INTRODUCTION

Economic growth is the declared goal of virtually every policymaker in the world. From a pragmatic point of view, one can argue that the main purpose of political economy is to prescribe public policies which generate prosperity (Fetter, 1928). It is beyond the scope of the present article to systematically analyze all the determinants of economic growth. I will focus instead on the relationship between capital accumulation and economic growth, in the attempt to link any increase in a country’s welfare to a previous increase in its stock of capital goods.

At the end of last year, Amazon unveiled, “Amazon Go,” a futuristic, fully-automated convenience store set to open its doors in Seattle, Washington, within the next few months. While this exciting new venture promises to make quick-stop shopping trips easier for busy consumers, critics are wary of this type of advanced automation, and fear its widespread use could jeopardize a vast amount of jobs.

The Daily Mail reports that an 18-month publicity campaign to encourage women to join the Royal Marines has ended after managing to recruit just one candidate to its elite training program.

There is a peculiar intellectual and emotional revulsion that comes with reading about Italy’s endless cycle of economic and political woes — whether having to do with the near-collapse of the world’s oldest bank or the effective nation-wide paralysis of Italian industry. Despite this near-permanent state of affairs, the country’s overwhelming cultural legacy still evokes such awe that a metaphysical idea of Italia persists completely distinct from the ground reality of Rome’s circus maximus of daily self-abasement. 

George Monbiot of Britain’s Guardian newspaper seems to think that Mises is indeed the progenitor of today’s crony capitalism and more.

It is not Mises alone, however, who by this account is the cause of just about every imaginable contemporary scourge, from the Crash of 2008 to loneliness to obesity. It is all the “neoliberals” who schemed together from the 1930’s on, principally through the Mont Pelerin Society, to take over the world and who, we are told, succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

[This is the first post in a series. see Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, and Part Six.]

In absolute terms, the US dollar continues to be inflationary in ways rarely seen before 2009. That is, in a world of Quantitative Easing, the Fed just keeps on creating money in order to prop up domestic industries as well as US government debt. In late December, for example, the Fed continued with its buying spree of mortgage debt in order to continue to “enhance” housing markets, and thus the banks that invest in them.