In his influential critique of mainstream economics, Israel Kirzner rejected the notion of equilibrated economies in an attempt to develop a realistic account of the workings of entrepreneurial markets. Key to Kirznerian analysis are the arguments that (i) economies do not equilibrate because there always exist unexploited opportunities, and (ii) opportunities remain unexploited until ‘entrepreneurially alert’ individuals discover them. This paper draws from Tony Lawson’s philosophy of economics to explain that Kirznerian economics is no more realistic than mainstream. According to Lawson, it is the ontological commitment to closed systems thinking—not superficial theoretical features such as equilibrium—that makes mainstream economics unrealistic. I argue that Kirzner’s theoretical system similarly presupposes a closed system ontology. Whereas the mainstream worldview presumes the instant exploitation of opportunities, the Kirznerian worldview presumes their delayed yet unavoidable exploitation. The ontological critique of Kirznerian economics simultaneously facilitates the reorientation of entrepreneurship theory towards genuinely realistic modes of thought. This is feasible once we acknowledge the non-empirical ontology of ‘entrepreneurial opportunity’ and concomitant fallibility of the ‘entrepreneurial imagination’: opportunities remain unexploited because (inter alia) their existence is known only after their actualisation. The existence of economic disequilibria does not require non-actors who are blind to opportunities, and there is no mysterious force of ‘entrepreneurial alertness’ guaranteeing their eventual exploitation and inevitable movement towards economic equilibria.

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为什么会存在不平衡？柯兹纳经济学的本体论研究

在他对主流经济学的有影响力的批评中，以色列柯兹纳拒绝了均衡经济的概念，试图对创业市场的运作进行现实的描述。柯兹纳分析的关键是以下论点：（i）经济不平衡，因为总是存在未开发的机会，以及（ii）机会在“具有企业家精神的”个人发现它们之前一直未被开发。本文借鉴托尼·劳森的经济学哲学来解释柯兹纳经济学并不比主流经济学更现实。根据劳森的说法，正是对封闭系统思维的本体论承诺——而不是诸如均衡等肤浅的理论特征——使主流经济学变得不切实际。我认为柯兹纳的理论体系同样预设了一个封闭的系统本体。主流世界观假定机会立即被利用，而柯兹纳世界观则假定机会被延迟但不可避免的利用。对柯兹纳经济学的本体论批判同时促进了创业理论向真正现实的思维模式的重新定位。一旦我们承认“创业机会”的非经验本体论和伴随的“创业想象力”的错误性，这是可行的：机会仍未被利用，因为（除其他外）它们的存在只有在它们实现之后才知道。经济失衡的存在并不需要对机会视而不见的非行动者，