Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 4 (Winter 2016)

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 4 (Winter 2016)

At third place in the polls, tête à tête with conservative candidate François Fillon, a staunch europhile, and a dear of many enthusiastic young voters, Emmanuel Macron is the supposed incoming star in French politics. Even libertarians in the République are getting excited. But Macron’s free-market ideas might fail very quickly given the French political reality.

Members of the European political and media establishment seemed to be sure that the 45th president of the United States would be Hillary Clinton, or at least they were desperately hoping so. The days after the election one could hear clamor of indignation from top journalists and politicians alike. It almost felt as if the European project had lost shoulder to shoulder with Clinton, now that America, Europe’s most powerful ally, would be ruled by an “inhuman right-wing populist,” an outspoken critic of the European Union, and a sympathizer of the UK Independence Party.

It would be difficult to exaggerate Professor Murray N. Rothbard’s influence on the movement for freedom and free markets. He is the living giant of Austrian economics, and he has led the now-formidable movement ever since the death of his great teacher, Ludwig von Mises, in 1971. We are all indebted to him for the living link he has provided to Mises, upon whose work he has built and expanded. But many are less aware of Rothbard’s political influence. Some would say that while he is undoubtedly an excellent economist, his political efforts have been less than successful.

Well that was fast. Yesterday we observed the silliness of Fed president Kaplan’s idea that it was consumers that were going to push GDP up over 2%. Today, we learn the following (source):