F.A. HAYEK – “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
Politicians get voted into office because they promise to use the power of government to ‘do something’ to fix fake ‘crises’. They try to blame the unfettered free market for every inequality or unmet need found in society. Politicians blame economics because it is an easy target since most people don’t understand basic principles of economics.
Economic reality puts a limit on the unlimited designs of planners. The first law of economics, scarcity, especially the scarcity of knowledge, sees to it that everything has limits. Economic laws don’t limit the planners plans. Economic laws reveal the reasons the plans won’t work but they don’t create the underlying economic reality.
LUDWIG VON MISES – “Economic history is a long record of Government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics.”
Planners have charged their central banks to do away with scarcity by using electronically printed counterfeit money. It sounds plausible on the surface if you look at ‘that which is seen’. But we all know from reading Bastiat that ‘that which is not seen’ is more important. The unintended consequences of Central Bankers policies, of money printing and zero percent interest rates, are playing out right now for all to see. Wasted resources and capital consumption are two of these results.
F. A. Hayek – “It has already been suggested that it is not necessary for the working of this system (free market capitalism) that anybody should understand it. But people are not likely to let it work if they do not understand it.“
Central planners condemn free market capitalism because it doesn’t produce perfect results, (which means it doesn’t produce their desired result). Free market capitalism is the best system for allowing individuals the freedom to pursue their desires. This individual freedom has lifted the masses of people to a higher standard of living. Is it perfect? Nothing that man does is perfect. It is the responsibility of each voter to understand basic economic principles in order to protect the free market from the planners who want to destroy it. Start now because your individual freedom to pursue your interests in a free market is under siege.
LUDWIG VON MISES – “Many think that governments are free to achieve all they aim at without being restrained by an inexorable regularity in the sequence of economic phenomena….they maintain that the state is God.”
These quotes by Hayek and Mises came to mind as I was reading an article titled, Economics Is Dead, And It Is Being Killed Again, by Per Bylund, at mises.org. here are some excerpts from the article.
“You have to applaud the anti-economics left for this rhetorical masterpiece. They have struggled for decades to sink the ship of economics, the generally acclaimed science that has firmly stood in the way of their anti-market and egalitarian policies, hindered the growth of big government, and raised obstacles to enact everything else that is beautiful to the anti-economics left. The financial crisis is exactly the excuse the Left has been waiting for. It is a slam dunk: government grows, Keynesianism is revived, and economics is made the culprit for all our troubles.”
“If this weren’t so serious, it would be amusing that the failure of Keynesian macro-economics (whether it is formally Keynes’s theory or post-Keynesian, new Keynesian, neo-Keynesian, monetarist, etc.) is taken as an excuse to do away with sound micro-economic theory to be replaced with Keynesian and other anti-market ideas. But it is not amusing. If most of the discussions heard are to be believed, the failures of central planning is a reason for central planning, just like socialism is a reason for socialism. The success of the market, on the other hand, is not a reason for the market.”
“…. the Left hates all that is economics. Because it points out that creating a better world through central planning, money-printing, and political manipulation is indeed impossible. The market is neither perfect nor efficient, but it is better than any available alternative. In fact, the unhampered market is the only positive-sum means available for human society. The market is indeed the only way of progress; all else is a step backward.“
Related Article – Capital Consumption aka. Eating Our Seed Corn, at austrianaddict.com.
Related Article – We’re All Born In The Middle Of The Story, at austrianaddict.com.
Related Article – Politician’s “Affordable” Ideas Must Obey Economic Forces, at austrianaddict.com.
AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT 