Austrian Economics, Tool of the Elite?

There’s a bizarre left-wing/LaRouchian claim going around that the Austrian School of economics is nothing more than a grandiose rationalization of world domination by the existing financial elite. The financial elite allegedly support Austrian economics for this reason.

Leaving aside the general absurdity of the claim (are the financial elites calling for the abolition of central banking, which they labored so hard to establish in the first place?), this claim would seem to involve the individuals making it in rather a difficult contradiction:

(1) Austrian economics serves the financial elites, who in turn favor Austrian economics.
(2) The financial elites have vast influence.
(3) Almost no economics undergraduate ever hears a thing about Austrian economics.

If the financial elites want to promote Austrian economics and have vast influence, how can it be that they have done such a terrible job, as reflected in (3)?

Anonymous

If the financial elite supposedly loves and benefits so much from Austrian Economics, why do they spend piles of cash on the campaigns of Keynesians and Fed-lovers?
John007

Hey Tom,

I have no clue why out of the blue, Keiser decided to attack Misesians, but his new drivel ain’t any better than the last one.

I had so much respect for the entertaining econ-loudmouth, and like Tarpley whom I tolerated for his geopolitical acumen despite his commie leanings, I’m afraid I must part ways with Keiser, too now.

It seems lately any litmus test has been the world vs. Dr. Paul and Austrian School.

And, seriously, WhoTF ever heard of Jaitly? WhoTF made him the numero uno Austrian supremo??

Didn’t Bob Murphy and Peter Schiff appear on the Keiser Report before?

Pretty telling he won’t invite them back on for a real debate, eh?

Anyway his recent on takes the cake (I guess your blog entry maybe already referring to it, but in case you haven’t seen the latest): he actually has the gall to say that Mises provides an “as an ideological framework” for Wall St. corporatists!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBHcpxxsq8w

Lord have mercy.

Verbal fireworks, sir? Or, ignore the internet turd??

Tom, we love ya!
http://www.facebook.com/benoravetz Ben Oravetz

Austrian economics is not a perfect system for understanding the use of scarce resources that have other uses (to borrow Dr. Thomas Sowell’s definition), but it provides far better insight than what we have been working with.

The problem with Leftists is that they ultimately want total State control. While they may be allies with the liberty movement due to our shared disgust of the Corporatist, fail upwards system we are currently under, they will turn on libertarians and anarcho-capitalists at the drop of a dime.

Like most power players, they merely oppose the existing system because they don’t control it.
jaffi411

They’re doing it subconsciously.
jaffi411

They’re doing is subconsciously.
http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

Totally ignore. He is doing this to generate traffic, so no more links from me. He still can’t answer my challenge. No one with any intelligence could think he came out the winner in our exchange, so I’m happy to leave it there.
Dan

The only tweak I would make to your strategy is to not ignore him if it presents a good learning opportunity. He’ll probably just spout nonsense better left ignored, but you never know when he might present a teaching moment again.
http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

Dan, this is good strategy 99% of the time, but I think Max is an exception. I can probably find other people spouting the same fallacies, so I’ll answer them instead and deprive Max of the traffic.
CT

The reality is that Max Keiser doesn’t care about understanding Austrian economics. All he needs to know is that Austrians are pro-private property. That makes you (Tom) and all Austrian economists his enemy. And he’s obviously willing to lie and use every dirty trick in the book to discredit his enemies. They guy’s a hack. Intelligent people realize this …
Bob

Thanks for explaining the obvious stupidity among Conspiracy theorists. As soon as someone has any connection to jewish heritage or masonry, they immediately claim guilt by association. It is a piss-poor way to indict someone.
onceproudamerican

The reason ‘establishment’ economists, and statists hate Austrian Economics is because it doesn’t rely on econometrics and other malleable ‘tools’ which allow the user to pre-determine what the data will ‘prove’. It is basically ‘common sense’, a toxic term to statists and global governance crowd.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Roy-J-Lores/684288969 Roy J Lores

That’s has to be the mother of absurdities.
Mocragnon

You know how far-fetched a claim is when it can be dismissed so easily with one simple point made in less than 10 sentences.
Sammy Dennison

OK the abolition of central banking is one thing but how about the tax breaks? (3) I did economics (well PPE) and Hayek was mentioned – as was free marketism as a general philosophy. I reject it because it does not secure the priority investment in the way that the mandate to taxation could.
http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

So you reject it because you believe your values should trump everyone else’s?

Also, it’s no big whoop to encounter general free-marketism. Austrianism is very different from what usually passes as “free-market economics.”
Rick

Tom, Not trying to take sides here but a possible answer to your question: “are the financial elites calling for the abolition of central banking, which they labored so hard to establish in the first place?” If the goal were a single central bank and fiat currency (Rothbard I recall mentions something about such an institution inflating away), then the Austrians could serve a useful purpose (even if unintentionally) by undermining individual nation-state central banks to make way for a more global one (e.g. IMF and SDRs, etc.)
http://twitter.com/_Zero30_ Conscious Objector

Ah, well Tom, I have heard these people too, and they get around this problem by claiming that Austrian economics, and indeed the whole liberty movement at the intellectual leadership level, is merely ‘controlled opposition’. These people are so detached from reason it’s futile to reason with them.