Now in mailboxes is the November issue of The Free Market, the Mises Institute’s monthly, featuring new articles on Sweden’s great depression and a wide-ranging interview discussing the progress of the Austrian Economics movement in Japan. On the front page, Per Bylund examines how Sweden, by shrinking its government in the 1990s, saved itself from a longer depression:
…Since that time, Sweden has, across the board, seen consistent government cutbacks while increasing restrictions on welfare policies, deregulating markets, and privatizing former government monopolies. The country has instituted an overall new incentive structure in society making it more favorable to work. The national debt tumbled from almost 80 percent of GDP in 1995 to only 35 percent in 2010. … Sweden is an interesting case to study. We do indeed, as Krugman repeatedly tells us, have much to learn from it: from the long-lasting era of economic growth thanks to free markets to the rise and fall of the welfare state. The country’s recently (re)gained financial strength and its ability to resist a global recession are due, not to a strong welfare state as Krugman claims, but to the long-term rolling back of the expansive welfare that Keynesians so often praise.
And Marc Abela, organizer of the Mises Meetings in Japan, talks with us about Austrian Economics in his adopted country:
Ludwig von Mises received one single Japanese student while he was teaching in New York in the 1950s and this student, Toshio Murata, has become a shining beacon of courage and a lighthouse of liberty since his return to Japan. Murata-sensei took on the courageous task of translating Human Action into Japanese… The internet revolution and all the new social media, Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia, along with the Japanese counterparts, Mixi and 2channel, have allowed for completely new and fresh discussions to be nourished and grow, even if they are anonymous most of the time. As a result of Murata and the internet, young people in Japan are discovering the work of the AustrianSchool, largely through the expansive Mises Institute website. Also, thanks in large part to Amazon, an increasing number of Japanese translations are being made available, among them books by Hoppe, Rothbard, Mises, Rockwell, and others.
Also this month, The Free Market takes a look at Leonard Read and his contributions to the freedom movement.
