Topic: Countries that followed the Austrian School to Prosperity - page 5. (Read 21899 times)

I think we have gone down this road before, when I tried to explain how Austrians view economics as "amoral".  Austrian economics says this: because reality is a certain way, and because mankind has a specific nature there are better ways to achieve ends and there are worse ways to do so.  Essentially there are more and less appropriate means for the attainment of specific ends.  This is not controversial and I am fairly certain you will not deny it.  Austrian economics attempts to discover what means are best suited to attain different ends that men aim at.  It does not try to tell men what they should aim at.    You can be an Austrian economist and a sadist.  You can know what policies will make men better off and choose the opposite.  The confusion stems from the fact that we tend to take the betterment of mankind as a given.  So given that mankind wants to improve his situation and the situation of other men, Austrian economics will suggest which means are more appropriate.

However, not every action that benefits a certain group of men will benefit everyone.  Austrian economics doesn't mandate getting rid of minimum wage policy, but only that if your goal is to provide maximum employment then you should get rid of minimum wage.  If you want to benefit some people at the expense of others, you might be better off keeping the minimum wage.  And I know you have some critiques of the Austrian perspective on minimum wage which I plan to look at and comment on soon. 

This may seem to be a silly distinction, as we can safely assume most people have the same general ends of benefiting mankind in mind, but it is important to realize the scope and limits of economics as viewed by the Austrians when talking about specific examples of how the theory is applied.

You offered to enlighten me yourself lol. I've yet to hear your rebuttal. Looks like you need some more time to consult with your friends from the democratic underground though.


As predicted, a socialist playing the evil Pinochet card at the first sign of trouble. For some reason I thought you were going to do better but I ended up disappointed, as usual.


Yeah, it was totally worth it. Are you even aware of the crisis Chile was going through with Allende?


Ok, let's use a standard of success that you'll find most appealing. Chile is a free market success story because it has proportionally the least people in poverty of any latin american country as a consequence of free market policies.

Since you're not offering up any data, and therefore this thread has gone to hell, I feel it appropriate to point out that your sig is pretty stupid. Economics cannot be kept out of politics, as the entire point of politics is to manage a group of people under finite resources.

Please, stop embarassing yourself.


Well, if you study economics you look at economics. Saying that its useless, is like saying that biology is useless because it does not look into physics...

But you did not even understood what I told you. Austrian economics does not have a set of policies. Austrian theory is just dedicated to understand and explain how the economy works with some predictive capability (as far as a social science can go).

Then some austrian economists, based on this knowledge, have some policy recommendations, but they can and do change from one economist to other. Also, their policies are influenced by their political theory, which is usually around libertarian political theory (but not always).


This has nothing to do with austrian economics or with what I said.


There are a lot of practical applications of Austrain economics.  Basically understanding how the economy works. This can be very useful, for example, a lot of traders and hedge fund managers know and apply austrian economics and do very well.


Actually not. While the Chicago school advocates have similar advice than a lot of austrian economists in a lot of areas (while widly different in others), at the core of the theories, monetarism (chicago school) is similar to keynesianism. Basically the methodology of monetarism is the same as keynesianism. Austrian economics is the most different fo the three.


Maybe another day and to another person.

From the Wiki on the Austrian School:


Which, regardless of my opinion of the Austrian School, I agree with. There is no such thing as a good scientific test of macroeconomic theory as national economies have an infinite number of influencing factors that cannot be controlled for. If you try to test the effects of a lower income tax rate, a nation can vary that, but any changes you see after varying the tax rate can also be possibly attributed to

*Changes in other countries' tax rates
*Changes in other countries' tariffs
*Changes in worldwide supply of oil
*Natural disasters
*Changes in worldwide consumer confidence
*changes in climate that affect food production
. . . ad infinitum

That example actually has the most merit out of the countries posed so far.

So if you live on a island, effectively a 1 person city-state Austrian economics is the school for you.

Save me the lesson on semantics.  However you want to organize and divide things in your mind (this box is for social policy, this box is for...) is irrelevant to me and shows that you think that these things are separate or can be divided on neat convenient lines.  They're not.  All economics is a study into social, political and economic human relations among others.  But trying to remove economics from the realm of other social studies into its own cloudy region is effectively what Austrian economists do; getting people to view it as it's own avenue of social studies and unrelated to other affairs.

Moving on.

Ok, so there is no practical application of Austrian economics?  Now I'm confused.  Another poster on this thread said that much of the "Chicago School" (which is the twin brother of the Austrian school) was used in implementation in Chile.  So which is it?  Is there polices to implement or not?  Clearly, there is from the books I've read, it is filled with critique of various polices and in support of others.  To say it has no polices is completely bogus; what books are you referring to?  Yet again having 'policy' clearly is a legal framework to which your notion of Austrian economics being a in the 'social science' box must be paradoxical.

Next name a time frame between which Canada, Hong Kong, or Switzerland was implementing 'what Austrian economists recommend' (polices)?

Can you recommend what polices that countries must stick to (that are Austrian) if they want to remain long term prosperous?

For you I think anything beyond a few sentences is TLDR.  Even though you are supposed to be bringing the evidence and story of a country that used Austrian economics to become prosperous you say "Chile" and then put it on me to disprove it to you; even though you follow it up with a 'write your failed rebuttal now' proving you don't care about anything other than your own fiction you've created in your mind.  Well, if you are unwilling to learn anything then you are 'safe' from me, don't worry about that; nobody can break your invincible ignorance if you choose so.  Just keep in mind, reality doesn't care about your petty little opinion and if you act in way contrary to reality then do so at your own peril.  By supporting Chile has a 'success' you either: know nothing about Chile, and/or have such a latent aggression and hatred from your ineptitude in life that you think it 'cute' or 'fun' for a totalitarian police state to exist in order to enact a 'free market'.  Maybe you consider a 'free market' so great that those who died, were tortured, were jailed, or otherwise oppressed under Pinochet were just 'a few broken eggs'.  Or 'they deserved it, because they were socialists'.

Maybe we better start here: you define what 'success' means to you.  Because your 'success' looks like a totalitarian hellscape.  Seems like that would be a short enough thing for you to summarize; that is if you've read down this far of this post.

How about Sealand? It's fairly prosperous, with all it's residents being fairly wealthy.

I feel that this question cannot be answered in today's world. We simply don't have valid comparison points. Imagine a 2-d cartesian coordinate graph with 0,0 representing the purest libertarian views and 10,10 representing the most totalitarian regime. The two axes would be cultural/ethnic laws and laws regulating economic behaviour. While most countries are around the range in the centre, the best that today's libertarians would be able to point you towards would be countries near (2,1) or (3,1).

If you're asking for the examples of states in (0,0), you may not find any, but the libertarians here are not wrong about giving examples that are nearer to the libertarian ideal than today's median state.

First a clarification to the op, because he got some basic ideas wrong:

Austrian economic theory is just that, theories that describe reality and have some prediction capacity. Austrian theory does NOT have a set of policies to apply. Austrian theory, as opposed to other economic schools, is a social science. Austrian theory is not political theory, the political theory you are refering to is libertarianism.

Honestly, for all the arrogance and high school showing off (uhhh, you went to high school....) the op is howing I though he would know the basic stuff.

Now, if you meant that any country that got prosperous under the usual policies that a lot of austrian economists have recommended you have several examples. For example, Hong Kong or Switzerland, although they have changed right now. But you have historic examples all over the place, for example Canada during most of the XIX century or the USA during specific parts of that same century. In fact you will be hard pressed to find examples of countries that became long term prosperous (that means benefiting the people, not the elites) with policies too far away from what austrian economists recommend. In fact the USA today is a very good example of why following keynesianism creates problems. The USA could quite easily solve its problems if it adopted the right policies, but right now it seems politically imposible.

I agree with John Doe's example of Chile.  The government of Chile actually had economists from the Chicago school, including Milton Friedman, come and give advice on how to institute market reforms.  Note that it took time for the reforms to take affect, and things got worse--at first.  This saga in Chilean economic history is covered in the PBS documentary, Commanding Heights. 


http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4492150/commanding_heights_the_agony_of_reform_chile/

I predict this will just be a tl;dr post whining about Pinochet and higher than average income inequality.

No, I don't want to add more. Please don't stall and continue.

Before I start educating you on things you should have learned in High School do you care to add more to your thesis?

"Chile turned from a communist shithole into one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America because of laissez-faire policies. Technically they followed the Chicago School, not the Austrian, but they basically followed the same principles: cutting taxes and tariffs, de-regulation, privatization, less welfare, low inflation etc."

Is this the entirety of what you think you know about Chile or do you want to add more to prove your point prior to me posting what I have to say on Chile?

No. You may start writing your failed rebuttal.

Before I start on this I have to ask, because I don't want to waste my time:

Are you trolling?

Chile turned from a communist shithole into one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America because of laissez-faire policies. Technically they followed the Chicago School, not the Austrian, but they basically followed the same principles: cutting taxes and tariffs, de-regulation, privatization, less welfare, low inflation etc.

*crickets chirping*

Maybe Monaco? Though they still have some social security type stuff...