America has two democracies, one political and the other free market. The concept of a political democracy dates back to Plato and his “Republic.”
Ludwig von Mises and my mentor Dr. Bill Peterson (a student and colleague of Mises) wrote extensively about our market democracy. Both of these great men are now just a memory but their legacy defines America. The political class dominates the news, while the market provides the solutions chosen by our citizens.
It is customary to find fault with modern science because it abstains from expressing judgments of value. Living and acting man, we are told, has no use for Wertfreiheit; he needs to know what he should aim at. If science does not answer this question, it is sterile. However, the objection is unfounded. Science does not value, but it provides acting man with all the information he may need with regard to his valuations. It keeps silence only when the question is raised whether life itself is worth living.
Some economists such as a Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman are of the view that if the US were to fall into liquidity trap the US central bank should aggressively pump money and aggressively lower interest rates in order to lift the rate of inflation. This Krugman holds will pull the economy from the liquidity trap and will set the platform for an economic prosperity. In his New York Times article of January 11, 2012, he wrote,
In 1852, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Springfield, Illinois in which he talked about the attempts at required militia training. He described how much of a joke the citizens made of any attempt at mandatory militia training.
The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve
Peter Conti-Brown
Princeton University Press, 2016
xiv + 347 pages
There’s an old saying that “he who distinguishes well teaches well.” In other words, if one’s going to talk about an important subject, one should be able to define his terms and tell the difference between two things that are not the same.
Donald Trump’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan highlights once again the disastrous, persistent consequences of militarism and imperialism. However, rather than repeat the usual litany of horrors that are sure to result, I will instead recall a discussion of war by Trump’s literary opposite, William Shakespeare.
When Christopher Nolan was promoting his previous film Interstellar, he made the casual observation that “Take a field like economics for example. [Unlike physics] you have real material things and it can’t predict anything. It’s always wrong.” There is a lot more truth in that statement than most academic economists would like to admit.
