# Libertarian & Austrian School of Economics



## ringledman (19 Sep 2009)

Any fellow Libertarians & followers of the Austrian School of Economics out there?

Has the Austrian model ever been successfully used in the world? Or have the Keynesians continued to intervene and not allow the Austrian model to work?

Thoughts would be appreciated.


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## UptheDeise (23 Sep 2009)

I follow the Austrian school of economics. To tell you the truth I've only become familar with this type of economics model over the last year.

AFAIK, I don't think it was ever implemented in full for nearly 100 years now.


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## ringledman (23 Sep 2009)

Good to see someone else out there!

Yes the Austrian model is also fairly new to me too, although i have always agreed with the principles without knowing a model existed for such thinking. 

Unfortunately I don't think a government has ever had the opportunity to enact its principles as the Austrian model could be somewhat unpopular for a few years whilst it got working. 

Governments the world over try too much to appease the voters to allow such 'real economics' to work.


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## Chris (24 Sep 2009)

Yup, I'm a big proponent of Austrian Economics.

As far as I know the only time that something close to a pure Austrian Economic system was in place, was for a few years in the early days of the Federal Republic of Germany, albeit accidentally rather than consciously. During allied occupation after the war, the same socialist rules were applied as were present during the 3rd Reich. As Germans called more and more for freedom from occupation, the FRG was born, which had much more important things to do than interfering in the economy. As a result an almost immediate boom started. 
The first evidence of government intervention was in the residential housing market. As a result, the reconstruction of residential property lagged way behind the reconstruction of commercial propoerty, because it was deemed that business owners didn't need 'protection' from landlords.
There is a great article about this on the von Mises Institute web-site: http://mises.org/story/3635

What baffles me most, is how many people are so outspokenly in favour of the democratic process, but are at the same time completely against a totally free-market economy. In a totally free-market economy all market participant of all ages, sexes, races, etc. have an equal vote with every penny they spend or don't spend, thereby voting for or against a service or good. Is this not as democratic a system as is possible? How can it be argued that a small group of elected people can have the same collective knowledge as all market participants put together?

It certainly is nice to see some same-minded people around here.


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## UptheDeise (24 Sep 2009)

I just don't know why people can't see that government interference with the markets actually causes more problems than good. I guess people are told by the politicians what they want to hear.


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## Chris (24 Sep 2009)

Totally agree, the biggest problem is that long-term, sustainable prosperity is not in the interest of politicians who have to worry about the next election day, not what's 15 years down the line.
People want all the riches and comforts of the world and they want them now with as little effort as possible. When government shows short term results by interfering with the market (e.g. mortgage subsidies, tax relief on investment properties, reduced/no stamp duty as was common practice int heis country), and people don't have to save and work hard to get the luxeries/niceties in life, then this is automatically seen as speeding up economic prosperity. The current mess shows though how flawed this ideology has become.
The only way to stop this is by reducing the influence of government on the market, with the added bonus of reducing corruption; if politicians have no influence on certain market segments, then they cannot be bribed/lobbied to influence it.


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## UptheDeise (26 Sep 2009)

I see that the MSM are beginning to pay attention to Libertarians.



> INFLATION in the United States, caused by the Federal Reserve's efforts to prop up the American economy, will cause stocks to outperform cash and bond investments, according to Marc Faber, of the US 'Gloom, Boom & Doom' report.
> Money pumped into the economy by central bankers will push the Standard & Poor's 500 Index as high as 1,250 in a year, Mr Faber said on Bloomberg Television.


 
[broken link removed]


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