with standard criticism of capitalist income distribution is a failure to see capitalism as a discovery procedure, Kirzner argues that production and subsequent profit are neither automatic nor guaranteed. This important contribution to the larger debate of the capitalist system clarifies core economic issues, so that the positive science of economics can enlighten our understanding of justice in capitalist distribution. Successful production always results from the discovery of an opportunity to obtain new gains from trade, (ie: the discovery of entrepreneurial profit). Kirzner shows that profit is the just and fair possession of its discoverer. This is what he calls the "finders-keepers" rule: "The finders-keepers rule asserts that an unowned object becomes the justly owned property of the first person who, discovering its availability and its potential value, takes possession of it." Richard Ebeling reviewed the work in 1989, saying, "the heart of Professor Kirzner's argument is that every discovery of a new opportunity is the appropriation of that which had not existed before a human mind had seen the potential in that object. Kirzner's monograph is complemented here by three important articles on the subject of economic justice, a critique of Kirzner's theory, and a reply from Kirzner to that critique. Kirzner's finders-keepers rule of entrepreneurial profit and market distribution stands as one of the foremost defenses of the distribution of income and profit in the free-enterprise system.

Competition, Economic Planning, and the Knowledge Problem expands on the ideas Kirzner first discussed in Competition and Entrepreneurshipthe role of the entrepreneur and its relation to the determination of prices and the coordination of individuals plansas well as economic planning, the knowledge problem, market-process theory, and the parts played by information, knowledge and advertising. It includes a paper on F. A. Hayeks theory of market coordination and the Austrian business-cycle theoryseen now for the first time in its original English. As a whole, the volume expresses Kirzners understanding that economics cannot be separated from its human element. Competition is a rivalrous process of entrepreneurial activity in which individuals and firms discover, innovate, and outdo each other. Kirzner discusses why this dynamic view of the economy is so important to understand, particularly in the contexts of economic planning and the workings of competitive markets. Over the course of this books nineteen articles and one monograph, Kirzner also stresses another point: though knowledge is present in all economic interaction, it is also dispersed in the economy such that no individual mind can ever centralize it all. This knowledge problem implies, as Mises and Hayek have argued, the impossibility of central planning. Kirzners contribution is to show that, ultimately, it is only the free, competitive entrepreneurial process that can overcome this problem through generation of knowledge that enables the most efficient allocation of scarce resources.

The Essence of Entrepreneurship and the Nature and Significance of Market Process is a continuation of the discourse started in Kirzners earlier work, Competition and Entrepreneurship, expanding upon his ideas about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial alertness. Essence presents most of the detailed research Kirzner has done on the nature of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial process in the decades following the publication of his magnum opus. It is during that long period that Kirzner elaborated his approach further, responding to objections and critics, and offering the world a more systematic understanding of the concept of market process. In the words of the volume editors and in contrast with traditional microeconomics, Kirzners view of the entrepreneurial function in the market process consists primarily in liberating human choice from its deterministic structure by introducing alertness. Alertness to unexploited gains from trade sets the market process in motion. Hence, Kirzner holds a unique place among authors on entrepreneurship theory because of the way he focuses on the essence of the phenomenon at stake and its importance in the market process. In addition to Kirzners essays, Essence contains several critiques of Kirzners work centered on the topics of entrepreneurship, market process, and supply and demand. Kirzners response to each of these critiques shows that he welcomes criticism as an opportunity to crystallize and sharpen the difference between the normative views he espouses and contemporary economic theory. The painstaking precision with which Kirzner defends his position shows why his work has become such a staple of Austrian economic thought.