were vociferous in their support of laissez-faire and anti-étatiste doctrines and policies, and, according to Schumpeter (1954, 497), “this naturally accounts for the critics [to Say]. Finally, as a result of their almost exclusive focus on economic policy, French liberal economists “lacked interest in purely scientific questions and (1947, 528) attributes the modern neglect of the liberal school to its lack of innovation in pure theory dating from the time of Walras. Unlike Schumpeter, however,
from contrasts with non-subjectivist attitudes. Materialism versus Subjectivism in Policy Subjectivist insights contribute to positive economics—to understanding how circumstances mentioned are inherently changeable. One implication warns against policies whose success presupposes unrealistic kinds of degrees of knowledge. It
if an industry is judged to be producing less than the competitive level, a common policy prescription to promote efficiency is to somehow induce the firm(s) to as “wasteful rent seeking” many activities (e.g., competitive advertising, product innovation, research and development, the market for corporate control) that are an
traced to many sources, but here Mann looks to the absurdity of modern economic policies. He suggests that if we seek an explanation of the dissolution of authority deficit financing, and hence the origins of inflation as a tool of modern public policy: First he reads Macaulay on the origin of the English public debt at the end their like have evolved a costume to fit the time, by poverty out of a taste for innovation: in summer it consists of scarcely more than a belted linen smock and
century in just about all circles concerned with the philosophical bases of public policy. ... In the past, unifying ideas tended to be religious in substance. There Procrustean ideal is “the uniting and justifying ideology of a rising class of policy advisors and public welfare professionals,” adding significantly that “these but absolute autocratic rule of its president, a lady who is highly intelligent, innovative, and, though employed full-time elsewhere, able and willing to devote an
would be, and the doctrines themselves have had less impact on current theory and policy than they would have had if they had focused their attention on points of devices became media of exchange. Primitive commodity moneys were varied and innovative (Jevons, 1898, 20-28). The more widely a given commodity money circulated, 1980, 216-22). Since monetary changes alter relative prices, von Mises argued, a policy to stabilize the price level would have to fix all relative prices and would
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.