r/austrian_economics

Holy shit, I made the mistake of unfortunately Posting on a Democrat sub to see what they think of well, gutting all federal welfare plans and giving it back to the states to decide, please do not laugh at me for even attempting but just know that they acted morally high and mighty of taking other people’s money even though they explicitly didn’t want to do that just because “ I love them even if they hate me”.

Basically, acting high and mighty, but then all of a sudden I get a few comments that I keep seeing a bunch of times talking about systemic collapse, when I used to be left when I was an idiot I remember I felt this way too. So genuinely what is up with that?

Why does every little recommendation sound like systemic collapse them? Why do they see “ 2000 people a year dying due to no ACA” (not making this up) as a crisis?

These don’t sound like crisis to me,

Have you guys experienced the same thing?

Hello, I am in need of an answer for this question, to see other explanations other than idiocracy.

If the free market is basically self evident to create massive growth, why don’t even tyrannical government enact it? If it creates so much abundance, wouldn’t someone who’s tyrannical let it work so they can take more? I’m essentially describing social democracy.

Those people have the slightest bit of education of the free market, so they let it work and then do things like creating a sovereign wealth fund, massive welfare programs, etc

Wouldn’t a countries leaders understand that it’s best to let private actors to dig up resources, then to just leave it there or let a bunch of kids slave away for it? I genuinely want to know the answer to this question maybe it’s a political question. But if the answer is take, take take by statists, why doesn’t the statist enact the one system that creates more to take?

What are thoughts EU regulations like food safety where EU food seems to be less toxic compared to American version and especially countries sri lanka and india, making phone companies have removable batteries, making apple to have USB C type chargers, GDPR?

While these laws interfere with business affairs and increase administration costs, these laws seem to directly benefit the end consumer in terms of health and flexibility.

Even where I’m from (Sri Lanka), recently theres consumer frustration because companies are asking for the customer’s phone number and if refused, they don’t hand you the physical bill and they are quite intimidating when asking for it.

So isn’t it to good to have laws in this way, where it is direct points like you cant use chemical X on bread?

Or is it that, despite the good intention and effectiveness, they are bad as whole, where they might stifle some break through findings?

Lets say exports are 100 billion and imports 100 billion by the gdp formula net impact of that to gdp is zero.

But my basic brain says if i build house for my friend as export and import same value of cars from him, value produced was the house/cars. Or 100 billion in the first example. ​

Libertarians will say that if you're poor it's your own fault, but also that the government interfering with the economy has reached unprecedented levels in history.

Now some of you may feel they don't live under a command economy because their gardener is an illegal who is not paying taxes or because of some inspiring story from Tom Woods Web Marketing seminars, but the reality is that most of the economy is under the government's thumb.

Companies have huge contracts with government, smaller companies serve companies with huge contracts with government and everyone gets freshly printed loaned money from "commercial" banks based on what end up being government parameters.

We live under a command economy and there is no free market, money earned are the result of working for the government. For most people, especially the rich being that they're created by government, taxes aren't real but a circular transaction. Yeah, they don't feel good but you got the money from the government anyway.

Mises said

>“A stock market is crucial to the existence of capitalism and private property. For it means that there is a functioning market in the exchange of private titles to the means of production. There can be no genuine private ownership of capital without a stock market: there can be no true socialism if such a market is allowed to exist.”

And no libertarian today will argue that the stock market we currently have is a real stock market. It's a fraud propped up by government and central banking.

Because the government rules the economy, people that don't earn enough to sustain themselves are in this condition because they've been excluded from the economy by the government.

Since they've been excluded, they deserve to get at least money to not die and enjoy life, don't you think?

And the most insane thing is that libertarians, who should oppose government, are in favor of all this! They are in favor of this absurd situation. Not only the government is depriving everyone of freedom, but doesn't even give all their prisoners enough to sustain themselves. Only those that obey the government the most, those that follow and realize the government's plans get money. The other should be left to die, according to libertarians

I mean sure, not even in North Korea the government controls all the economy. And the West isn't North Korea, yet. At the same time, how can we not ask the government to help the poor when the government controls most of the economy now? Can we really expect every single poor person to jump around the unlimited hoops and abuse that government puts in front of them?

It's just cruel. A useless cruel rhetoric that not only contradicts libertarianism, but kinda proves the socialists point that libertarians just hate poor people.

Very sad.

So, this guy asked a question that must be corrected and answered for future reference, because it’s a question people have not understanding that they are asking it wrong.

To start the biggest issue with this is that they are defining, “rational” as “successful” or whatever similar term, and as a result irrational means unsuccessful.

That is not how you look at it. It’s the issue with mainstream economics or neoclassical or whatever, of looking at things as a snapshot and not like a story. In the mainstream/neoclassical snapshot they see someone who has sea sickness tendencies and owns a yacht, to them that man who owns the yacht is irrational for making such an irrational decision, they say “only a irrational individual would spend millions of dollars on something that would get them sick”

But that’s not how Austrians and “sowellians” see it, they/we see it as a story with dynamics. When we look deeper we see into the yacht owners life, as a kid he grew up poor, he enjoyed watching Wolf of Wall Street and wanted a yacht just like Jordan Belfort. As a result he chased entrepreneur adventures and became successful, he finally had the money to buy the yacht he always wanted.

He bought it, but to his dismay, he found out he had sea sickness. He wasn’t acting irrational at all, it just happened that he was given a misfortunate realization of seasickness.

Or maybe he knew he got seasick, but he knew that with the yacht he could impress people, get more business partners, etc so he took the girl with the bad and got it anyway.

In short, just because something is unsuccessful doesn’t make it irrational, it’s very hard to find someone who is irrational and makes irrational decisions, those decisions that look irrational are simply unsuccessful.

Hope you enjoyed this information for future reference

Human beings don't always make rational choices. Sometimes they make choices out of impulse, emotion, and other factors besides rationale and logic. Therefore, due to emotion, impulse, desperation and other such factors, human beings don't always make choices that are in their best interest. How does Austrian Economics account for this irrational, passion-based, or emotion-based choice-making?

Tyranny of majority prevented where majority are not 'rich' and so want higher welfare ie UK triple lock scheme is unaffordable but impossible to vote out as elders vote so often.

Question about whether people would then vote against ie pensions but I say wont happen as others who are working will soon be hitting retirement age.

I dont think if you have never helped produce the pie you should interfere with the slices.

Happy to discuss / debate am on the fence

aimed at the UK but also open to the US

Trying to learn more.

Same with interest rates... why not just leave up to consumers in banks? Just more and more I dont see the point in a central bank like the Boe or FedR

hi there!

I have read a lot about austrian economics from the various well-known writers. However, one thing I found lacking is a thorough discussion of non-scarce ideas, such as ideas.

What literature would you suggest for a deeper understanding of these goods?

Searching in this subreddit, I found Kinsella’s “Against intellectual monopoly”, so will definitely be adding that and looking forward to the discussion of medial patents.

In addition, I asked AI and it suggested:

• Hayek – Use of Knowledge in Society
• Kirzner – Competition and Entrepreneurship

would you think these books to give a good understanding? and what other sources would you recommend?

Thanks for taking the time to read this :)

IM PISSED, it’s the something thousand time I’ve seen a lefty spouting about some greed BS as an explanation for things, but when will they understand that blaming greed is like blaming gravity for why a plane exploded? They have the intuition enough to know that it started in the pandemic, but they just can’t put their finger on exactly how it worked, even though the numbers match up perfectly. They believe it’s greedy Jeff Bezos explaining why things are 40% more expensive. NAUUUR!

RECAP: after the government enacted the worst pandemic policies of all time, which froze the entire economy for a freaking flu like virus? I’m pretty sure I caught it and it didn’t do anything, the education loss alone from kids being out of school was fucking insane, when you saw teachers online saying their kids can’t read, I hope they realize it’s their union’s fault for wanting to prolong pandemic virtual learning. Everything done was basically done the worst possible way when you look back.

But after the economy ceased to grow, the federal reserve increase the money supply by approximately 40.1% from January 2020 to January 2022. But yeah, what was the thing that they like to say a lot? People over profits? Well enjoy that in policy bitch don’t complain or blame someone else.

But the real question is how the fuck do we fix an increase of 40% in the money supply?

Before I start, let me make it clear: libertarianism and Austrian Economics are not science-based, or spiritual philosophies. I get that. I know that. However, in my opinion, libertarianism And Austrian Economics do complement those disciplines beautifully.

I am therefore, for lack of a better way of putting it, a "natural-law and spiritual-law libertarian" or Austrian economist.

Here is, in essence, how I view these beautiful intersections and complements:

1. The laws of nature, and, depending on your religious beliefs or non-beliefs, the spiritual/divine laws are much more important, and much bigger, than government. Examples of natural laws include laws of science, such as gravity, heat, etc. Or mental-health or psychological laws. Or laws of human nature in general. Divine/spiritual laws include the Golden Rule, or the Laws of Karma. Or any of the scriptural laws, depending on your faith or whatever philosophy you believe. Or for that matter, spontaneous order. Now I know that spontaneous order was talked about by libertarian philosophers, so it is not necessarily spiritual. But it sure has its very strong equivalents in traditions such as Taoism or Buddhism.

All of these forces, are much, much larger than any government.

2. Therefore, one's own attitude in life, taking responsibility for one's own self, following one's own faith (or whatever philosophy keeps you sane) as best you can, is much more important than government.

3. I am not **as** much against government as many libertarians or Austrian Economists are. I am certainly against the size of the government we have today. It needs to be significantly smaller. But I don't ask it to be as small as a minarchist or anarchist, either. I am more of an "optimalist", in that I am for a government that is not too big, or too small. Perhaps I am more of a classical liberal. I don't know. Labels are just labels, but I think you understand what I am saying in this writing.

No system is perfect. Neither government, nor capitalism. Both systems contain the same flawed human beings, and therefore will contain flaws in and of themselves.

It's more a matter of what I value more, and what I think is much more important in the bigger scheme of things. Government is not all bad. But it is very limited in terms of how good and effective it is. As many of you Libertarians say, government is a type of force, especially when it comes to taxation and regulation. But as I said in the beginning, no force of government is close to the forces of nature (i.e., scientific or mental-health, or human nature in general), or the divine laws of karma.

I value the free market much more. I therefore value each individual, and their attitude in society, much more than any government. Therefore, it is up to each individual, regardless of whether they are in the marketplace or in government, to follow their faith, or whatever their guiding principles are, and to keep a sane, good attitude in life, in general.

Then, and only then, can America and the world be a better place.