There can be no doubt that most of those in the democracies who demand a central direction of all economic activity still believe that socialism and individual freedom can be combined. Yet socialism was early recognized by many thinkers as the gravest threat to freedom.Read the whole thing.
"Fight of the Century" is the new economics hip-hop music video by John Papola and Russ Roberts at http://EconStories.tv.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Great Recession ended almost two years ago, in the summer of 2009. Yet we're all uneasy. Job growth has been disappointing. The recovery seems fragile. Where should we head from here? Is that question even meaningful? Can the government steer the economy or have past attempts helped create the mess we're still in?
In "Fight of the Century", Keynes and Hayek weigh in on these central questions. Do we need more government spending or less? What's the evidence that government spending promotes prosperity in troubled times? Can war or natural disasters paradoxically be good for an economy in a slump? Should more spending come from the top down or from the bottom up? What are the ultimate sources of prosperity?
Keynes and Hayek never agreed on the answers to these questions and they still don't. Let's listen to the greats. See Keynes and Hayek throwing down in "Fight of the Century"!
Starring Billy and Adam from http://www.billyandadam.com
Although it’s probably true that most socialists‘ idea of justice would be satisfied if income from private property were abolished, it does not follow that this was Hayek’s idea of justice. Hayek didn’t think it was “okay” to collectivize the entire means of production, whether by the state or by private action.One of the interesting developments of the Internet Age is the emergence of the knowledge economy. The idea of "collectivizing the means of production" in the knowledge economy is downright Orwellian.
The ability to accumulate capital and to believe that one held it justly was, for Hayek, a most important incentive for the formation of responsible individuals. If the means of production were collectivized, individual character would suffer, and society would suffer with it.
...you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so.I'm going with "missing something." This also reminds me of a great F. A. Hayek quote: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
Haub's 'bad' cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his 'good' cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.
'That's where the head scratching comes,' Haub said. 'What does that mean? Does that mean I'm healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we're missing something?'
On October 25th, an audience of financial managers and CEOs, politicians, central bankers and Nobel Prize-winning economists at The Economist’s Buttonwood Gathering were treated to an unusual experience: a live rap battle between John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek.
The debates raging over what policies will pull the U.S. economy out of its Great Recession replicate one that occurred during the Great Depression. Thanks to the efforts of Richard Ebeling, a professor of economics at Northwood University, we have compelling and concise documentary evidence. He has unearthed letters to the Times of London from the two sides that mirror today's debates.The debate rages on because the answers to those questions are not settled.
...
Prof. Ebeling's rediscovery of these letters has unleashed a torrent of comments on blog sites. As New York University economist Mario Rizzo put it, "The great debate is still Keynes versus Hayek. All else is footnote." Economists have clothed the debate with ever greater mathematical complexity, but the underlying issues remain the same.
Was Keynes correct that savings become idle money and depress economic activity? Or was the Hayek view, first articulated by Adam Smith in the "Wealth of Nations" in 1776, correct? (Smith: "What is annually saved is as regularly consumed as what is annually spent, and nearly in the same time too.")
Is all spending equally productive, or should government policies aim to simulate private investment? If the latter, then Mr. Obama is following in FDR's footsteps and impeding recovery. He does so by demonizing business and creating regime uncertainty through new regulations and costly programs. In this he follows neither Hayek nor Keynes, since creating a lack of confidence is considered destructive by both.
Finally, is creating new public debt in a weakened economy the path to recovery? Or is "economy" (austerity in today's debate) and thrift the path to prosperity now, as it has usually been considered before?
, it's sold out (h/t: Instapundit). Luckily, there are a couple of alternatives available for those too impatient to wait. Sharp Elbows (a conservative blog for the A. D. D. generation) will be glad to know that there's a comic book edition (h/t: again Instapundit). Reader's Digest published a shortened version of Hayek's masterpiece and that version is available online as a PDF. Interestingly, Amazon not only has the "definitive edition" ranked #1 in books, but they have it in stock, in hardback, and downloadable for Kindle. I suppose they became the world's largest book store by squirreling away copies of what the people want before the people know they want it., I discovered The Proceedings of the Friesian School. Friesian.com is a little difficult to navigate... I usually scroll down to "Topics and Essays" and poke around there for something to read. Between my two readings of The Road to Serfdom, I read the Friesian essays on Ancient Greek Philosophy and I believe this made Hayek's book much more accessible the second time. If you need a break from philosophy and economics, I recommend the essay on The Practical Rules of Bureaucracy.Rush Limbaugh has said on his show many times that once the government runs health care, there is a threat that life-or-death decisions will be made based on politics, and people will worry that if they criticize the government or espouse the wrong opinions decisions will go against them.This topic is covered at length in Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
. As I recall, the chapter "Who, Whom" discusses the incentives mismatch between those Who have administrative power and those on Whom they wield it. This is also why administrative law is such a problem.
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