Austrian School

Orwell's famous fictions, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four criticized totalitarian forms of socialism from a Public Choice perspective, assuming that socialism would work as an economic system as long as the proper political institutions were in place to curb the potential for the abuse of power. This is contrasted with two novels by others who took the opposite approach: Richter's Pictures of the Socialistic Future and Hazlitt's Time Will Run Back. These two assumed that the political implementation of socialism would be perfect but that socialism would necessarily turn totalitarian because of the problem of economic calculation. These novels assumed away the Public Choice problem of institutions and the abuse of power and focused on the political implications of socialism as a purely economic system. Contrasting these two sets of novels shows how the Austrian and Public Choice schools criticize socialism in two entirely different ways.

The Institute of Economic Affairs 2 Lord North Street Westminster London sw1p 3lb in association with Profile Books Ltd The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve public understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society, by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.

Based on the ontological and epistemological problems and solutions exposed in the previous paper ("Problems of the philosophy of natural and social sciences", 2014), we engage in an analysis of the philosophical grounds of three main schools of economics. A careful and unprejudiced examination of the original writings shows that the common ideas and labels (reductionism vs. holism, individualism vs. institutionalism, positivism vs. dialectics, apriorism vs. inductionism etc.) on these schools are misleading. They are not opposing one another as solid blocks of incompatible ideas and theories, but each school contains different approaches and trends, which maintain their internal life and sustain the dialogue between them.

The book under review is the first English edition of Prof. Jesús Huerta de Soto's book Dinero, Crédito Bancario y Ciclos Económicos which first appeared in Spain in 1998. A second edition of the book followed at the beginning of the year 2002 in the wake of worldwide economic events illustrating the great timeliness of the book and the considerable relevance of its subject matter. In the meantime previous reviewers of the book had urged the translation of the book into English1, a task now completed as a result of the great effort of Melinda A. Stroup, ...

The Austrian School of Economics lacks a well-formed conception of the concept of risk. That is why this paper proposes to discuss this issue. How do you perceive the risk in the human conception? Here it will be discussed in light of the Austrian Economic Cycle Theory (TACE), how subjective perception of risk can affect economics in a number of factors.

This paper is prompted by the concluding comments to a recent paper (Denis "Hypostatisation"), which suggests that the neoclassical use of the concept of equilibrium expresses a formal mode of thought. Heterodox tendencies from Marxian to Austrian and Post Keynesian economics, that paper continues, exemplify a dialectical mode of thought in their common rejection of neoclassical equilibrium theorising. Heterodox currents in economics are -particularly in terms of their analysis and policy prescription -often as divided amongst themselves as they are from the orthodoxy. Nevertheless, the present paper suggests, there may be something profound uniting these disparate heterodox trends: the adoption of a dialectical method. The paper draws on the work of Sciabarra ("Marx", "Total"), who argues that Marxian and Austrian economics are intellectual cousins sharing a methodological approach. He suggests that making process primary, which we might expect of Austrian economists, is the essence of dialectics, which we might identify with Marxism. If that is the case, then perhaps (a) we can only understand the method of neoclassical economics by contrasting it with a dialectical approach, and (b) we can explore methodological common ground between the various heterodox currents by examining their attitude, both implicit and explicit, to dialectics. Pluralism in economics requires, not merely toleration -though indeed it does require that -but mutual engagement, a conversation. For that to take place we need an understanding of what divides and unites the various approaches. This paper is offered as a contribution to the development of that mutual understanding.

Zazaki is a language with numerous speakers in Austria, who have most often immigrated from Turkey. Nevertheless, knowledge on the Zazaki language and community is still lacking, and not only in Austria. Using the example of a Zazaki speaker's biography, the present paper will analyse some of the reasons why Zazaki is largely absent in quantitative data on multilingualism (just as the related Kurdish-Kurmanci), and how the language becomes 'visible' in qualitative autobiographical interviews. The findings are intended to contribute to a profound understanding of language biographies, the ways they are narrated, and the strong impact the sociopolitical level has on individual language experiences.

This article critically examines two conceptualisations of ordoliberalism. In one, it is defined, together with neoliberalism, against 19th-century liberalism (in its social liberal and laissez-faire variants). This reading was common among ordoliberals themselves, and early neoliberals such as Friedrich von Hayek, as well as among critics, notably Michel Foucault. In another, ordoliberalism is contrasted to neoliberalism, with the latter presumed to be a species of laissez-faire economics. This reading is commonly accompanied by the supposition that ordoliberalism represents a “Third Way” between capitalism and socialism, or between laissez-faire liberalism and state planning. The main body of this contribution presents a critical analysis of both positions, by way of analysis of ordoliberal texts and a history of the discourse of laissez-faire.

La presente tesis tiene como objeto comparar el análisis y la política recomendada por la Escuela Austríaca y Ordoliberal en el caso de una crisis económica severa que genera recursos ociosos. Las perspectivas escogidas tendrán como punto de acuerdo la importancia del mercado, el sistema de precios y de la tasa de interés para la coordinación de los agentes económicos. Diferirán en la política recomendada frente a una crisis severa. Para Hayek la autoridad política no debe intervenir en términos generales, solo admitirá esta posibilidad frente a una caída en la velocidad de circulación de dinero. Por otra parte Röpke recomendará que la autoridad gubernamental realice política activa frente a las depresiones secundarias.

The Austrian school of economics increasingly has become identified with antiwar groups. This is not due to religious or political views. Rather, the antiwar viewpoints of the Austrians come from the fundamental tenets of economics as expressed by the school's founders and refined for 140 years. This article applies post-world war II Austrian thought to the subject of war.

Partial financial support from the SSHRC is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Traditional literature regarding “corporate governance” finds the “tension between ownership and management” (as it was shaped by the agency theory) to be a node in the logic of what should be the answer to the question “how the structure of the corporation property can be designated and, in this way, achieve its organizational architectural efficiency on the more developed financial markets, populated by public listed firms and owned by «diffuse» shareholders?”. In such modern capital markets, that are more dynamic due to a more liberal corporatist law (although uneven across jurisdictions), a phenomenon as “unprecedented” as “ambiguously” theorized by Berle and Means (1932) has been identified: the classic problem of the “separation of ownership from control”. This article makes a brief survey on a part of the corporate governance literature that is mostly neglected and in the ignorance of which lies the melting down in the same pot of the “separation of ownership from control” re...

Traditional literature regarding “corporate governance” finds the “tension between ownership and management” (as it was shaped by the agency theory) to be a node in the logic of what should be the answer to the question “how the structure of the corporation property can be designated and, in this way, achieve its organizational architectural efficiency on the more developed financial markets, populated by public listed firms and owned by «diffuse» shareholders?”. In such modern capital markets, that are more dynamic due to a more liberal corporatist law (although uneven across jurisdictions), a phenomenon as “unprecedented” as “ambiguously” theorized by Berle and Means (1932) has been identified: the classic problem of the “separation of ownership from control”. This article makes a brief survey on a part of the corporate governance literature that is mostly neglected and in the ignorance of which lies the melting down in the same pot of the “separation of ownership from control” re...

In modern rich societies, the traditional positive correlation between income and happiness seems to have disappeared: even though their income keeps rising, people do not declare themselves to be happier. This problem, which is known in literature as the ''paradox of happiness'', has been thoroughly studied. One of the possible explanations is based on the observation that an income increase can sometimes entail the destruction of those relational goods on which happiness largely relies: relationships of family, friendship, love and fellowship. This research aims to show how, in the age of Marginalism, the most important attempt at establishing if and in which sense relational goods are economic goods is carried out by the very Austrian economists who led Robbins to write the epistemological statute of modern economic science.