Interestingly enough, Schumpeter essentially makes this argument in his Theory of Economic Development. He is against the view that humans have intrinsic discount rates, an innate time preference, which was one of the Austrian school’s axioms. He thinks that interest is a phenomenon of economic development—resources need to be withdrawn from their customary usage, to allow entrepreneurs to find new combinations of things, and that requires compensation. Once this alternative use of resources is available, however, it becomes an opportunity cost for all other possible actions, which is the foundation of discount rates.
Interestingly enough, Schumpeter essentially makes this argument in his Theory of Economic Development. He is against the view that humans have intrinsic discount rates, an innate time preference, which was one of the Austrian school’s axioms. He thinks that interest is a phenomenon of economic development—resources need to be withdrawn from their customary usage, to allow entrepreneurs to find new combinations of things, and that requires compensation. Once this alternative use of resources is available, however, it becomes an opportunity cost for all other possible actions, which is the foundation of discount rates.