Volume 1, No. 1 (Spring 1998)
From Adam Smith’s day to our own, economists have tended to treat the intertemporal trade-off as something quite different from other trade-offs that market participants face. Whether based on the impartial spectator or on a perceived consensus among economists or on a supposed magic of compounding, their thinking is biased in favor of the future. They write as if they believe the prospect of a more-than-doubled real income forty years hence should have a greater effect on our current willingness to save than it actually has. On this idea, whether offered by Smith himself or modern mainstream, Rothbard has expressed dissent.
