Other Schools of Thought

Krugman’s recent NYT column on Russia features commentary on trade surpluses that is at best very misleading.

Economic growth is not something that just happens. It requires saving. It requires investment and capital accumulation. And it requires the real market process. 

Spanish mercantilism meant the Crown picked which industries flourished and which withered. This led to a multitude of malinvestments including booms for southern Spain and busts in the Low Countries.  

The average standard of living in this country is higher than in any other country of the world. This is because the per head quota of capital invested is in America higher than in other countries.

History is only a tiresome repetition of one story. Persons and classes have sought to win possession of the power of the state in order to live luxuriously out of the earnings of others.

The collectivistic and neomercantilistic writers of today seek prosperity along a road that necessarily takes us further and further away from peace.

Ludwig von Mises was the great opponent of John Maynard Keynes. In this blistering article, appearing for the first time online, Mises unmasks Keynes as an advocate of the pseudoscience of monetary magic.

Modern economics claims that quantitative methods are central to understanding economic analysis. Mises demonstrated why this belief is untrue.

Here is Murray N. Rothbard's 1968 demolition of trends in conservative thought, as printed in Ramparts magazine.

Mainstream academic economists believe that we advance economics by "testing" theories. Austrian economists believe economics is about understanding human action and does not have to be subjected to constant tests.