In the latest Critical Review, (Vol.16, No.1), Bryan Caplan offers an original contribution to the socialist calculation argument.(”Is Socialism Really Impossible?”, pp.33-52) He thinks that Mises is right that it is impossible for a socialist system to calculate; but Mises then takes an unwarranted step. Mises concludes that socialism is itself impossible; but this, Caplan says, doesn’t follow. Why can’t an economic system get along without economic calculation?
“Look, I love international trade,” he continued. “I love India so much I’ve taken my family there on vacation. The fact is, does one transfer a job to a foreign country to provide services and products to the home market? The answer is no. This is the first time it’s ever been attempted, and it’s idiotic.
My article, Caught Up in The Rapture,” was just reprinted on the SOLO HQ website. The article was written in June, and it appears in the August-September issue of The Free Radical. In many ways, it is a sequel to my recent essay, “Bush Wins!,” providing a kind of sociological underpinning for my view that a Bush victory is more than likely.
What does it mean to act “on the margin” or to think in terms of “marginality?” Economists use the term often. The Mises Circle in interwar Vienna even had songs with refrains that included the words “marginal utility.”
Since the last serious outbreak of inflation in the 70s, central banks have conquered this pestilence and have practiced a responsible stewardship over national monetary systems ever since. Due in no small part to the benign inflationary environment that has followed their victory, stocks and bonds have outperformed historical averages. This reflects a high degree of confidence in future monetary stability and prosperity.
Or so we are constantly told.
LvMI attacked by the LaRouchies
Writes Roderick Long:
Q: How many Austrian economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We don’t make quantitative predictions.
I’ve just finished a week of Mises University, lecturing on apriorism, abstraction, and anarchy. It’s encouraging to see the hordes of bright, committed, hardcore Austro-libertarian students that come to these conferences; the ruling class has no idea what’s about to hit it in a few years. MORE
A recent article of mine on a public sector scandal, this one in Milwaukee, brought several e-mails from friends and strangers telling me that it was read and discussed on WTMJ-AM in that city by its weekday morning host, Charles Sykes. WTMJ is Milwaukee’s highest rated talk station, and while I appreciated the plug, I was not sure if that is the sort of station that friends of liberty need to be associated with.
