Editing Otto Neurath (section)

===Economics===
In economics, Neurath was notable for his advocacy of ideas like "[[Calculation in kind|in-kind]]" economic accounting in place of monetary accounting. In the 1920s, he also advocated ''Vollsozialisierung'', that is "complete" rather than merely partial "[[Socialization (economics)|socialization]]".<ref>John O'Neill, "Socialist Calculation and Environmental Valuation: Money, Markets and Ecology," Science & Society, LXVI/1 (Spring 2002); Joan Martinez-Alier and Klaus Schlupmann, Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment, and Society (1987), 212-218.</ref> Thus, he advocated changes to the economic system that were more radical than those of the mainstream Social-Democratic parties of Germany and Austria. In the 1920s, Neurath debated these matters with leading Social Democratic theoreticians (such as [[Karl Kautsky]], who insisted that money is necessary in a socialist economy. While serving as a government economist during the war, Neurath had observed that "As a result of the war, in-kind calculus was applied more often and more systematically than before&nbsp;... war was fought with ammunition and with the supply of food, not with money" i.e. that goods were [[Commensurability (economics)|incommensurable]]. This convinced Neurath of the feasibility of economic planning in terms of amounts of goods and services, without use of money.<ref>Günther Chaloupek, "Otto Neurath's Concepts of Socialization and Economic Calculation and his Socialist Critics"(2006), at www.chaloupek.eu/work/NeurathFin.pdf</ref><ref>Otto Neurath, ed. T. Uebel and R. S. Cohen, Economic Writings (2004), 304.</ref> In response to these ideas, [[Ludwig von Mises]] wrote his famous essay of 1920, "[[Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth]]".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://mises.org/econcalc.asp |title=Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth by Ludwig von Mises |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute |access-date=1 December 2013 |archive-date=17 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141117110429/https://mises.org/econcalc.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/in-partial-praise-of-a-positivist|author=John O'Neill|title=In partial praise of a positivist: The work of Otto Neurath|journal=Radical Philosophy|date=Nov–Dec 1995| issue=74 |access-date=16 October 2018}}</ref>

Otto Neurath believed it was 'war [[socialism]]' that would come into effect after capitalism.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Desai |first1=Meghnad |title=Marx's Revenge |date=2002 |publisher=Verso |pages=190–195}}</ref> For Neurath, war economies showed advantages in speed of decision and execution, optimal distribution of means relative to (military) goals, and no-nonsense evaluation and utilization of inventiveness. Two disadvantages which he perceived as resulting from centralized decision-making were a reduction in productivity and a loss of the benefits of simple economic exchanges; but he thought that the reduction in productivity could be mitigated by means of "scientific" techniques based on analysis of work-flows as advocated by [[Frederick Winslow Taylor]]. Neurath believed that socioeconomic theory and scientific methods could be applied together in contemporary practice.

Neurath's view on socioeconomic development was similar to the [[materialist conception of history]] first elaborated in [[classical Marxism]], in which technology and the state of epistemology come into conflict with social organization. In particular, Neurath, influenced also by [[James George Frazer]], associated the rise of scientific thinking and empiricism/positivism with the rise of socialism, both of which were coming into conflict with older modes of epistemology such as theology (which was allied with [[idealist]] philosophy), the latter of which served reactionary purposes. However, Neurath followed Frazer in claiming that primitive magic closely resembled modern technology, implying an [[instrumentalist]] interpretation of both.<ref>{{Cite book | last = Josephson-Storm | first = Jason | title = The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences | location = Chicago | publisher = University of Chicago Press | date = 2017 |pages = 225–6 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xZ5yDgAAQBAJ | isbn = 978-0-226-40336-6 }}</ref> Neurath claimed that magic was [[Falsifiability|unfalsifiable]] and therefore [[disenchantment]] could never be complete in a scientific age.<ref>{{Cite book | last = Josephson-Storm | first = Jason | title = The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences | location = Chicago | publisher = University of Chicago Press | date = 2017 |page = 227 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xZ5yDgAAQBAJ | isbn = 978-0-226-40336-6 }}</ref> Adherents of the scientific view of the world recognize no authority other than science and reject all forms of metaphysics. Under the socialist phase of history, Neurath predicted that the scientific worldview would become the dominant mode of thought.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/9325/1/auslegung.v16.n02.175-189.pdf |title= Otto Neurath: Marxist member of the Vienna Circle |last1= Jacobs |first1= Straun |last2= Otto |first2= Karl-Heinz |access-date= September 7, 2014 }}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>