Most ordinary folk today live far better than did the Sun King himself. That advance in prosperity has not been built on government intervention, on needless consumption, nor on monetary debasement or otherwise the bilking of ones' creditors. It was built on savings being converted into capital.
In the writings of modern evangelical environmentalists runs a disturbing theme: the idea that it is possible for a small group of individuals to improve upon our use of the environment through coercion. In the name of stewardship, they lay claim to control of every aspect of our lives.
If the government actually believed that the homeland would be safer due to its actions overseas, why does it impose (under the threat of violence) a terrorism insurance requirement? And why do its warnings of impending doom seem to be increasing rather than decreasing?
Of all the false charges leveled against capitalism, the indictment of promoting or requiring imperialism and warfare is most certainly the least deserved. Given recent events, this proposition has received much undeserved attention, but is by no means new. This claim has a long legacy, tracing back at least to 19th century critics of Political Economy.
Those who speak of "commodification," which apparently has become a buzzword in socialist circles, actually have things backwards. The presence of a price upon a good does not make it scarce; rather, it is the scarcity that creates the price. To put it another way, the very nature of scarcity means that a good must be rationed, as it cannot be given freely to everyone who wants it.
Bryan Caplan, in his widely circulated article, "Why I Am Not an Austrian Economist," seemingly has questioned the Austrian contention that choice implies preference. If it can be shown that we choose based on indifference and not preference, the Austrians be shown to be wrong. But can this be shown?
The classical economists were opponents of paper money. And yet in their positive case for commodity money, they made two great errors: believing that an additional supply of notes on the market confers some social benefit and believing that money's value needs to be stable in order to meet the needs of trade. These errors inadvertantly paved the way for political intervention.
With the dollar down and gold up, both trends obviously related to growing fear of economic troubles ahead, the question again arises: why shouldn't the dollar itself be good as gold? It would be if the views of the classical-liberal tradition held sway. This tradition stands solidly behind a commodity money standard, like silver or gold, as the very definition of sound money.
Does the phenomenon of "reswitching" refute the Austrian theory of capital and interest? Contra Samuelson, no Austrian ever claimed that reswitching was mathematically impossible, writes Robert Murphy. Indeed, Austrians do not normally think in those terms at all, except when forced to in response to mainstream challenges.
