A common critique, if not outright dismissal of Austrian economics, is that it is “ideological.” The connotation is that it is not a reliable framework for analysis, but rather a consistently slanted worldview. What is ideological cannot be a science, because it is by definition anything but neutral to the facts.
This critique always struck me as odd considering the history and theorizing of Austrian economics.
In July, for the fourth month in a row, money supply growth surged to an all-time high, following new all-time highs in April, May, and June that came in the wake of unprecedented quantitative easing, central bank asset purchases, and various stimulus packages.
The deficit narrowed during July after months of record shortfalls in federal tax revenues. During April, May, and June of this year deficits surges to unprecedented highs as economic activity dried up, workers were furloughed and laid off, and tax payments were deferred.
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The US foreign policy establishment has for decades been dominated by neoconservative interventionists and falsely named “humanitarian” interventionists. These people believe that because the United States is the one “exceptional nation,” no conflict anywhere in the world could possibly be solved without our butting our noses into it.
[A selection from Profit and Loss.]
The consumers by their buying and abstention from buying elect the entrepreneurs in a daily repeated plebiscite as it were. They determine who should own and who not, and how much each owner should own.
Ronald Dworkin was an outstanding American legal philosopher, but he is usually taken to be a strong opponent of the free market and defender of the welfare state. This perception of him isn’t wrong, but he is much more favorable to the free market than you might think, and we can learn a lot from him.
