[lbo-talk] Austrians Caps...

Chuck Grimes c123grimes at att.net
Fri Feb 24 11:27:52 PST 2012


I'm looking for some critics about Austrian economics, mainly that focused in the privatization of money and central banks. Can anyone help me with papers or even some points for a good debate with them?

This kind of theory is getting pretty damn serious here! Socrates 77

---------------

I can hope somebody finds something for you, but I kind of doubt it. Critics of current policy and critics of policies based on Hayek et al. usually don't get published in the US regular menu.

I tried to read Hayek and started to violently puke on page 32 of Individualism and Economic Order. If you haven't read some of the original sources, that's were I would start. Then go back and flush out the social history that surrounded this movement. At its foundation is not just a story of anti-communist hacks, but a more serious rejection of various aspects of Hegelian philosophy, essentially those that inspired Marx, i.e. collective v. individual.

In this schema, the Austrians attacked most forms of the collective by promoting various ideological profiles of the individual's quote freedom unquote. These Austrians were well schooled in philosophy and the history of ideas. So this isn't just arcane academic bullshit.

Checking the wiki on Hayek, notice this:

``Charles Koch invited Hayek to serve as the Institute for Humane Studies - then based in Menlo Park, California - "distinguished senior scholar" in preparation for its first conference on Austrian economics, to be held in June 1974. Hayek initially declined the offer, but accepted the position after Koch convinced him that he would receive Social Security and Medicare benefits.[38]''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek#cite_note-37

The importance is the contact and the implicit ideological-political implications of applying Hayek's ideology to foundational changes in the US economic system, including expansion into energy and finance. If you can kill regulation in these sectors, you pretty much own the rest of the US system.

Click on the link to The Nation article (footnote 38) to read the background of Kock doing a hard sell on SS to Hayek. Hayek's worry was if he moved to the US for a temporary appointment, he would lose access to his national Austrian healthcare. The idea of Kock as healthcare benefits counselor will keep me laughing most of the day.

CG



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list