Criticism of Austrian School

[Lewis_S]

Has anybody taken a look at this? I’ve seen it referenced a few times at various leftist websites as some sort of earth-shattering refutation of the Austrian school. Aside from Bryan Caplan or David Friedman, is this the best refutation of Austrianism out there?

[Conza]

https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/any-rebuttals-to-critiques-of-austrian-economics/2653

"This is an amateur criticism. Not only does the author not appear to understand the Austrian school, he also doesn’t seem to understand the “mainstream” approach he is promoting. Look at how many times he refers to Keynesianism, as if it didn’t die in the 1970s to be replaced by neoclassical economics. If somebody tries to use this against you, I suggest pointing them out this quote from the page on the gold standard: “History bears this out: the U.S. suffered eight depressions while on commodity money; in the 60s years since, it has suffered none.” Clearly, that is absurd; even ignoring the fact that Austrians criticise the fractional-reserve banking that caused the “depressions” while on commodity money, it’s just ridiculous to say that we haven’t suffered any “depressions” (he never defines what he means by a “depression”, so we can only assume he means a recession as determined by the NBER) since then.

If that doesn’t satisfy you, again I suggest reading some Austrian books and papers on the specific issues brought up. The list of literature is far too vast for me to list here (for business cycles alone, there are hundreds), but viewing the reading list I mentioned, and a search of mises.org should bring up anything relevant."

[BrianAnderson]

Austrians believe in the gold standard, whereas mainstream economists favor the current system of fiat money.

Quick question on the gold standard and business cycle section. Do most Austrians oppose gold-backed paper money completely, or just a government monopoly on the printing of it?

I’m not yet opposed to the idea of gold-backed paper money so long as there are market banks open that can be controlled by their clients so that the only people whose wealth would be cut down by printing too much would be the bank’s clients.

[ClaytonB]

Do most Austrians oppose gold-backed paper money completely

A better question is - are there any Austrians who oppose gold-backed paper money*?

Clayton -

*Given a free market in the production of money and money-substitutes

[Esuric]

An individualist might object that human beings are unlike atoms, in that people have the ability to create their own relationships and therefore such interdependent groups as company workforces. But this occurs neither spontaneously nor at an individual level. Suppose a car factory has no central organization, and workers just began building a car, communicating with no one except the workers whose parts were immediately connected to their own. It could turn out that the engine workers thought they were building a Mercedes Benz, while the trunk workers thought they were building a Yugo. Obviously, there needs to be centralized organization.

lol

[ClaytonB]

http://www.themathlab.com/geometry/funnyproofs.htm

Read the first one. Even though this list regards math proofs, most of them are applicable to Keynesian arguments.

Clayton -

[Giant_Joe]

An individualist might object that human beings are unlike atoms, in that people have the ability to create their own relationships and therefore such interdependent groups as company workforces. But this occurs neither spontaneously nor at an individual level. Suppose a car factory has no central organization, and workers just began building a car, communicating with no one except the workers whose parts were immediately connected to their own. It could turn out that the engine workers thought they were building a Mercedes Benz, while the trunk workers thought they were building a Yugo. Obviously, there needs to be centralized organization.

lol

1. One person wants to watch the new Saw movie, the other one doesn’t. They want to go together to a movie.

2. Ergo, central planning.

[jaybreak]

So, so painful to read. Are people that preumptuous/stupid?

Don’t answer that…

[Prateek_Sanjay]

People are not stupid.

Internet ideologues are. And yes, that includes some of us on this forum, and the best of the people here only in their worst moments.

Actually, some of the polls (like Pew), howsoever you choose to interpret them, seem to paint a picture of the average person as someone who is fairly middle-of-the-road, but deeply skeptical. The typical Western European and North American doesn’t seem to believe in any connection between what is government good and what is public good, or sees them as the same thing. The typical industrial western nation citizen also doesn’t much care for veil-of-ignorance approach in sacrificing certain people in society in the name of the greater good. Even non-ideological people who only loosely lean towards progressive social democratic ideas don’t understand the idea of government being benevolent in restricting people for their own good.

It’s when you start watching Fox News and MSNBC, and when you start reading Drudge Report and Huffington Post that your mind turns to garbage.