Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
― Frédéric Bastiat, The Law
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Great quote!
I think Ludwig von Mises would be most suitable for your next quote. One of these days, I need to read Human Action, but the size of that book intimidates me a bit. I’ve overheard economists who don’t identify with the Austrian School don’t even bother to read those books because they don’t know whether there’s anything worth gaining from and the sheer size of a lot of the books. They also don’t like reading Hayek because of how apparently unreadable his non Road to Serfdom work is, like Prices and Production. I’m paraphrasing here.
I still think one should have some familiarity with mainstream economic thought, especially microeconomics, which I heard is a lot like praxeology, but more mathematically oriented and well proven. Macroeconomics on the other hand still sounds like something that’s under construction that so many economists disagree and fight over.
Mises is quite quotable, yes. I think there is even a book called “The Quotable Mises” or something like that. Human Action is heavy, and a very academic book. No one reads it except austrians – “regular” economists usually don’t get it, or decide not to get it.
From what I’ve gathered, there isn’t that much of a fight over micro-economics – most “schools” pretty much agree on it, and has done so for quite a while. It is only when we get to “macro” that the keynesians have their dribble, the monetarists have their droople, and the austrians have the truth (imho, of course).
An option if one feels Human Action is too heavy is to go through one of the series of economics lectures that are availble at mises.org (I think there are good recordings of both Guido Hulsmann, H H Hoppe and a few others). Check the recordings from old Mises Academies.
Yes. That’s a good summary of what’s going on, but I wouldn’t be as hard on the monetarists as far as I’m concerned, and there are different “schools” within Keynesianism, like the New Keynesians and Post-Keynesians. I for one, really like Greg Mankiw and have been reading Daniel Kuehn’s blog for a while and it seems like they’re genuinely trying to seek the truth in their own way, despite the disagreements you may have with them.
MMT seems to be something I’ve heard a lot about, and based on the comments I’ve read from some of the supporters, I get a bad feeling that a lot of them are very very arrogant people.