FORMALISM IN AUSTRIAN-SCHOOL WELFARE ECONOMICS - ANOTHER PRETENSE OF KNOWLEDGE

Contemporary Austrian-school economists reject neoclassical welfare th eory for being founded on the benchmark of a perfectly competitive gen eral equilibrium, and instead favor a formal theory deemed consistent with the notions of radical subjectivism and disequilibrium analysis. Roy Cordato advances a bold free-market benchmark by which to formally assess social welfare, economic efficiency, and externalities issues. Like all formalist, a priori theory, however, Cordato's reformulation cannot meet its own standards, being theoretically and empirically fl awed, and perhaps ideologically suspect.