Economics For Real People: An Introduction To The Austrian School [Paperback]

A job well done!

To reader from Dulles, I cannot *believe* you are citing Card and Krueger's study. My understanding is that it has been widely repudiated by the economic community. Wow.

While you won't learn as much as you would reading Capital and Interest, or Man, Economy and State for example, there is one purpose where this book is immensely useful: verbal debating. You would be pretty well served to import the arguments from this book directly into your verbal debates.

To the reader from Dulles, you managed to pack an unbelievable amount of fallacies into a handful of seemingly benign sentences. But I think I've spotted the problem: ""Austrian" economics, a super-libertarian school of economic thought founded by thinkers from Central Europe in the early 20th century". Anyone with even a passing knowledge of this school knows that Menger founded it in 1870, and some of its most prominent economists, such as he and Bohm Bawerk were in the 19th century. You are clearly trying to come off as looking more knowledgeable than you are. By the way, is Enrico Barone done writing that article yet? (If you get that, pat yourself on the back)

Edit: Second reply to the reader from Dulles- If I came off as too combative and assumptive, forgive me. Most mainstream economists and professors give an overview of the Austrian School (especially the calculation debate) which is not only logically, but factually distorted (The classic example being the one I alluded to above in which people state that a paper written by enrico Barone in 1908 was an intended refutation of Mises' 1920 paper. Also, the only post-lange contributions on the capitalist side taken into account are those of Hayek). I assumed that you were influenced by this attitude from your statement "the familiar lapses that have made "Austrian" synonymous with "crackpot" in many circles".

Anyway, even if you maintain that Menger did not originate a unique school of thought (I say he does. Although, compared to the Anglo-American classicals, he was very similar to Jevons and Walras, he is far too unique to be classed as simply a "marginalist" along with them), the statement that the austrian School was founded "in the early 20th century" is irreconcilible with the career of Bohm-Bawerk. His most significant work, Capital & Interest saw two volumes published in the 1880s (including the most famed one , 1889's "positive theory of capital).

I would also like to tackle your statement about the minimum wage and the elasticity of demand for labor.

Of course, we can't make a quantitative judgement without knowing this, but we can make a qualitative judgement.

The only way an increase in the minimum wage could not cause a lower demand for labor would be if the demand for labor was extremely inelastic. how inelastic would it have to be? It would have to be as inelastic as a steering wheel (the amoutn of steering wheels demanded at any price are limited by the amount of cars in use. i.e.- if steering wheels were one cent a piece, you still wouldn't have 6 for every car you own). However, labor being incredibly scarce and nonspecific, can never approach this degree of inelasticity.

Also, the idea that the Mises institute is "cultish" is absurd. You should see the critique of Mises in Rothbard's "Ethics of Liberty". (rothbard was a major player in the mises institute)

Edit #2:

Rothbard certainly was a misesian, but he didn't have a cultlike admiration for the man.

From Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty" (p. 207) ,attempting (in my opinion failing) to rebut Mises' defense of "value free" economics on the grounds that he could tell what policies would lead to certain ends, and people could then choose what ends they wanted.

"But ingenious as it is, the attempt completely fails. For how does Mises know what the advocates of the particular policy consider desirable? How does he know what their value-scales are now or what they will be when the consequences of the measure appear?.......Mises makes one further attempt to establish his position, but it is even less successful.....Furthermore, it is hardly correct for Mises to denounce these judgements as as "emotional"....It is pointless for Mises to call to call for his critics to use "discursive reasoning" since he himself denies denies that discursive reason can ever be used to achieve ultimate ethical values."

Also, the definition of "inelastic" requires that more money would go to the "poor" (I don't think we want to get into a debate about interpersonal utility comparisons) in the aggregate. I was talking about the total level of employment.