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The Austrian School
Joined November 2023
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Der "POINT OF NO RETURN" in der Lehre von Von Mises:
"Ein Staat wird in an dem Punkt beinahe unreformierbar, an dem die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung finanziell oder strukturell vom Staat abhängig ist (Staatsangestellte, Beamte, Subventions- oder Förderungsempfänger, Bezieher von Transferleistungen etc.) Sobald die Gruppe derjenigen, die netto vom Staat profitiert oder alimentiert wird, größer ist als die Gruppe, bei der dies nicht der Fall ist, blockiert das System Reformen, da die Mehrheit aus Eigeninteresse für den Erhalt oder Ausbau staatlicher Leistungen stimmt."
Das ist genau die shice, die wir haben.
the socialist who earns a salary lecturing people about the rich. the activist on payroll. the union boss with a mansion
they're not against the existence of wealth. they're against the existence of wealth they don't control
every socialist movement is led by people who would be very rich in the system they're building. and they're not hiding it. they just say "when we get there, my role will be managing it."
yes. that was the plan
an excavator does the work of 100 men with shovels. the keynesian looks at this and sees 99 lost jobs
by that logic we should ban the excavator. and the shovel. and the wheel
the goal was never jobs. the goal was stuff. jobs are the cost, not the product.
the economy that maximizes employment by making everyone dig with spoons is just hell with extra steps
"democratic ownership of the means of production" is a very polite phrase for: 51% of people vote to take 100% of what the other 49% built
it's not democracy in the workplace. it's democracy over the workplace. the workers didn't buy the factory. they voted on it. those are very different things
a vote can't build a factory. it can only decide who gets to keep one
rent control is taking a photograph of the housing market in one year and legally demanding it stay that photo forever
meanwhile the city around it changes. costs rise. buildings age. the landlord who can't raise rent doesn't renovate, he converts the building to something else or lets it rot
you didn't freeze rents. you froze the moment a landlord was willing to maintain a building.
the picture stays. the building leaves
if your money is good, why does it need a legal tender law forcing people to accept it?
nobody has to be forced to accept gold. nobody has to be sued for refusing a gold coin. the law isn't protecting the money.
it's protecting the money's bad reputation
fiat currency is the only product in history that needs armed enforcement to compete with salt
and you just completely ignore austrian economics while you are on the way
My Intellectual Journey to Post-Keynesian Economics:
1. First, you study neoclassical macroeconomics at university and master its theoretical framework.
2. Then you try to apply what you’ve learned to explain real-world economic processes — and fail spectacularly. The theory exists in one world, economic reality in another.
3. Next, you turn to Marxism. Its intellectual depth, historical perspective, and literary elegance are compelling, but attempts to directly connect its theoretical categories to the System of National Accounts and the modern monetary and financial system prove rather difficult.
4. After years of searching, you finally discover Post-Keynesian economics, particularly stock-flow consistent models, where production, income, expenditure, debt, and financial assets finally come together within a coherent, macroeconomically consistent framework.
there is no such thing as a firm that doesn't have an influence on its price
the pure competition theory is a fallacious one
yet it's in every single economic syllabus taught to 'aspiring economists'
the individual firm, no matter the size, no matter how small, always has a certain level of influence over its pricing
every time a system built on central control collapses, the believers say it was never real.
“real socialism has never been tried”
so the experiment fails every single time, in every setting, with every kind of person running it.
and the theory is still “undefeated”
a theory that can't lose isn't a theory. it's a hobby. nobody blames the recipe when the cake burns every time they bake it.
except for the socialist of course
the central bank promises price stability. the target is 2% inflation every year
at 2% a year, your money loses half its purchasing power in about 36 years.
that's the stable version. that's the “success story”
imagine a baker who promises every loaf is stable, it only shrinks a little each year. you'd call that a scam.
when the state does it, we shut our eyes and call it a mandate
the debt isn't a problem, says the economist. we owe it to ourselves
so who exactly is the "we" that gets repaid and who is the "ourselves" that pays? because they're not the same people. one group holds the bonds. another group pays the taxes
"we owe it to ourselves" is what you say when you want to hide that someone is the creditor and someone else is the debtor.
the debtor just hasn't been born yet or hasn't been billed yet
explain without any fiat eye-rolling as to why the money supply needs to expand in order for the economy to remain stable
to an extent, yes. but it is no coincidence that the printer turns on each time we enter a 'deflationary period'
a kid breaks a window. the glazier gets paid. the keynesian says great, that's spending, that's growth
nobody asks what the shopkeeper would have bought with that money instead. a suit. a new oven. the window is visible. the suit that never got made is not
the economy didn't grow. it got a window back and lost a suit. you can count the window in gdp. you can't count the suit anywhere. that's the whole trick
the regulator says consumers make bad decisions. they buy junk. they save too little. they borrow too much. they need protection from their own judgment
fair. but who regulates the regulator? the same species. the same brain. the same biases. the same limited information
apparently bad judgment disappears when you get appointed to a committee. the same humans who can't be trusted to choose their own groceries can be trusted to choose the rules for everyone's groceries
the consumer makes one bad decision and pays for it. the regulator makes one bad decision and millions pay.
the scale of the error is the only difference.