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Provide evidence that Hayek and Friedman are the dominant ideology in Washington. If we wanted to try and accurately describe the economic policy by the govern
by loganfrederick 14y ago
Provide evidence that Hayek and Friedman are the dominant ideology in Washington.
If we wanted to try and accurately describe the economic policy by the government in Washington, you'd have to describe the monetary and fiscal policies. Both of these since 2007 have been Keynesian far more than the other two schools (Monetarist and Austrian).
This hasn't always been the case (Friedman was much more in vogue from the late 70s to approximately late 90s as measured by policies put in place).
Keynes General Theory could theoretically work as he describes in his book, but is unrealistic in practice because of the political dynamics in government.
- yk 14y agoThe idea that markets usually produce a optimal outcome is certainly austrian ( examples for this is the washington consensus). On the other hand, there are serveral proposals from 2008 - 09 on the size of the stimulus, eg [1], which argue that a stimulus should be something like twice the size of the actual stimulus. ( And additionally bailing out car companies is not exactly Keynesian, since aggregate demand is not about one specific industry.) [1]http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/the-story-of-the-stimulus/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/the-story-of-the...
- nickik 14y ago> The idea that markets usually produce a optimal outcome is certainly austrian Im sorry this is not right. It is in fact dead wrong! The austrian have from the VERY, VERY start objected to models that discribed market as perfect, or people as perfectly rational. Go into the internet and look up what austrians actually say about markets, google 'Market Process Theory'. It is actually the case that most of austrian theory trys to figure out how a groupe of ignorent humans like we are with our imperfection can creat such a complex structure of production or what Hayek called 'The extended order' Why do people that have a bar half knowlage of economics, clame such wild things about a 120 year old tradition of economic thought. The thing that most austrians clame, is that the market produces better results then a goverment influencing the market can that is because goverment does not have the knowlage (nor the insentive but that more public choice theory) to imporve the market outcome.
- yk 14y agoI am not claiming that austrians think markets are perfect. I did say, that austrians believe that markets produce optimal outcomes, compared to other possible organization structures. ( So quite exactly what you say in your last paragraph.)
- nickik 14y agoOk, Im sorry then. The problem is that with optimal we usally mean theoreticly optimal in such debates. In terms of practical solution we speak of comperative advantage (in comperative institutional analysis).
- altcognito 14y agoIt is impossible to prove that there is any consistent dominant ideology. But to show that there are those advocating "Austrian" principals - look no further than the Republican think-tank AEI: http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/08/explaining-paul-ryans-austrian-approach-to-monetary-policy/ http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/08/explaining-paul-ryans-austr...
- nickik 14y agoThe clame the the democrats or the republicans are anyway free market oriented is crazy. Both partys like to spend money, and the like to spend money on there friends. Sure Bush talked about Free Markets but not even closly did anything about it, what he did was start a war, make a lot of debt, regulation increased in that time too. Goverment only ever gets bigger, with very few expetion. From a free market perspective the republicans are not any diffrent then the democrats. I btw am not from america, I have no idiolocial views in american politics, I just obeserve that both partys are not free market at all. It was actually a democrat who was the only one that at least ran on a balanced buget (clinton).
- nhaehnle 14y agoIf we wanted to try and accurately describe the economic policy by the government in Washington, you'd have to describe the monetary and fiscal policies. Both of these since 2007 have been Keynesian far more than the other two schools (Monetarist and Austrian). Maybe you cannot describe those policies as Monetarist or Austrian. But given that everybody's policies there are driven by some desire to cut the budget deficit at a time of a very weak economy - with the only disagreement being over how the cuts should look - it just seems very bizarre to call that Keynesian.
- nickik 14y agoTalking about something and doint something are very diffrent things. First of all neither stimules nor saving companys is anything to do with free markets. Both party want to spend more money, I would not belive for a second that republicans are more free market then democrats. The like to talk about it more but they infact are just ass bad. The real diffrence is what friends they have. Both partys like to spend money on there friends. Lets talk about free markets again when the actually DID cut the buged and I think nobody denys that the stimuls is keynesian.