http://www.order-order.com/2008/10/hutton-polly-v-mises-milton.html
Good to see Mises get a mention, although a pity the author (a libertarian) then goes and recommends interest rate cuts!
The blog is read widely in political circles (especially Parliament) and by investment bankers:
Off topic, but Mises is mention in my economics textbook (alongside Hayek). There’s a page of so concerned with the calculation debate, unfortunately Mises argument is wrongly dismissed with the argument that a socialist government can replicate competition.
But nonetheless I was suprised he was even mention.
Is that Sloman’s book? It’s a pretty weak presentation of the Austrian school.
-Jon
Yes it is, I thought so too, I just checked and it devotes less than I thought to Mises’ ideas (only 2 paragraphs) before dismissing them without actually refuting Mises’ argument. I also noticed that the book defines the Austrian school as being in favour of the free market without once mentioning the difference in methodology.
Yes, and he makes it seem like it’s all a matter of faith (he does it with the Chicagoans and I think the new classicists too.) Needless to say, his understanding of Mises is pitiful and the questions he asks of students are misleading.
-Jon
Having just read it again, I’m not really suprised to see that at the end of the section on Mises and Hayek he mentions that the Mont Pelerin Society has had an effect on Bush Jr, without mentioning that the ideas of Mises and Hayek have essentially nothing to do with the policies of Bush and are in fact opposed to them.
Actually, one of my lecturers is the co author of the next edition, so if I thought it’d make any difference I’d ask them about it, although this same lecturer in the first lesson claimed inflation was caused by an increase in wages and that the market has “a natural tendency to cycle” so, I don’t think there’s much hope there.