#1:
If the purpose of someone determines how something is going to be used, then if the purposes of many people are the same with regard to how something is going to be used, then that thing will be used the sameway by many.
But both Austrians and Mainstream economists want to know economics but they don't work together. The fact that they don't is a contradiction that could ruin the above statement. So therefore the purposes of people sometimes doesn't affect how an economy is.
#2
If the free market developes spontaneous order without planning, then this order is seemingly accidental and has nothing to do with the purposes of the individuals composing it. So unless the market by definition developes spontaneous order, the market must be considered extraneous to wealth creation or social peace.
I would first like to say thank you to all the replies as I must surely by now seem thick-skulled.
That being said, how is it that neoclassicals and austrians differ in purpose?
And as an empirical question -how is it that after 120 years or so, the Austrians and Neoclassicals don't cooperate? I agree that supposing the acting person is simply mistaken about means, then he may not be drawn to other methods, still there is a psychic arbitrage opportunity to recognizing that others are right after your methods fail. Surely the motive to cooperate couldn't've been stunted for 120yrs?
This is a thymological question and thus has no relation to pure economic theory, so it is not a refutation of catallitics.
But to answer you the best I can, Science is not a continuous march of progress. Mistakes can and do occur which can throw an entire field down the wrong track for decades, and this is not exclusive to economics. A quite infamous example is how the cure for scurvy was discovered, then "proven" to not work and had to be rediscovered a century later.
Moreover, people who introduce new theories that run contrary to established thought are met with skepticism. This skepticism is healthy but it also creates an academic inertia: Many would rather stay in a comfortable zone than go down a new path, be proven wrong, and lose their positions.
There is the further problem exclusive to the social sciences in that the state is not interested in the truth of these matters but are only interested in justifications for what they already want to do. If the neoclassicals gave up on their idea of market failure it is likely they would lose their state funding.
economist + economist = argument,
clergyman + atheist = argument,
Get the picture?