Goal-setting as the Basis of the Austrian School of Economic Theory

Modern schools of economic theory are predominantly based on the analysis of resources (factors of production) and their corresponding institutions (relations). But resources make sense only in the context of goals, the primary carrier of which is a person. The only school of economic theory, the provisions of which are based directly on human activity, is the Austrian school. Therefore, the work is carried out rethinking the axiomatic provisions of this particular school from the standpoint of goal-setting and strategizing. The work carried out a phenomenological reduction of key economic concepts (value, price, exchange, production, cooperation, profit, loss, demand, supply, interest, labor, capital) from the standpoint of goal setting. As a result, the following definitions have been proposed. “Value” is the importance that a person attaches to goals. “Price” is the sum of the costs associated with achi- eving the goal. “Exchange” is the receipt of the other people's resources for achieving own goals through the refusal from their own resources of the achieving other people's goals. “Individual production” is an individual activity to create new means of achieving goals. “Cooperation” is a joint activity to achieve goals. “Profit” is an approaching to the goal. “Loss” is a distanting from the goal. “Market” is the process of obtaining the means to achieve one's own goals in exchange for the means of achieving another's goals. “Demand” is a requirement of the subject for the means to achieve its goals that do not belong to him. “Supply” is a subject's willingness to give up (through exchange) his or her means of achieving someone else's goals. “Percentage” is the relative value of the goal depending on the time factor, which is transferred to the means of achieving it. “Capital” is a set of means to achieve goals. “Labour” is an activity aimed at achieving goals. The possibility of such a reduction proves the fundamental role of goals in the economic process, since it is the goals that manifest in the environment the means of achieving them, determine the nature and forms of human and organizational activity. Ultimately, from the standpoint of goal-setting, conditions are created for the formation of an internally non-contradictory economic theory that is capable of synthesizing individual and public interests on the basis of coordinating goals.