Key methodological differences between Austrians were highlighted in Milton Friedman's "The Methodology of Positive Economics." A key piece of conflict: Friedman's focus on prediction rather than explanation.
The impossibility theorem, developed by Nobel-winning economist Robert Mundell, paints a false tradeoff between the free movement of capital, fixed exchange rates, and effective monetary policy. Under a gold standard, all three are a possibility.
According to popular thinking, the sharp decline in money velocity since June 2008 is likely to neutralize recent strong money supply increases’ effect on price inflation ahead. This is a fallacy.
Rothbard: "At the outset of every step forward on the road to a more plentiful existence is saving….Without saving and capital accumulation there could not be any striving toward nonmaterial ends."
Even when an economic bust appears, there may still be enough real savings in the economy to quickly put the economy back on track. This is what brings economic recovery, not artificial "stimulus."
In an unhampered economy, monopoly is not a framework distinguishable from “pure” competition. In fact, inefficient monopolies arise only in case of government interventionism.
Proponents of modern monetary theory have come up with their own idiosyncratic definition of savings in support of their theory. But the common usage of the term shows MMT doesn't work the way its supporters think it does.
While collectivism was implied in Sismondi’s idea of a “general interest,” Owen and Fourier offered the first formal expression of full socialist collectivization.
