Praexis Business Labs => Walker Insight
The arcane name “Praexis” has its place, and it’s still relevant to our work. That we decided to revert to our surname and a one-word description of our “deliverable” (Insight) is simply the reflection of time passed, the periodic need for a refresh, and my own weariness in spelling and defining “Praexis” for people who already have enough on their plates.
Praxeology = the study of human action, a concept somewhat unique in economic thought to the Austrian School. As I say elsewhere on this site, everyone my age got their econ from Samuelson, and it was taught that individual action was inscrutable and to be taken for granted. Take individuals…well—individually…and the difference they made was too small to measure.
The real story of wealth creation and my personal experience say otherwise. There are massive outliers like Norman Borlaug or Henry Ford or Steve Jobs, but I can think of those who didn’t break out so conspicuously whose accomplishments nonetheless mattered not just to their families, but to scores of families, entire communities, and multiple generations.
The practicality of handling finance and economics for independent business, in real time, means that we don’t seek a theory to sort the facts or narrative. Sometimes a theory crosses our path that helps sort the facts we already know.
Hence the Austrian school, which I stumbled across in the mid-90s in the midst of a massive data project analyzing commodity markets for risk management and profit improvement on farms. You can read Hayek or Mises or Kirzner better than I can explain them so I won’t try here, but suffice to say, they deal with our issues. We are beset by forces bigger than us, that are not tamable and often enough not survivable, at least without considerable foresight and preparation.
Entrepreneurship also is outsized in its force, something that cannot be tamed or “managed” without being marginalized or destroyed. I’ll give one important reference in case you’re inclined to read it: Hayek’s classic and still-so-relevant essay from Individual and Economic Order, “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” The Austrian economists knew the impact of uncertainty, even radical uncertainty, in charting a course for the future. The role of the entrepreneur is resolving that uncertainty. Hayek’s and Mises’ writing inspired us to continue developing the practical tools suited to the task.
That those tools are primarily about the science and (especially) art of planning is, I hope, apparent on this website. The means of tailoring them to the individual and making the process instinctive and transparent rather than opaque and eggheaded is our challenge. According to our clients, we meet it more often than not. Forecasts are wrong, plans are upset, the big are arrayed against the small, and uncertainty can never be wholly resolved. And yet: I can at least cite 30 years’ experience (adding to Sr.’s 50) to say that even incomplete success is enough to reduce uncertainty, control risk, make work more productive and less worrisome, and improve returns on capital. Or as Sr. says more directly: safer, easier, and faster.