I want to make a bold assertion: we should rehabilitate grand theory (which I admit, is a derogatory term, but undeservedly so), but with a Hayekian love for human frailty, and therefore we should try to understand great works--such as Mises's Human Action. More specifically, we should all try to understand Jurgen Habermas and critique his work, not the least because he has some similar methods to the Austrian School, but because there is no other thinker with his remarkable sweep and scale, and there is no other thinker that has done as much to revive rational and moral discourse. Not only has Habermas had an impact on Hoppe, our darling on the so-called radical right, but Habermas is of course a remarkable thinker in his own right, though he remains largely a product of the left.
James Gordon Finlayson's Habermas: A Very Short Introduction is a good place to start. To gently mark my words, I will buy the first ten unique people who reply to this post and accept my offer a copy.
Very briefly I have been thinking about Habermas a lot lately however not in depth enough to grapple with his ideas in a way that is satisfactory to me at the moment. As for adding a Hayekian critique of certain of Habermas' ideas I certainly see potential there. For instance, the way I understand Habermas' formulation of the Public Sphere, there is a deep appreciation of how argument and rhetoric shape institutions which create discourse. As an aside, I think Deirdre McCloskey has some valuable work for analyzing the 'bourgeois transformation of the public sphere' from a more pro-capitalist viewpoint.
However, where I would add in a Hayekian-Michael Polaynian critique is the role in which tacit or hard to verbalize knowledge comes into play. Because of the market order which has allowed society to benefit from the dispersed tacit knowledge of all of its members without any one member having to be conversant or internally conversant in the ideas of a trade etc. in order for exchange and valuation and discourse to be possible. Where that rambling leads to is that Habermas does present us with a valuable analysis of existing 'active' discourse that shape ideas however what is hidden is the tacit knowledge transmitted through crafts, trades and even ideas amongst scientists etc.
I will close this rambling with a quote from Hayek which I posted earlier and should serve as useful food for thought ""We are still very far, however, from making full use of the possibilities which those insights open to us, largely because our thinking is governed by language which reflects an earlier mode of thought."-F.A. Hayek
"Man thinks not only for the sake of thinking, but also in order to act."-Ludwig von Mises
While I agree it's important to point out, for example, the role of the market in the discovery and conveyance of inarticulate knowledge, I don't think that it is a strong basis for a critique of Habermas. Habermas already acknowledges (1) that the lifeworld can only be addressed in a piecemeal fashion, so that even at the lifeworld level there is a sense of the limits of explicit communication, and (2) that the subsystems of state and market, due to their complexity, escape communicative reason, and that is precisely their blessing and their danger. To be sure, Habermas acknowledges a positive role for the market, and he holds that it is a necessary component of a viable modern society.
I personally think that his colonization thesis is a much stronger point of contention.
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/24096.aspx
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/24214.aspx
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/24111.aspx
Here is the grand theory:
EGOISTS OF THE WORLD UNTIE !!!
Funny story, I just got done listening to Jeff Rense and Gerald Celente on Youtube, and Rense was going on with that whole egotist thing he's such a fan of.
In reality, everyone is an egotist, just some are too scared to admit to what level they are.