[Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture • Edited by Paul A. Cantor and Stephen Cox • Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009 • Xviii + 510 pages]
 

The contributors to this outstanding collection of essays propose a revolution in literary criticism — a revolution, moreover, that has as its heart the application of Austrian economics. At first sight, the project appears paradoxical: what has Austrian economics to do with literature?

Concerning Walter’s article today, there is never an end to the argument over words and their meanings in ideological and political discourse. Whenever any word has come to a point of eliciting positive feelings in common use, it is bound to be appropriated, usually in some incomplete or distorted way, by those who want to appeal to its supporters. As was once true of liberalism, it has become true of libertarianism. As it was true of free enterprise, it has also become true of capitalism.

Robert Murphy grew up in Rochester, NY. He got his BA in economics at Hillsdale College, and his PhD at New York University where Mario Rizzo was his dissertation chair. From 2003-2006 he taught economics at Hillsdale College, and then moved to Nashville, TN to work for Arthur Laffer’s investment firm. In the summer of 2007 Murphy become an independent consultant, and became affiliated with the Institute for Energy Research and the Pacific Research Institute.

I had a great teaching experience early last school year. I taught the history of inflation, and I have never timed a course better. I have taught in colleges and universities since 1985, and I have often thought about doing a course on the history of inflation. But this time, current events pushed me to go ahead.

Like every change in the market data, changes in the money relation can possibly influence the rate of originary interest. According to the inflationist view of history, inflation by and large tends to increase the earnings of the entrepreneurs. Commodity prices rise sooner and to a steeper level than wage rates. On the one hand, wage earners and salaried people, classes who spend the greater part of their income for consumption and save little, are adversely affected and must accordingly restrict their expenditures.

Today Paul Krugman responded to his, as he put it, “haters”:

“others are using that out-of-context remark about the Fed “needing” to create a housing bubble.(…)