ABSTRACT: This article discusses the influence of the initiation of the Second Socialist Calculation Debate on my own subsequent research and contributions to that debate, and briefly summarizes that research presented in articles on arguments made by Plato, Karl Marx, Friedrich von Wieser, Friedrich Hayek, Lionel Robbins, Joseph Schumpeter, and Israel Kirzner. It also mentions some of the changes in Austrian economics understanding stimulated by the Second Socialist Calculation Debate, and suggests a direction for future research.

ABSTRACT:

Hoffmann (2018) attempts to reconstruct a typology of risks deemed more accurate and useful to both economists and risk managers than currently received views on the subject within mainstream economics/finance and Austrian economics. This comment argues that his criticisms of the Misesian approach and his case for an alternative are unconvincing. We explain weaknesses in his criticisms of the Misesian approach and outline some problems with his constructive task of building up the alternative.

There is no more recent example of the many theoretically apparent pitfalls of socialism coming to life than in Venezuela. The South American nation is but the latest example on the long list of countries to have fallen victim to the siren’s song of a socialist utopia.

Universa Investments Chief Investment Officer Mark Spitznagel sits down with Bloomberg‘s Erik Schatzker to discuss the next market crash, the size of the hedge fund industry and worries around hedging market risk.

Watch it here. 

“America will never be a socialist country,” President Donald Trump proclaimed in this week’s State of the Union Speech. Regardless of how much truth we see in this statement, there is little question who these words were directed at. As the Democratic Party has shifted continuously to the left over the last years, it has welcomed politicians to its club who dub themselves as flat-out socialists.

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Trump received rapturous applause from Republicans for his declaration: “America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free.” But this uplifting sentiment cannot survive even a brief glance at the federal statute book or the heavy-handed enforcement tactics by federal, state, and local bureaucracies across the nation.

In reality, the threat of government punishment permeates Americans’ daily lives more than ever before:

On RTVE in Spain, Mark Thornton talks prohibition, and the political economy behind it.