Perhaps someone can help me find a resource that I’ve desired for a long time. I want a book/wiki, or whatever, in which I can look up a mainstream concept (e.g. multiplier effect) and then read a concise (summary) refutation. After the refutation, I’d like links or references to more detailed information supporting the refutation in Austrian literature.
Anyone know of something like this? If not, anyone want to start the Wiki version?
Austrian economist Jim Cox addressed the multiplier effect in The Concise Guide to Economics.
I appreciate that, but that was only a narrow example. I was hoping for a reference to address lots of different topics.
I am unaware of the existence of a mainstream economic concept summary and refutation wiki, but if you seek an Austrian view on an issue, just state the issue and someone here may give you an answer.
Actually, doesn’t the “Are you an Austrian?” quiz link you to the sort of concise ‘mainstream’ views and Austrian refutations you’re after? Depends on the answers you give.
It’s just a matter of putting those snippets into a Wiki format.
Would Hazlitt’s The Failure of the ‘New Economics’ work?
http://mises.org/resources/3655/Failure-of-the-New-Economics
Covers multiplier, “wage-units”, saving vs investment, consumption as the driver of the economy, national income, and more.
EDIT:
Not always concise though, sometimes it will get long winded.
The problem is that there’s a lot of confusion about what exactly the “mainstream” is, Kenyes and Friedman are no longer mainstream. Even if some of the models that are relevant today build on some of their concepts (such as lifetime income hypothesis). Moreover, the “mainstream” encompasses a lot of different fields some of which are more complex and mathematical than others. For example, macro gets a lot of criticism from those working in other fields but the reality is that macroeconomics is just a very difficult field, it’s also why I think the ABCT is one of the least satisfactory parts of Austrian economics.
The other problem is that it’s not always certain what it means to “refute” a certain model.
Kenyes is very much mainstream, just pick up an economic textbook, you’ll see…
Perhaps someone can help me find a resource that I’ve desired for a long time. I want a book/wiki, or whatever, in which I can look up a mainstream concept (e.g. multiplier effect) and then read a concise (summary) refutation. After the refutation, I’d like links or references to more detailed information supporting the refutation in Austrian literature.
Anyone know of something like this? If not, anyone want to start the Wiki version?
The Mises Wiki is on the way to become the resource that you seek.
Kenyes and Friedman are definitely what I would call mainstream. Just watch CSPAN (a relativity neutral news source), practically every single economist, politician, journalist, and think tank intellectual they have on details all the Keynesian and Chicago fallacies.
For some good refutations, check out Hoppe’s Economics and Ethics of Private Property. He addresses the public goods argument and some other very basic premises in economics.