I'm tired of the fucking Austrians
And I'm not talking about the actual citizens of the country, of course.
I'm referring to those who subscribe to the idea of the "Austrian business-cycle theory" and the associate perspective on the proper monetary policy. Perhaps I should really call them "Rothbardians," since it's Murry Rothbard who they tend to have the most respect for out of all the Austrian economists. The fucked up thing is that Rothbard was a poser and didn't really understand economics very well beyond certain free-market fundamentals of classical economics.
Probably the most annoying aspect of the Rothbardians is how they are staunchly against banking, and seem to not be quite aware of this fact. They say they're against "fractional-reserve banking" which sounds as though it were some specialized form of banking, but really its simply just plain ol' banking. What other forms of banking are there? What is a bank other than a business that takes deposits, makes loans, and profits off the difference between the interest it receives and that which it pays (and sits on a bit of capital itself)? Usually their version of a "proper" gold standard involves abolishing banks. If we're ever going to have a gold standard again we've got to find a way to get them to shut the fuck up about this bullshit theory.
There has never been a time when humans had a gold standard without "fractional-reserve banking," and guess what, it worked just fine when it was used in conjunction with low taxes. It seems that the Rothbardians have generally overlooked the issue of taxes as having anything to do with the health of the economy. True, Rothbard was against taxes, but it wasn't because taxes hurt hampered wealth creation (aside from the immediate loss from those who paid them). He was against them because it was, to him, immoral to implement then in the first place, and as an anarcho-capitalist, Rothbard's solution was simply to remove the monopolization of government so that tax collection was no longer an affront to human rights. In general, he saw it as a zero-sum game to be played-- the government takes what it will and there's no economic loss, only a moral one. If he ever acknowledged that high taxes begat recessions, then he couldn't tie a pretty bow around the Austrian Business-Cycle Theory, which he also used to indict Central Banks' authority (and by extension, the authority of bankers over their debtors).
Nowadays, there's plenty of Rothbarian apologists running around and helping paint libertarianism with a kooky facade. Maybe a better name for these people are the "paultards" who aren't intellectual beyond some paltry grasp Ron Paul's platform and who only bother to pick up books approved by the Mises Institute.
What I think is sad is that most libertarians are such strong followers of the Rothbardian end-the-motha-fuckin-FED tradition that few actually pay lip service to Milton Friedman or cite the eloquent way he used to advocate for libertarian values. Friedman and some of his associates like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have written and spoken at length about things like minimum-wage laws, labor-laws, unions, inflation, and the advocacy of free trade; things which many Austrians don't talk much about because they're busy decrying the Fed's authority over the money supply (something which they even fail to correctly define). The Rothbardians won't tell you much about Reason Magazine or any of their affiliated websites, either, since many of their writers are sort of cool with a few basic environment regulations, maybe a few safety laws for workers here or there, and *gasp* think that the FED doesn't need to be utterly demolished with the rubble pissed on and then scattered to the four corners of the earth! Cato barely gets much mention by them as well, for similar reason as not having more puritanical libertarian dogma, even though Rothbard was one of the original founders.
If we want to live in a freer society that adopts more libertarian values, there needs to be serious intellectuals out there who don't show up to the debate wearing tri-corn hats, yelling about how we need to make banking illegal and that scapegoat all economic problems on the FED.
Probably the most annoying aspect of the Rothbardians is how they are staunchly against banking, and seem to not be quite aware of this fact. They say they're against "fractional-reserve banking" which sounds as though it were some specialized form of banking, but really its simply just plain ol' banking. What other forms of banking are there? What is a bank other than a business that takes deposits, makes loans, and profits off the difference between the interest it receives and that which it pays (and sits on a bit of capital itself)? Usually their version of a "proper" gold standard involves abolishing banks. If we're ever going to have a gold standard again we've got to find a way to get them to shut the fuck up about this bullshit theory.
There has never been a time when humans had a gold standard without "fractional-reserve banking," and guess what, it worked just fine when it was used in conjunction with low taxes. It seems that the Rothbardians have generally overlooked the issue of taxes as having anything to do with the health of the economy. True, Rothbard was against taxes, but it wasn't because taxes hurt hampered wealth creation (aside from the immediate loss from those who paid them). He was against them because it was, to him, immoral to implement then in the first place, and as an anarcho-capitalist, Rothbard's solution was simply to remove the monopolization of government so that tax collection was no longer an affront to human rights. In general, he saw it as a zero-sum game to be played-- the government takes what it will and there's no economic loss, only a moral one. If he ever acknowledged that high taxes begat recessions, then he couldn't tie a pretty bow around the Austrian Business-Cycle Theory, which he also used to indict Central Banks' authority (and by extension, the authority of bankers over their debtors).
Nowadays, there's plenty of Rothbarian apologists running around and helping paint libertarianism with a kooky facade. Maybe a better name for these people are the "paultards" who aren't intellectual beyond some paltry grasp Ron Paul's platform and who only bother to pick up books approved by the Mises Institute.
What I think is sad is that most libertarians are such strong followers of the Rothbardian end-the-motha-fuckin-FED tradition that few actually pay lip service to Milton Friedman or cite the eloquent way he used to advocate for libertarian values. Friedman and some of his associates like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have written and spoken at length about things like minimum-wage laws, labor-laws, unions, inflation, and the advocacy of free trade; things which many Austrians don't talk much about because they're busy decrying the Fed's authority over the money supply (something which they even fail to correctly define). The Rothbardians won't tell you much about Reason Magazine or any of their affiliated websites, either, since many of their writers are sort of cool with a few basic environment regulations, maybe a few safety laws for workers here or there, and *gasp* think that the FED doesn't need to be utterly demolished with the rubble pissed on and then scattered to the four corners of the earth! Cato barely gets much mention by them as well, for similar reason as not having more puritanical libertarian dogma, even though Rothbard was one of the original founders.
If we want to live in a freer society that adopts more libertarian values, there needs to be serious intellectuals out there who don't show up to the debate wearing tri-corn hats, yelling about how we need to make banking illegal and that scapegoat all economic problems on the FED.
posted by Tserrof at 7:45 PM
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