Certainly history in and of itself doesn't do much to supply us with
theoretical structures. Theory is a completely different issue. I'll take
good theory from whereever I happen to find it.
The thing that really sucks about history is that there's never a control
group. But history is still an incredibly rich source of data about
structures that are too large to study in a laboratory, and, because they
involve human beings who sometimes messily and unpredictably invent new
theories to guide their own actions, too complex to simulate. If laboratory
data and simulation data conflict with historical data, my own cautious
preferences lead me to side with the historical data. If a computer
simulation or a laboratory experiment were to lead to a conclusion that
Diocletian's policies would lead to a thriving and wealthy Roman empire, or
that Stalin's policies would lead to a thriving and wealthy Soviet Union,
I'd be *inclined* to discount the laboratory/simulation data on that basis
alone. Before I read Hayek I was a lot more cavalier about these things.
Eric Watt Forste <arkuat@pobox.com> http://www.c2.org/~arkuat/