The Socialist Calculation Debate did not end with the fall of the communist systems of the former U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, writes William Anderson. Socialism is alive and well today, and is still wreaking havoc wherever it is implemented. But there is an intellectual antidote to socialism: Austrian economics.
The Soviet system was a chaotic one that was destined not only to enslave and impoverish its people but also to degenerate and finally disintegrate. The Russian people have long experience in suffering poverty and hardship. Full of hope, they may yet find their way to comfort and ease--the way of freedom.
Nearly a lifetime ago, John Maynard Keynes launched his economic revolution, largely on the basis of his belief that interest rates do not do their job and that the market economy is inherently flawed by this shirking.
D.W. MacKenzie contrasts economic methodologies to show how Austrian economists employ sound theoretical concepts that guard against the wiles of political and ideological fashion. Data alone will not keep us grounded, while indulging in socialist fantasies end only in our sinking to the worst depths of poverty and despotism.
The Austrian School of economics is known for its aversion to mathematical modeling of human behavior. The neoclassical mainstream, on the other hand, is quite fond of this approach, and uses the mathematical method for just about any problem. It is fair to say, writes Robert Murphy, that most mainstream economists would prefer the precision of a false formal model over the generality of a true verbal proposition.
Robert Nelson tells us in Economics as Religion that modern economics is a branch of theology.1 In a book that shows his immense learning, Philip Mirowski presents an altogether different story of post-World War II economics.
Libertarianism favors the political ideals set forth in the early republic, writes Adam Young: an order of peace, free trade and individual self-government, where the state was restricted in its interference in the life of the churches, and the state was largely irrelevant to the economy and to the daily lives of the average American citizen.
The present unstable financial system cannot be fixed by means of a monetary policy that targets the price of gold, argues Frank Shostak. This framework, favored by supply-siders, is likely to further destabilize the economy. What is needed is not a reversion to the bankrupt Bretton Woods system, but a genuine gold standard, where gold is money.
The Enron story provides what academics call "teaching moments," that is, opportunities to explain how economic theory can explain the outcome of state involvement in market processes. Interventionism often results in failures such as Enron's, and lessons learned by studying it may help avoid similar problems in the future.
"The myth of Lincoln cannot stand up under scrutiny," says Thomas DiLorenzo, "and after all these years, the word is finally getting out." Mises.org interviews DiLorenzo on his new book and its thesis that Lincoln's legacy was not freedom but the consolidated state. The book's high sales are as notable as the explosive controversy that has erupted about his thesis.
