Some lovely Austro-libertarian poems by Andrew Criscione:
The Subjective Value Theorem
I trade A for B and, see,
This means B is good for me
And if A’s not good for you
You would not be trading, too
And because you trade with me
“Good” exists subjectively
I might value B o’er A
You think just the other way
The Calculation Problem
If I can build a hammer for a dollar
Or I can build the same one for five
Then why would I decide the worse option?
Why would I decide not to thrive?
But hammers have a lot of different pieces
There’s wood and metal, labor and machines
To add up and compare all of those pieces:
It’s hard to compare wholly different means
You cannot add an apple and an orange
You cannot add up iron ore and trees
You can only add up all their prices
In order to compute efficiency
And for civilization to create wealth
And for us to avoid poverty
We must have prices coming from transactions
Transaction is exchange of property
The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle
Joe’s a poor old farmer: Some neighborhood kids
Snuck into his henhouse, and fake eggs they hid
he thought had discovered newfound wealth
So he took out a credit card, drank champagne to his health
But the bubbly bubble busted when the eggs didn’t hatch
He eats at church soup kitchens and he mails the bank his cash
Until the debt from bubbles is by Joe paid back
He’ll never catch his business any constarned slack
The bank had loaned Joe money cause they priced his future worth
As higher than the real things that he’d own on earth
And due to misperceptions of real growth
The egg inflation makes us all real broke
The Build-Up
The tremors rattle our humble walls
The sabers rattle in leaders’ halls
And high-flown sentiment leads us all
Onto the fields where children fall
Where guilt and innocence matter not
Where art and commerce die and rot
The mothers fill with horrid dread
And tuck their youngest into bed
Their oldest lies abroad and dead
