Liberalism has many meanings, but I wish to maintain that the most authentic form of liberalism has been concerned above all with two things: the expansion of a free functioning civil society and the restriction of the activity of the state.
Efficiency is backward-looking and static, while value creation is future-oriented and aspirational.
Supply, demand, and prices affect human usage of natural resources in such a way that the most scarce and valued resources are economized and preserved. The practical effect is that valuable resources never really run out.
There is a field where Austrians are being heard and where Austrian theory is tremendously influential, and that field is dynamic entrepreneurial capitalism.
A business owner who cannot understand why a customer is not happy — or even very disappointed — with getting a full refund for a faulty product has failed to grasp some very fundamental economic concepts.
Natural constraints on firm size are numerous, and in a truly free market, large firms would be constantly prone to being broken up and put out of business by competition. And all to often, huge firms become more long-lived due to government intervention.
Far from being a bucolic utopia, economic conditions were highly unsatisfactory on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. The traditional social system was not elastic enough to provide for the needs of a rapidly increasing population.
Readers will close the volume with admiration for Kirzner’s devotion to Austrian economics, immense learning, and dialectical skill
A comparison between the two theories of entrepreneurial action suggest that it may be time to drop the use of the words “equilibrium” and “disequilibrium” from economics.
