One of the unique features of Austrian economics is a coherent and consistent theory of business cycles. To understand business cycles, one must understand the role that interest rates play in the economy.
One of the fallacies of modern academic neoclassical economics is that we can take cardinal measures of value. Austrian economists, beginning with Carl Menger, know better.
The focus is on individual human action makes Austrian economics unique, as well as logically valid and compelling. It is a system of economic analysis based upon praxeology and causal-realism.
It is hard to find an article in the past century more influential in economic methodology than Milton Friedman’s “The Methodology of Positive Economics.”
Mainstream economists today examine economic phenomena from a “black box” perspective in which they look at inputs and outputs without trying to understand causal mechanisms that make the outcomes possible.
As a human endeavor like any other, war making is the product of reason, purpose and choice. A proper analysis of war must take into account the goals of the war makers.
Modern academic economics is based upon the methodologies used to study the natural sciences. However, such methodologies are inappropriate to study economics, which must be based upon causal-realism.
Austrian economics today needs critics. It doesn‘t need the critics (like Paul Krugman) who cannot give valid and accurate criticisms, but rather people who actually understand the concepts upon which Austrian thinking is built provide a real challenge.
Mainstream economists often base their analysis upon assumptions that do not square with reality. Austrian economics, on the other hand, is built upon realistic assumptions and the acknowledgement that good economics must reflect human action.
