Thank you. Added to my list.

I did not mean to imply that.

The Most Powerful Idea in the World is an excellent book to read.

Many of us in the working force lose wealth annually thanks to technology. We bust our backs for years only to be replaced by some machine, or some new economic standard, like downsizing or job integration. Now it is common place for one person to do the job of 3 or more. I guess it really depends on your position in the high Archy. In my line of work running a farm a lot of technology is just one more distraction. We also own a mechanic shop, thanks to technology in about 10 years we'll have to go back to school or shut it down too.

Hello dbhalling,
Well then...looking forward to your book. You may be aware from a previous post, that I am reading L. Von Mises Socialism... so far the subject matter of this particular book does not enter into areas of which you have raised objections excepting one. That is the Malthus Theory of Population. Here I find Mises seems a bit too sympathetic and I must remind myself that the book was first written in 1922 and grant a bit of allowance. Otherwise it is proving to be a most lengthy, boring and difficult read, but it has no equal in breaking down every favorable, conceivable argument for state control while supporting private ownership.
Respectfully,
O.A.

I wasn't implying "That's not fair, we must stop!". Rather, that's how it goes. In a dynamic and robust economy they must find something else to do. And, the dynamic economy will provide something else to do, or else there is no growth in the economy. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. The antithesis would be complete government control and planning. Look at the nations that have that. N. Korea has a big military industry while the people starve. In Cuba, a new car is a 58 Chevy. So, if we are thinking clearly, how "fair" do we want things to be? I think it's better for each man to kill something and drag it through the front door than to sit back and wait for a hand out. Then again, I do seem to recall being called a knuckle dragging Neanderthal. I just smile and say thank you.

Hi OA,

The short answer is no. I embarked on such a quest about 10 years ago. A book on economics that really got me thinking was called, Farewell to Alms. I did not agree with the book, but it got me to start looking at economic history over a much longer time frame and somewhere around then is when I first heard an economist say that all real per capita growth is the result of technology. Paul Romer does a good job of making this point, but then goes off the ranch on property rights including patents. (There is a good article with him in Reason Magazine - online) His is a mathematical Keynesian and tries to preserve Perfect Competition. I spend a fair amount of time explaining his positions in my book.

A great book on the economics of invention is, Inventions and Economic Growth, by Jacob Schmookler an economist. Unfortunately, it is out of print. I got a second hand copy. He makes the point that classical and neo-classic economic is fine for a technologically stagnant world, but all the interesting things happen in economics because the world is not technologically stagnant. He does not express any real points about economic freedom per se, his book is an econometric study of inventions.

There are some other books that are great. One of them is called, The Most Powerful Idea in the World. Very readable with a good account about the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but too biased toward Great Britain. Again he is not making any broad points about freedom.

There are some other good books on point, including one by the economist Zorina Khan, but her book is pretty dry and again no real points about freedom, it is about patents and inventions and from a historical point of view in the United States.

I think this area of economics presents a huge opportunity for Objectivists to make their mark on economics and provide a science of economics that is consistent with Objectivism. My talk at Atlas Society will focus on this point. My book makes the arguments without any reference to Objectivism.

Yes, but if we let that stop us we would all be living in the Malthusian Trap and the population on Earth would be less than billion..

It is also consistent with the entry in Wikipedia..

I have deleted Robbie comments because he fails to provide evidence or logic for his positions and he constantly misrepresents what other say.

Hello dbhalling,
I understand and appreciate the emphasis and examination you have done exposing the problems with some of the foundations of Austrian economics. If I am understanding correctly, the Austrians, despite their condemnation of socialist and etatistic economic models, are poor spokespersons for capitalism due to vulnerability of their underlying, supporting premises. Those that are inclined to examine the underlying problems would see holes that could be exploited, thus providing openings for socialists to exploit.

Despite the problems with Austrians, as you have related, I have always felt they were common warriors for free markets and more aligned with desirable policies in regards to capitalism than most other schools of economics. My thoughts have been that their arguments were not always the best, but supplementary... complimentary... that outcome, by convincing more people by whatever arguments are persuasive to their sensibilities was still of some benefit. However, if these weak arguments are to be turned against capitalism...

Though it is my intention to acquire and read your book, in the mean, could you recommend another school of economics that is less objectionable? Please list a few of the economists that you find most congruent with objectivist economic philosophy aside from Rand.

Respectfully,
O.A.

hmmm. this has been my experience with Libertarians, of whom many are Austrians. Every forum one engages in, there is mocking, spamming, ad hominem -it's rabid. Your point is well taken that that is happening on this post. It deserves a proper response. People should be outraged when they read irrational responses. Else the irrational gains traction and finally acceptance.

I would tend to agree with that. My experience and observation is technology vastly increases productivity. One only has to see a building project in central America where they are using two wheeled hand carts to move things around compared Babcats and Bulldozers.

At it's worst, technology is a job killer. When productivity goes up so much 6 or 10 people can do the job 150 used to do, it's difficult for people and ultimately society to reallocate and re-educate that labor force. That happened at the main Post Office when they automated. A workforce of about 4000 is now replaced by about 150 people. And, the service is just about the same. Remember, the "Last" word in our name is Service! United States Postal Service.

10-15 years ago I thought Austrians were pro capitalism. Then I noticed that the Austrians were wrong on patents, which I discovered was because they were wrong on Property Rights and rejected Locke. They are not honest enough to say they reject Locke, they just reject his formulation of how and why property rights exist, which Locke said was the most important right. They say they are for the Constitution, but then they ignore that the only right mentioned in the original constitution is patents and copyrights.

I noticed that many Austrians seemed to be religious and I wondered why this was, so I started investigating. Von Mises was an atheist but more in the way Marx is an atheist than Rand. I found David Kelley's paper on Rand v. Hayek and it is clear that Hayek is talking about the fundamental limits of reason. He is clear that he thinks Locke's natural rights is not based in reason and cannot be based in reason, it is based on some sort of cultural evolution, which by the way makes him a moral relativist. I then investigated Von Mises and his idea that prices were subjective.. I use to make this argument myself, but it always bothered me because even the best interpretation turns economics into a game with little or no connection to reality. But Mises was not and is not saying prices and values are determined by each individual, he is saying they are not connected to reality.

The reason Austrians attract religious people like Robbie is because the philosophical foundations are consistent with religion not with science - which makes them more like the socialists (post modernist movement) than objectivists or Locke or the enlightenment. Rand used to warn that capitalisms defenders were worse than its enemies and I put the Austrian squarely in that camp.

My confrontation comes from the fact that Austrians masquerade as pro capitalist, pro American, but they reject Locke's natural Rights, they reject his formulation of property rights, they reject reason and yet we all cheer because the use the words freedom and free markets.

" it is not a tenet of Austrian economics that all recessions are the result of central bank actions." is there a cite(s) for this, because Wikipedia (which can be in error) states it and it is reiterated here in the video. so confusing if not the case

You can not agree all you want. However, this is a well established fact by econometrics. Also ask yourself if we had the same technology we had in 1600 would we be any wealthier?

I don't agree that technology causes economic growth, perhaps useful productive technology, but I am pretty sure that too much technology and our future generation's reliance on unnecessary technology will be a huge part of our demise.

The Austrians are just plane wrong on what causes economic growth. Increasing capital is not the source of economic growth and savings by themselves do not result in economic growth. Increasing levels of technology cause economic growth.

That central banks are the cause of all recessions is exactly how the video explains it and it is consistent with what I have read elsewhere.

Fractional Reserve Banking and Central Banks are not the same thing. The First Bank of the United States was not a Central Bank, it was just the bank the federal government used. For more information see http://hallingblog.com/understanding-the...

ABCT is wrong about the source of economic growth - it does not matter whether you see it, it is a fact. They are wrong about Central Banks causing all recessions. They are wrong in equating fractional reserve banking with central banks and with creating money out of thin air.

Austrian Economics is not a science. It rejects the fundamental tenants for all sciences - an objective reality and that reason is capable of understand the world.

Vinay gives excellent elaboration on dbhalling's thesis.
The 'differentiate' list is v. useful.
On the section "The O meta-ethics and ethics do not need to bought into .." I think this says that Objectivism provides a theoretical framework on which economic policies can be evaluated, and, if that first step is wrong, with inadequate foundations of logic and ethics, then so will be derivations into economics and politics.

There is a lot of marking up and down here.
If many of the markers are austrian economics supporters, could more thought out argument be given as well as down points please? Or, it could be that dbhalling's confrontational style builds resistance. Unfortunate as his inputs are very constructive.

1 point up. What is in upper case is worth the emphasis -except, as observed later, it is not a tenet of Austrian economics that all recessions are the result of central bank actions.
A hypothesis: any central bank action makes recession more likely.

The Federal Reserve is actually the THIRD central bank in our country. The problem is fractional reserve banking which results in an expansion of the money supply by the creation of "new money" out of thin air. The Fed was created was to coordinate the expansion of the money supply because the major banking players knew that monetary expansion was the bugbear of economics that fueled the boom stage of the business cycle and caused the bust when too many businesses were holding bad investments.
Economics is a science; it is the science of human action. It is not a "hard" science like math or physics that can be proven by future testers conducting the same experiment and observing identical results. The variable in economics is the human element; one of the tenants of economics is that people behave rationally. The problem with that is that some people do not act rationally at all times, therefore, the results of observations may vary with different people under their current circumstances.
I support the ABCT and see no errors in it. Austrians, like any other group of thinkers, will have differing views on property rights and IP, but they almost all fully agree on the concept of factional reserve banking, especially when orchestrated by a central bank, is the root cause of the business cycle. If the money supply is not manipulated, the business cycle would not exist!

Challenging assumptions. That usually makes for good reading. Looking forward to it.