Last year we at the European branch of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (Europe) organised the first ever Austrian school event in the European Parliament. Member of the European Parliament Amjad Bashir — a great supporter of free enterprise within the Parliament — kindly sponsored the event, which was set up to coincide with the release of one of the best books on the Austrian school in recent years, Banking and Monetary Policy from the Perspective of Austrian Economics.
As well as me, the other two speakers were Member of the European Parliament Professor Joachim Starbatty MEP, and Brendan Brown, Chief Economist of Mitsubishi Bank, arguably the largest bank in the world by assets other than China’s state banks. While there have been other pro-enterprise and free market events in the European Parliament, they have all neglected the “money issue” so far, at least as those within the Austrian school would see it. Professor Starbatty MEP gave an eloquent outline of the Austrian business cycle theory, while Brendan Brown brought Austrian principles to bear on current issues in the banking sector. I decided to speak about the current bubble and how this can be explained with Austrian concepts. This event also reinforces the place of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (Europe) as one of the premier think tanks in Europe; within a few months we have published a defining textbook and introduced the Austrian school within the European Parliament itself.
In my experience, more and more free market thinkers are tending towards the Austrian School, and it is the farce of years of zero percent interest rates that has achieved this. When the current Super Bubble bursts, we must be prepared to provide answers to how this bubble was created as many will blame the “free market” and demand the government “take action”.
Below you can see my speech in which I outlined how central banks’ policies of zero percent interest rates and quantitative easing have created the largest bubble in all of human history. The West has had a Faustian Pact with the central banking system for an entire generation, with each recession being responded to by creating an even larger debt bubble with ever lower interest rates -- and of course ever worse debt dependency.
The book “Banking and Monetary Policy from the Perspective of Austrian Economics” is published by Springer, one of the best academic publishers. The Ludwig von Mises Institute (Europe) did the excellent work of gathering contributors for the book, which includes Jesus Huerta de Soto, Walter Block, Guido Hulsmann and Gunther Schnabl as well as other great contemporary Austrian School thinkers. Annette Godart-van der Kroon, President of LvMI-Europe, edited the book. If you are a student or lecturer see if you can persuade your institution to get a copy.
Let’s hope the trend can continue with policy-makers taking an interest in the Austrian School. We have to be patient in explaining some of these issues, but more and more minds are open to explanations for how central banks distort the economy.
Incidentally, two days later I also gave a speech at the “Future of Money Conference” at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. People from the Bank of England, European Central Bank and Swedish Riksbank among others were discussing how money will develop over the next generation, including so-called Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs, of which you will no doubt hear more over the coming years). I had the pleasure of hearing William White, former chief monetary economist at the Bank for International Settlements and Chief Economist at the OECD, give a terrific speech about the bubble created by radical monetary policy. Bill has had distinct Austrian tendencies during his time at the top of the global monetary establishment, citing Hayek and others in his work.
The intellectual tectonic plates within economics are shifting, and the Austrian School is well placed to provide explanations for the coming bursting of the Super Bubble.
