Hey guys, I’m new here and fairly new to Austrian economics, so I am still learning. Anyway, I was looking on another thread Austrian = Unscientific and the link to the “critique” of Austrian economics, so I started to look around that site and found this:
It’s fairly comical and sad at the same time that people can be so ignorant and worship the state like it’s a god. The rest of the site seems to be tired old statist blabber and other nonsense. I was thinking about starting a blog just to counter all of the ridiculous arguments on the site, plus to live blog once I take up JTuckers offer for a free book.[:D]
Anyway, just thought I’d share to comical piece with you guys.
The Minimum Wage: Business owners say market forces should determine entry-level wages, not the government. But the job market does not operate by the usual laws of supply and demand. The economy is kept at a 6 percent unemployment rate (the “natural rate of unemployment”) for reasons beneficial to business. Because there are more workers than jobs, it’s an employer’s market, and employers can therefore force entry-level wages below the poverty level.
You may be sarcastic, but it is a proven fact that businesses do work hand in hand with governments. Rothbard, Rockwell, Rand and Tom Woods have all proven so on numerous occasions.
The Federal Reserve System: Using Keynesian policies to expand or contract the money supply, the Fed has completely eliminated the depression from the American economic experience in the last six decades.
For example: The Toy Industry: American toys are generally manufactured in China, whose workforce includes slave labor. Many of these prisoners are political dissidents under a regime that slaughtered hundreds of democratic protesters at Tianenmen Square. Toy manufacturers think their profits are more important than sanctioning China for its abusive human rights record.
is seen as a free market ‘failure’, but is it not the Chinese government regime that is failing its people?
Be careful about what you read stating “failure of free market capitalism” and a case for socialism. Remember, the USA has not had free market capitalism since the creation of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. It probably didn’t have a free market before that either. The Fed is a private central bank - banking cartel that controls the Federal Reserve’s member banks to have a monopoly control of the quantity and price for money. They have legal authority to counterfeit our money. The President appoints the chairman (Bernanke) and 7 of the 12 governors on the board. This gives the President the power to persuade the banks to manipulate the money supply to have great control over the economy, considering money is the life blood of the economy. Unfortunately, their activities to stimulate or fuel an economic growth always end in a bust. This is what caused this recession and their continual activity to “stimulate” will turn it into a depression.
There are other government created organizations that prevent us from having a free market economy as well. There’s also lots of other government interventions in the economy that prevent it from working as good as it should.
Most of their cited marked failures (I didn’t wasted my time reading them all)are actually government failures.After reading corporate wealth fair being blamed on the free market you can pretty much be sure that the article is not serious.
The Corporate Special Interest System: So who’s bribing our Congress? In 1992, corporations formed 67 percent of all PACs, and they donated 79 percent of all contributions to political parties. This poses a dilemma to believers in the invisible hand: how do you condemn today’s government without condemning the free market that controls it? A better alternative: democracy.
Corporate Welfare: Private enterprise is quite adept at feeding at the public trough, despite its professed antagonism for government. One of the most famous examples is the Wool and Mohair Lobby, which receives $100 million a year for a product the Pentagon no longer needs. Estimates of corporate welfare run from $85 billion to $800 billion a year.
Whenever I wonder how people can think that we are wrong, I see something like this and realize that they just have no idea what we are taling about. I dont know if that makes it better or worse
