The new kid on the economics block is something called modern monetary theory. The name is new, but the “theory” is not.

Perhaps more than anything else, the rationale given for the necessity of the state—and the necessity of supporting the regime at any given time—is that it “keeps us safe.” This permeates thinking about government institutions at all levels, from “thin blue line” sloganeering at the local level, all the way up to jingoism surrounding the Pentagon.

Julie Ponesse, a philosophy professor specializing in ethics who until recently taught at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, has a moving video in which she protests the requirement at her university that she get a covid-19 vaccination in order to continue teaching. She points out that it is her absolute right to decide what substances are injected into her body, and that this should settle the question of whether the requirement is legitimate.

Abstract: This article compares the Keynesian, neoclassical and Austrian explanations for low interest rates and sluggish growth. From a Keynesian and neoclassical perspective, low interest rates are attributed to aging societies, which save more for the future (global savings glut). Low growth is linked to slowing population growth and a declining marginal efficiency of investment as well as to declining fixed capital investment due to digitalization (secular stagnation).

The Essential Austrian Economics
Christopher J. Coyne and Peter J. Boettke
Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 2020, 68 pp.

David Gordon (dgordon@mises.org) is a senior fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies.