Other Schools of Thought

From The Review of Austrian Economics Vol. 5, No. 1, 1991.

The latest exploits of Lance Armstrong in this year's Tour de France, writes Jim Fedako, provide a solid backdrop for discussions contrasting the economic ideas of the Austrian School and the adherents of Public Choice.

Recorded at Mises University 2004.

Recorded at Mises University 2004.

The Jedi sacrifice truth and justice to ambition, writes Adam Young. May this serve as a warning to all who see in emergency circumstances a reason to betray principles and adopt the methods of the Dark Side. 

Communist Parties are still alive and well, even in post-communist countries. Luca Ferrini speculates that the larger the state, the more it corrupts the mind and the culture. Communism means never having to leave the nest.

The founder of the Chicago School, Frank Knight, was an avowed egalitarian. Rousseau was his influence. Jacobins believed in mass democracy and politics as the only way to implement their ideas. They hated aristocrats and religious leaders. Knight believed in progressive taxation. He wanted neocon social democracy.

The debate still continues. It is all about Mises’ initial article and then book on Socialism in 1922. He demonstrated the necessity of the price system and showed how subjective values were transformed into objective prices which could be used as meaningful cardinal numbers in economic calculation.

Monetary inflation is the key way to bring about economic fascism. Fascism was a spending, borrowing government, militarism, imperialism, and a planned economy. Keynes’ followers came to power in the 60s with the Kennedy administration. Nixon went on to impose wage and price controls.

Gene Callahan recounts a forgotten period of intellectual history when the obsession with modelling crowded out the search for truth.