Calculation and Knowledge

There are many available definitions of the money stock: M1, M2, M3, MZM, and a host of others. Frank Shostak says that it actually does matter which one we use.

As all Austrians should be aware, recessions themselves only come about as a reaction to the unsustainable tempo of the preceding Boom, writes Sean Corrigan. Pursue inflationism, frustrate the market, extend socialism, adopt protectionism, embrace militarism, extirpate thrift, expropriate the Middle Classes, consume capital--and ignore the Austrians!--that is the way to turn a recession into a depression.

The collection of prices and quantities contained in, for instance, GDP figures, are an arbitrary choice on the part of the government. And we have no reason to believe that a dollar measure of GDP reflects anything constant about the satisfaction the citizens receive from the dollars they spend. Ultimately, GDP measures nothing more than how many dollars were spent in a nation's economy on selected goods and services. 

The deflation-phobia of our elites is the rational reaction of those who profit from the privileges that our present inflationist regime bestows on them, and who stand to lose more than any other group if this regime is ever reversed in a deflationary coup. Perennial inflation is based on monopoly. Deflation brings in the fresh winds of the free market.

In the great debates of the period, it was said that Hayek had lost to the New Economics of Keynes and his followers. It was more precisely true that the Keynesians had won not by having better argument but force of government policy. The Misesians and Hayekians of the time decided that they would fight the battle of ideas and thus sprang up a host of institutions that would continue the work of liberty, despite all political impediments.

Bryan Caplan, in his widely circulated article, "Why I Am Not an Austrian Economist," seemingly has questioned the Austrian contention that choice implies preference. If it can be shown that we choose based on indifference and not preference, the Austrians be shown to be wrong. But can this be shown?

The Free Market 21, no. 2 (February 2003)

Proponents of markets often note that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Many of the most interesting issues in economics derive from a lesser-known category of alleged market failure: so-called asymmetric information. The problem of asymmetric information is simple. Different people know different things about economic goods. However, rather than indicting a need for government intervention, asymmetries in information make the free operation of markets all the more important.

Given the economics of the cycle, writes Sean Corrigan, there are no easy choices. Standing the path of recovery are huge, perhaps unprecedented, imbalances, record indebtedness perched atop still-overblown asset prices, the ire of powerful vested interests, and a blind dedication to a whole pharmacopoeia of quack remedies and misdiagnoses.

Gore's remarks come at a curious time, his party having suffered some terrible electoral defeats in the last election cycle. A proposal to create a Canadian-like system in Oregon was defeated 80-20 at the polls. Yet there are reasons why the socialist idea remains popular.