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> It's as if the author completely disregards the fact that the Austrian school exists at all. Because they don't really, they're cranks, not a serious field o

> It's as if the author completely disregards the fact that the Austrian school exists at all. Because they don't really, they're cranks, not a serious field of study. The Austrian school is equivalent to the flat earth society. Their answer to every possible economic issue is the same, the magic market will heal itself. When you have one answer for everything, you don't get to call yourself a serious field of study.

philwelch 13y ago
I think it's important to distinguish between historic Austrians, like Hayek, and the nutjob libertarian variety that tried to turn economics into an apologia for anarchocapitalism, like Rothbard.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  I'll make the distinction if you'll explain to me what Hayek proposes other than let the market handle it. From what I've seen, they're all cranks, Hayek included. The Austrian school of thought is little more than don't touch the market, you'll break it, it's magic and it'll always work. That's not a serious field of study; that's a golden hammer theory.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    Hayek is tendentious, but he made substantive contributions to the science. Rothbard didn't even do that: he was a libertarian political activist masquerading as an economist.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      You've already said that, but that's not what I asked, I asked what those contributions were beyond "the magic market will fix it".
      - philwelch 13y ago
        For one, he seems to have developed the theory of price signals.
        gnaritas 13y ago
        Falls under let the magic market handle it, I asked for something outside that.
        philwelch 13y ago
        Cap and trade basically hacks price signals by enforcing the notion that there's a finite supply of the environment's ability to absorb pollutants. Without the notion of price signals, cap and trade is not the type of thing you'd think to use, and the distinction I was making was that later Austrians, like Rothbard, never contributed anything of the like. You can make whatever distinctions you want--this digression has gotten tiresome and I regret ever responding to you in the first place.

philwelch 13y ago

I think it's important to distinguish between historic Austrians, like Hayek, and the nutjob libertarian variety that tried to turn economics into an apologia for anarchocapitalism, like Rothbard.

gnaritas 13y ago
I'll make the distinction if you'll explain to me what Hayek proposes other than let the market handle it. From what I've seen, they're all cranks, Hayek included. The Austrian school of thought is little more than don't touch the market, you'll break it, it's magic and it'll always work. That's not a serious field of study; that's a golden hammer theory.
- philwelch 13y ago
  Hayek is tendentious, but he made substantive contributions to the science. Rothbard didn't even do that: he was a libertarian political activist masquerading as an economist.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    You've already said that, but that's not what I asked, I asked what those contributions were beyond "the magic market will fix it".
    - philwelch 13y ago
      For one, he seems to have developed the theory of price signals.
      - gnaritas 13y ago
        Falls under let the magic market handle it, I asked for something outside that.
        philwelch 13y ago
        Cap and trade basically hacks price signals by enforcing the notion that there's a finite supply of the environment's ability to absorb pollutants. Without the notion of price signals, cap and trade is not the type of thing you'd think to use, and the distinction I was making was that later Austrians, like Rothbard, never contributed anything of the like. You can make whatever distinctions you want--this digression has gotten tiresome and I regret ever responding to you in the first place.