For an Austrian Sociology of the Arts

Steve Horwitz has a good blog piece on What Austrian Economics Is and What It Is Not. In it he uses Pete Boettke's list of what makes Austrian economics distinct:

1. Only individuals choose.
2. The study of the market order is fundamentally about exchange behavior and the institutions within which exchanges take place.
3. The “facts” of the social sciences are what people believe and think.
4. Utility and costs are subjective.
5. The price system economizes on the information that people need to process in making their decisions.
6. Private property in the means of production is a necessary condition for rational economic calculation.
7. The competitive market is a process of entrepreneurial discovery.
8. Money is nonneutral.
9. The capital structure consists of heterogeneous goods that have multispecific uses that must be aligned.
10. Social institutions often are the result of human action, but not of human design.

There are a few things one can point out here. One, from the perspective of using Austrian Economics to analyze the economics in a work of literature, these stand as they are. However, there might also be some possibilities in the list for the overall analysis of literature/the arts. Some we obviously cannot use. Others, we can use with modification. Consider:

1. Only individuals choose.
2. The study of the artistic order is fundamentally about artistic behavior and the institutions within which the creation of art take place.
3. The “facts” of the arts are what people believe and think.
4. Value is subjective.
5. The system of art/literary criticism economizes (or should) on the information that people need to process in making their decisions.
6. Private property in the means of production is a necessary condition for freedom of expression.
7. Competition among artists is a process of entrepreneurial discovery.
8. Artistic/literary institutions often are the result of human action, but not of human design.

Please note that I had to eliminate only the original 8 and 9. Works of literature in fact confirm 1, as we are interested in the individual characters and what and how they choose. Much of the rest speak to a possible sociology of the arts -- the spontaneous orders of the arts I have written about. Some of the rest of these could use further development. 7 has in fact had some attention in the interest in the competition between Picasso and Matisse that resulted in their developing new ways of seeing. There is also the somewhat less-well-known competition between The Beatles and The Beach Boys, with "Rubber Soul" giving rise to "Pet Sounds" giving rise to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." This competitive elements needs much more work done. The same can be said about the relationship between private property and freedom of expression. In other words, there is a great deal of work that can and should be done in developing a sociology of the arts using the methods of Austrian economics, properly adapted.