[Revised June 18, 2019]

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Although libertarians and Austrian economists have been interested for a long time in the relationship between art and liberty, there’s been relatively little effort to develop a distinctly liberty- or market-oriented form of literary theory; critical theory is a playground for myriad “isms,” but libertarianism isn’t often counted among them. Fortunately, this situation is beginning to change, as there’s a lot of exciting work being done in the field of literary studies, which isn’t usually known for its sound economics or liberal political philosophy.

Steve Forbes, speaking recently in Las Vegas, continued to advocate a gold standard of sorts--  i.e. pegging the US dollar to gold at (say) $1200 per ounce.  If gold rises to $1300, the Fed decreases the supply of dollars.  It it falls to $1100, the Fed inflates. He should be commended (as a representative of mainstream politics and the mainstream financial press) for talking about gold, money, and monetary policy generally.  Plus he makes some very good points about the moral hazards engendered by today’s Fed policy:

A paper written by two staff members of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta tried to quantify what all the Fed’s new money creation and related measures have accomplished. They conclude that unemployment today would be 0.13% higher without the radical measures and 1.0% higher if nothing at all had been done.

The so-called “peer review process” is supposed to be the unimpeachable  guarantee that publications in academic journals have been chosen in accordance with the highest standards of  scientific integrity and quality.  The number of papers that an academic publishes in peer-reviewed journals and the number of times his or her articles are cited in other peer-reviewed articles are the main factors determining whether or not he or she  is promoted and awarded tenure.  Recently there occurred a particularly egregious abuse of the process.

Everything valuable that economics textbooks describe as a “public good” has, at one time or another, been provided on the market by individuals and private firms. Even today, capitalists and entrepreneurs are rebuilding public spaces in Detroit, positive externalitites be damned:

In a recent Bloomberg Views piece, mainstream economist Noah Smith accused his Austrian critics of having “brain worms” and even “anti-semitic overtones.” He then mischaracterized what his critics were saying so that he could ridicule it.

This wasn’t very conducive to a dialogue. His last Bloomberg piece, out on July 10, is better. It offers a specific proposal: don’t raise today’s ultra low interest rates. Unfortunately it doesn’t say whether this advice is forever, or for now. But it is a specific proposal.