"Since credit expansion is made possible by state action, the business cycle — so far from being a natural consequence of the free market and a heavy debit against it — is ultimately traceable to government…"
As Böhm-Bawerk declared, Salmasius's views on usury were the high-water mark of interest theory, to remain so for over 100 years.
"The default position of the world is despotism. In the sweep of things, liberty is the exception."
In order to make it easier for the central banks to embark upon credit expansion, the European governments aimed long ago at a concentration of their countries' gold reserves with the central banks.
"Rothbard here is rather writing as an ideological polemicist about what thinkers are 'good for the team,' and his critiques even beyond this book often had that spirit."
The governments of almost all countries are engaged in a campaign against the capitalists. They are intent upon expropriating them by means of taxation and monetary measures.
"Aside from its high production values, what's remarkable about this video is its theoretical accuracy and transparency. It has brought Austrian business-cycle theory from the background to the forefront of debate."
The science of human action is mental and aprioristic, it is the product of a logical analysis of the categories implied in different modes of action.
Nonetheless, an important crack in the united macroeconomic front has been made with the admission that the policies are wanting and the neo-Keynesian establishment economics does not have a ready answer to explain either the causes or cures of such contemporary economic phenomena as inflationary recession.
Briefly, the importance of the Hayek theory of the business cycle is that it puts the blame for the boom-bust cycle squarely on the shoulders of the government and its controlled banking system, and, for the first time since the classical economists of the 19th century, completely absolves the free-enterprise economy from the blame.
