Replying to Engineer

I think Rothbard is not clarifying Mises there; he is contradicting him, and I think he is making a mistake in doing so.

I would say (and I think I am following Mises) it is the proportion between consumption and non-consumption (hoarding + investment) that reflects time preferences.

Again from Human Action:

"He who consumes a nonperishable good instead of postponing consumption for an indefinite later moment thereby reveals a higher valuation of present satisfaction as compared with later satisfaction"

That's time preference, and there is no need to invoke investment or interest to explain it.

If the stored coconuts keep Crusoe alive while he builds a boat...then what? They provide all the same present utility prior to consumption. Are they now an investment rather than a hoard? What's the difference?

There is no obvious distinction between saving and investment in an autarchic economy. There is always time preference though.
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Max 2d ago

I think Mises is wrong here, Rothbard and especially Voskuil have a more nuanced understanding of it.

The hoarder isn't postponing consumption. He's consuming NOW: consuming the services of the hoarded good. Security is a present satisfaction. Optionality is a present satisfaction. Peace of mind is a present satisfaction. These aren't future goods; they're present goods produced by the act of holding. The hoarder has purchased something with his capital, he's just purchased liquidity services rather than apples.

The boat case proves rather than undermines this. When Crusoe stores coconuts to eat while building, he IS engaging in temporal exchange, with himself. Present-Crusoe lends to future-boat-building-Crusoe. The "interest" is the boat. He exchanges present consumption for a future good plus return. This differs categorically from storing coconuts indefinitely for security with no productive deployment. The former is investment; the latter is hoarding. The distinction doesn't dissolve in autarky; it becomes intra-personal rather than inter-personal.

Time preference is revealed by the minimum rate at which you'll exchange present for future goods. A purely psychological "orientation toward the future" that never manifests in willingness to lend isn't economically meaningful because it produces no observable market phenomena. The HODLer who won't lend at any rate has revealed infinite time preference in the only sense that matters economically: no offered future return compensates him for parting with present capital.

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Engineer 2d ago

Lets put aside the Rothbard vs Mises view of time preference. I'm still on the side of Mises, but apparently reasonable Austrians can disagree. However...

"The hoarder isn't postponing consumption..."

Hoarding a good does provide present utility, but that is not the same as consuming it. A non-perishable good like money is not used up, or worn out, or otherwise diminished in utility when it is held. The hoarder retains the full (present and future) services of the good until it is *actually* consumed or exchanged.

Rothbard recognized that too, as you mentioned above when he refers to 3 margins, not 2; and you yourself refer to hoarding as orthogonal, which would not be the case if hoarding and consumption were identical.

"A purely psychological "orientation toward the future" that never manifests in willingness to lend isn't economically meaningful because it produces no observable market phenomena."

Hoarding is not purely psychological. Hoarding in an exchange economy reduces demand for all other goods and increases the exchange value of the hoarded good. It definitely has effects in the market. This was the point of the 2nd Mises quote in my original reply. Whether those effects are observable is not relevant to economic theory.

"The HODLer who won't lend at any rate has revealed infinite time preference in the only sense that matters economically: no offered future return compensates him for parting with present capital."

The interest rate here is undefined, not infinite. You can't infer from a refusal to exchange present for future goods that the reason was an insufficient interest rate. Observed interest rates are partially explained by time preference, but they are not identical with it, nor do they measure it. There is always an entrepreneurial component.

It's the "stay humble" part of "stay humble and stack sats."

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Max 2d ago

> Hoarding a good does provide present utility, but that is not the same as consuming it. A non-perishable good like money is not used up, or worn out, or otherwise diminished in utility when it is held.

Yes, and my point is the loss of the interest foregone, that's the opportunity cost that is sacrificed by hoarding.

> Rothbard recognized that too, as you mentioned above when he refers to 3 margins, not 2; and you yourself refer to hoarding as orthogonal, which would not be the case if hoarding and consumption were identical.

I'm not saying that hoarding and consumption is identical, what is consumed is the interest foregone.

> Hoarding is not purely psychological.

Agreed, what I mean is that time preference is manifested in action, and specifically to increase the investment to consumption ratio.

> Hoarding in an exchange economy reduces demand for all other goods and increases the exchange value of the hoarded good. It definitely has effects in the market. This was the point of the 2nd Mises quote in my original reply. Whether those effects are observable is not relevant to economic theory.

Exactly.

> The interest rate here is undefined, not infinite.

Undefined seems a less useful term than infinite here. At least the price is not enough to convince him to engage in trade.

> You can't infer from a refusal to exchange present for future goods that the reason was an insufficient interest rate. Observed interest rates are partially explained by time preference, but they are not identical with it, nor do they measure it. There is always an entrepreneurial component.

Yes.