[Editor’s Note: This article is spoiler-free.]

The popular HBO series Game of Thrones is ending its third season this Sunday, amid fan concerns over its rapidly dwindling cast of characters. The show is based on George R.R. Martin’s intricate fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, which has become an inspiration for commentary of all stripes. And while its complex and morally ambiguous characters have attracted many political and literary analysts, there are important economic lessons to be learned from the books as well.

Most European economies have been in recession, or close to it, since the beginning of 2012. Unemployment rates are reaching record highs. Meanwhile, a debate has been raging about the deleterious effects of “austerity” measures. Various heads of government, finance ministers, and European Union officials have declared that austerity has gone too far and is preventing a recovery.

Language is a variety of action. Linguists have recognized this fact in its contemporary understanding since at least the 1960s, when J. L.

It was nice of Noah Smith to mention the Austrian school in his recent Atlantic column on the poverty of mainstream macroeconomics. It would have been even better, however, if he had the slightest understanding of what Austrian economists do.

Murray Rothbard anticipated the concept of “rent seeking,” generally associated with Gordon Tullock. In Man, Economy and State, he says:  “Furthermore, the more government intervenes and subsidizes, the more caste conflict will be created in society, for individuals and groups will benefit only at one another’s expense. The more widespread the tax-and-subsidy process, the more people will be induced to abandon production and join the army of those who live coercively off production.

The following is a remark that Ludwig von Mises made in his famous NYU seminar, as recorded in the notes of seminar attendee Bettina Bien Greaves on September 26, 1957:

In a speech discussing the future of liberal education, delivered on the occasion of his retirement as Sterling Professor of Classics and History at Yale, Donald Kagan struck a Rothbardian note:  

Why does a large portion of the population choose not to work when there are many jobs available? The answer is simple. If you can receive 2-3 times as much money from unemployment, disability, and/or welfare benefits (subsidized housing, food stamps, free cellphones, etc.) as you can from a temporary or part-time job, and live a life of leisure, why work? In 2011, the U.S.