[nairboon]

Propaganda is quite a strong term to describe the works of an economist. If one wants to debate the ideas of von Mises, it'd be useful to consider the Zeitgeist at that time. Von Mises preferred free markets in contrast to the planned economy of the communists. Partly because the latter has difficulties in proper resource allocation and pricing. Note that this was decades before we had working digital computers and digital communication systems, which, at least in theory, change the feasibility of a planned economy.

Also, the last time I checked, the US government produced its goods and services using the free market. The government contractors (private enterprises) are usually tasked with building stuff, compared with the government itself in a non-free, purely planned economy (if you refer to von Mises).

I assume that you originally meant to refer to the idea that without government intervention (funding for deep R&D), the free market itself would probably not have produced things like the internet or the moon landing (or at least not within the observed time span). That is, however,a rather interesting idea.

[brodock]

Governament contracts are very restricted behind layers of certifications and authorizations.

For example, you can't freely produce missiles and have it in wallmart where "the governament" purchase at shelf price.

[butlike]

What a world that would be. Would change the game of 'deer hunting' for sure.

[pjc50]

> The government contractors (private enterprises) are usually tasked with building stuff

Ah yes, situation where the government makes a plan and then hands it to the one (1) qualified defense contractor whose facilities are build in swing states to benefit specific congressional campaigns is completely different from central planning.

[nairboon]

There are some resemblances, which indicate that you might not have a fully functioning free market. But central planning in the context of von Mises refers to something else. It's about the organization of whole national economies, as in planned economies, a thing you find in communist states or Lenin's "war communism".

[spwa4]

You should read up on Yanis Varoufakis' history and just how bad his solution for Greece went. That will explain the extreme amounts of anger on both his side, the side of Greeks and the side of the EU and worldwide financial community (and the EU itself used to be an industry cartel, so you can guess how much every government institution in the EU aligns with the worldwide financial community). This guy will never be allowed to do anything remotely serious in economics ever again, and he knows it very well. His Diem24 project is failing, and he knows that too. He feels the ECB, specifically Mario Draghi, Jeroen Dijsselbloem and Christine Lagarde are responsible for this downfall and talks about them in a way that makes you say "he can't be allowed near them. Seriously. Call the police". But in the constant tragedy of his life: He's probably right they caused his downfall.

He caused a MAJOR issue for Greece that still affects everyone in his country today, after reassuring people for 2+ years it was never going to happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis

(He'd kill me for saying this but he was lying back then too. He was trying to pull a Thatcher (I could compare him to someone else that did the same a long time ago but ... let's just say if you know you know). He was trying to double Greece's public debt by lying to everyone about what he was doing. He failed, and then started threatening, and when his threats didn't work, he got fired by Greece's prime minister, his oldest friend. It ended the friendship. He lost. And he's not a good enough sport to accept that he lost, frankly he got caught and couldn't talk his way out of it. This, despite the fact that he was finance minister, and so will be paid, very well I might add, for the rest of his life despite what he did, and despite the fact that every Greek today is still paying the price for what he did)

Oh and he's pro-Russia. All Russia wants in Ukraine, according to Yanis, is help the European poor. More detailed he is of the opinion that the current course of action of the EU will lead to a war with Russia, in which a lot of European poor will be forced to fight in an actual war, facing bullets and bombs in trenches. This could be avoided by giving Ukraine and the Baltics to Russia. In the repeating tragedy of Yanis Varoufakis' life, I have to say, yet again: he may be right (I just strongly disagree that offering Ukraine and the Baltics up to Russia is an acceptable solution to this problem, and in any case, this is neither his, nor my choice to make)

He does not live in Greece, his own country, he lives in the UK, making the case for Russia.

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/category/ukraine/

And I get it, his life has become this recurring tragedy. His father was a victim of a rightist dictatorship in Greece, and he was imprisoned and tortured for that, as well as losing his job, living in poverty for a very long time (yes, Greece was an extreme right dictatorship not that long ago, really, go look it up). Yanis Varoufakis himself became the victim of a cabal of laissez-faire very, very rich people who destroyed his career right at the peak of everything he achieved. He has been the victim of one or another form of extreme-right policy (in the sense of laissez-faire parties that capture governments) since he was 4 years old, right up to today. Over 60 years his life was sabotaged in 1000 different ways, some very direct. And, sadly, I agree with his "extreme-right" enemies: he can never be in allowed near any position of power ever again because of this, which isn't even his fault. (extreme-right according to him, I would refer to his enemies as "the status quo", and point out it's working pretty well for everyone)

[znort_]

> He caused a MAJOR issue for Greece that still affects everyone in his country today, after reassuring people for 2+ years it was never going to happen:

care to explain what exactly he caused and how that still affects everyone in his country? in particular how he managed to jump several years backward in the timeline?

[spwa4]

All I can say is "keep reading". Because it takes a BIG turn for the worse at one point, and that's where he's involved.

[xorcist]

> He caused a MAJOR issue for Greece

That link goes to the Greece financial crisis which, according to the Wikipedia page, started in 2009. Varoufakis was elected minister of finance in early 2015 and resigned only half a year later. From the outside, it seems impossible that his half year miniterial tenure could have caused a crisis half a decade earlier. At the time, Greece had already defaulted twice on their loans and were about to do it a third time.

[therobots927]

Economics is propaganda. It’s not an empiracle science, and it’s claims are mostly used to promote ideologies consistent with government policy or the ideology of powerful individuals with the surplus’s wealth available to pay someone to build a quantitative defense of said ideology. What else would you call it?

[nairboon]

It's a social science? Economics is much broader and much less unified than you purport it to be. The (social) science of (in this case) Macroeconomics is just that, an observational science, a bunch of theories and observations (controlled experiments are not really feasible). The propaganda is caused by politicians, administrators, and policymakers, not really the scientists. There I agree with you, central bankers are a prime example of such propaganda. Ever wondered why almost everywhere the inflation target is 2%? Not 1%, not 3%, but exactly 2%? There is no real scientific reason behind it, that is just policy, or propaganda if you want to name it like that.

[therobots927]

Social scientist carry out experiments / causal analysis on granular data. Macro economics (not micro) I should clarify meets the definition of propaganda because its theories do not have solid backing with experimentation or data. It is primarily used by the state to manufacture consent for economic policies that implement incentive structures that benefit the most wealthy people in society. It’s not that complicated.