[polymathemagics]

I would recommend against Human Action. It's "Austrian" school economics, which is considered heterodox, and it's something that's understandable by a layman but generally not be considered good economics. I fell into the trap when I was in high school of reading Mises and Rothbard et al, I wish I had not.

[swfsql]

^ For the theory, absolutely zero arguments were given whatsoever.

[polymathemagics]

Fair - I did not give any arguments, just my personal experience as someone that was really deep into that subculture. I'm also not an economist, so I would defer to the professional consensus, which I think we'd both agree is that modern Austrian economics is not considered a serious thing. I think we should be wary of debating a highly technical topic as a layman - it's very easy to be wrong, and it's hard to get feedback from people more versed in these topics. For context - I wanted to be an Austrian economist when I started college, I was majoring in math (real analysis, etc) and econ with the intention of starting an econ phd. I fell in love with computer science instead. I look back on my libertarian / austrian phase as just me having too much time on my hands as a high schooler, being a pretty smart student, and there being a wealth of info online about it. It feels even better as a smart person to think that you know something others don't, including professional economists. I just want people online to be aware of the Austrian rabbit hole, because the von Mises institute is just a think tank in Alabama that's very good at creating an online presence that feels legitimate and scholarly, but it's not really. That's not to say there's not interesting arguments, I'll always be attracted to some libertarian ideas, e.g. some of Walter Block's Defending the Undefendable. But I think most people can relate to having strong convictions about something, growing older, losing the conviction, and then being wary of taking extreme positions in topics that they know little about.

[daninus14]

Interesting, can you please share anything, besides that "professional consensus" is different, on what is the problem with the Austrian view of central banks? You realize that by saying "Professional consensus" in a field of study, not practice, is worthless by definition?

[polymathemagics]

Not really, no. You're both correct that I offer no substantive arguments against austrian economics, ABC theory, or their critique of central banks.

I'm not a professional economist. I honestly know very little about the subject (apart from taking intermediate micro / macro and having had an interest in the subject since childhood). I don't think I could argue against the view that "climate change is a hoax" either, because I don't really understand the science. There are many things in my life that I believe despite not being a PhD in the field - and yes, a lot of it relies on appeals to authority and my impression of the world, which we could disagree on. I'm just advocating that we all share a bit of humility when it comes to highly technical topics, and in doing so we should probably defer more to academic consensus. Otherwise, it's essentially like debating religions - fun perhaps, but no one really knows what they're talking about.

I think we can both agree with the statement that academic economists by and large dismiss Austrian economics. If not, let me know, and I'd be happy to debate that point. Of course, "Austrian" economists have made many meaningful contributions to the field, e.g. Menger's marginal revolution, Bohm-Bawerk's work, Schumpeter's creative destruction, etc. Hayek was a well regarded political and economic thinker.

However, modern day austrian economics is essentially a think tank that espouses a very hardcore version of libertarianism - claiming that modern economics is a farce, empirical methods are useless, and that inflation is the devil and we need to return to the gold standard. I remember reading Rothbard's The Case Against the Fed and parroting many of the points, having been impassioned by Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. I remember railing against the Fed and its loose monetary policy, absolutely sure that inflation was coming post 2008 (it did not).

I can't really provide a detailed takedown of Austrian economics, again, because I'm not an economist. All I have is my life experiences of having believed in it ardently, and then not, and then asking myself why I was ever convinced in the first place. Bryan Kaplan, another extremely libertarian / ancap economist, has a critique here that some might find influential: https://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm. But most serious economists don't even address it, presumably because it's not a part of academic discourse at all. More pop economists from across the spectrum, like Krugman and Friedman, both disparaged it of course.

The thing to be wary about is that Austrian economics is essentially ignored by mainstream economists, but Austrian believers are extremely passionate and have built up a huge online presence - led by a handful of non-economist political bloggers. So if you google austrian economics, you'll find pages and pages of Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell, etc. It's very easy to fall down the rabbit hole. Meanwhile, academic economists are doing research, not creating pages and pages of "austrian economics is pseudoscience" articles. Listen, if you want to be a libertarian, that's fine by me - but upholding austrian economics to help justify your political beliefs seems a bit unnecessary to me.