Christine Fard discusses her experiences at Mises University and explains Austrian Economics:
Earlier this year, I had the privilege of attending Mises University (Mises U) at the Mises Institute, the world-class Austrian School of Economics think tank. It was definitely not easy explaining to family and friends what I was about to embark upon. “Austrian what?” Even the U.S. immigration officer questioned me with seeming disbelief: “An economics conference in Alabama?!” Nevertheless, I arrived and began my journey of discovery. The faculty and staff were welcoming, professors excited to meet and teach and students from across the world ready to learn and engage in intellectual discourse.
Fast-forward to the end of the one-week crash course. What did I learn? Needless to say, an immense amount that, in order to grasp the intricacies fully, would require me to take ‘repeater courses.’ Mind you, I knew next to nothing about Austrian economics prior to Mises U. Broadly speaking, however, I can tell you this – Austrian economics is about the truth and, given common-sense moral values, indirectly about liberty.
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Although Austrian economics remains silent on policy and makes no value judgments, we can take the school’s theories and make our own normative assessments. To illustrate, when we look at the Austrian description of production we’ll see an extensive, interlocking structure that elegantly runs itself without a central controller. Adding a central controller only disrupts the process and introduces inefficiency. When applied to government regulation, we can argue the falsity of the proposition that without government regulation in economic activity, the economy itself would erupt into chaos. The markets, in reality, are self-regulating through the participatory behaviour of individuals involved in the process of production and exchange or even through private regulatory bodies.
