Creating a hit movie series, television show, or video game is a phenomenon that not only strikes without warning, but can also strike in unexpected places—or fail to strike where it is intended. Austrian economics provides some key insights.
Mainstream economics is deterministic, holding that economic actors continue to move in one direction, not responding to changes in economic circumstances or incentives. The Austrians understand economics is about people engaged in purposeful action.
In this week‘s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon looks at the methodology of Timothy Williamson. While Williamson might not like the implication, Dr. Gordon notes that Williamson‘s methodology can be used to defend the epistemological views of Murray Rothbard.
Marxism has seeped into politics, education, and religion—reducing human action to class and race. Mises offers a more accurate understanding of how humans act.
Modern neoclassical economics is based upon the physical sciences, which Austrian economists recognize is an inappropriate way to explain economic phenomena. Ludwig von Mises recognized this fraudulence, calling it “scientism.”
Mainstream economists define inflation as the increase in an imaginary “price level” that is relatively neutral in its effects. Austrian economists, however, know better, as they realize that the effects of inflating the money supply are anything but neutral.
Why do cultures degenerate? At the recent Natal Conference, Robin Hanson cites biological and evolutionary factors. However, if one looks to Mises and the Austrians, we look squarely at human action that begins with the human mind and purposeful action.
Mainstream economists define inflation as the increase in an imaginary “price level” that is relatively neutral in its effects. Austrian economists, however, know better, as they realize that the effects of inflating the money supply are anything but neutral.
Mainstream economists claim that in order to “do economics,” they must collect data and then see where it leads them. However, data by itself is economically useless without a guiding theory to explain what is happening.
J.B. Say deserves to be remembered, especially by Austrian economists, as a pivotal figure in the history of economic thought. Yet, one finds him discussed very briefly, if at all.
