AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT

The highest cost is in our loss of individual freedom, which happens incrementally with each encroachment into the free market by government.

Francisco Capella, ” Markets are never perfect because human beings are limited in their abilities; proposing state fixes to alleged problems that individuals cannot solve freely seems to forget that the state is also made up of humans; and perhaps not the best ones. Bureaucrats are not disinterested angels, and the worst might get to the top.”

Milton Freidman is not a favorite of many Austrian thinkers mainly because of his ideas on monetary policy, and I agree on that point. Personally, I think he explains how free markets work as well as anyone, maybe better. His book, “Free to Choose” was one of the first books I read about economics. It sparked my interest and help lead me to Hayek, which then lead to Mises and Rothbard. The ability to explain complex economic principles to us regular people, in an understandable way, is what is needed today if we have any chance of turning around this centrally planned mess we have allowed ourselves to get into. Our educational system has failed miserably in explaining economic realities and the consequences of  disregarding them. Our political system and our pop culture are riding the wave of our society’s educated economic ignorance, totally oblivious of the pier we are about to surf into.

If we want to remain free and turn this economic mess around, it is up to us to educate people about sound economic principles because it won’t happen in the public schools or in higher education. In fact we have to counter act the brainwashing that has gone on for decades in our education system.

This entry was posted on December 3, 2012 at 5:54 am and is filed under Econ. 101, Government and Politics. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Free Market Success, Friedrich Hayek, Government Failure, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard