The Free Market

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The Free Market The Free Market September 1985 • The Ludwig von Mises Institute Human Inaction: Congress and Economics by Congressman Dick Armey It is well .. known that bureaucracies, especially govern.. mental bureaucracies, have an unparalleled ability to suf.. focate innovation. Perhaps not as well known is the ability of those same institutions to ignore systematically well.. documented, empirically supportable precepts about how the world really works. Congress is the archetypical example of this black hole of historical precedent. It is an institution with an uncanny inability to distinguish between good and bad ideas, and almost invariably enact the bad. The bad ideas are de.. fended with rhetorical barrages untainted by any under.. standing of the human action of free exchange based on free will. Much to my chagrin-as a wayward economist who :ound his way to this body-no subject is so paved with Ambassador J. \"'('illiam Middendorf, II, (left) is introduced by Institute Senior Fellate Stet'e H. Hanke (right) of Johns Hopkins University. good intentions ... and bad government policy. To most members of the House, "Austrian" means only a good Mises Institute Inaugurates D.C. Seminars place for summer ski vacations. The Mises Institute began its Washington, D.C., seminar For example, here are five of the worst economic ideas series with three outstanding presentations. currently being circulated, debated, and advocated with scrupulous di~regard for fact on Capitol Hill. Dr. lv1urray N. Rothbard, professor of economics at New York Polytechnic and the Institute's vice president Comparable Worth-This brainchild of social engineers for academic affairs, discussed "Ludwig von Mises and inspired U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Clarence Pendle.. Austrian Economics"; the Hon. William Middendorf, II, ton to label it "the looniest idea since Loony Tunes." J. then U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American Basically it amounts to government.. mandated wages. In States (now to the European Community) and chairman the name of equality, this concept ignores the fact that of the Institute's advisory council of public officials, talked women make less than men because on average they tend to on "The Future of Latin America: Free Market or De.. have less experience, choose to work fewer hours, choose cline"; and Dr. Richard Ebeling of the University of Dal.. to leave jobs to raise families, and sometimes-for family las, an adjunct scholar of the Institute, gave a presentation reasons-choose lower skilled (and hence lower.. paying) on "An Austrian View of Spending and Deficits." jobs. In disregard of all these choices and all market analy.. sis and behavior, the government planners advocate estab.. Guests at the seP.1inars include government officials, lishing a wage and salary board with the authority to set (Continued on page 7) "fair" wages based on arbitrary and discriminatory guide.. lines. INSIDE Level Playing Field~ This used to be known as protection.. sm, but in the modern lexicon of Washington, it's referred Coming Events to as "fair trade." Congress, of course, rushes to the aid of firms; consumers are rejecting with bail..outs, tariffs, quo.. "Bankruns and Water Shortages" (Continued on page 6) From the President I LETTERS The $2 Trillion Debt by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. '~rom a student in Texas "In the short time I have been involved in economics, it The Treasury will ask Congress this month for an in­ has become increasingly clear to me that the field is in crease in the national debt ceiling to $2 trillion-more than chaos. double the amount Jimmy Carter left us. "During the 20th century, the majority of economists The debt-ceiling is always the figure to watch instead of have claimed that through statistical analysis, they can the budget deficit, because the official figures don't in­ straighten out the business cycle, insure full employment clude off-budget deficits. Thus, although this year's fed­ and competition, stabilize prices with full economic eral deficit is said to be $200 billion, it's actually more than growth, and maintain a just distribution of wealth. $250 billion. "The consequences of these ideas have been disastrous. Financing the debt requires federal spending of more The Keynesians add more complex variables to their mod­ than $150 billion a year, and because the debt is virtually els, as do the econometricians, but this doesn't work either. all short-term-the Federal Reserve having destroyed the long-term bond market-the financing costs rise quickly "Now it is possible to justify any new harebrained politi­ with higher inflation and interest rates. cal scheme by citing some economist who can 'prove' that the new intervention will benefit everyone. As a result, the Who's to blame for these unimaginable figures? The whole field of economics is at a crossroads. politicians, who propose and pass massively out-of-balance budgets, and the intellectuals who excuse them. "But, amidst all the economic nihilism, there stands a school of thought-although still a minority one-that The culprit is not tax-cutting. Today's government reve­ recognizes that no matter how the state attempts to manip­ nues are more than $100 billion higher than they were in ulate people as pawns, there is still only one \vay for society 1980, but federal spending is more than $300 billion to achieve its highest end: through the spontaneous order higher. If the surplus of government spending over taxes is freedom. borrowed, it makes productive private borrowing much harder, and many projects which would have provided "Hayek's famous dictum summarizes it well: the good jobs and a higher standard of living for everyone are never society is a result of human action, not human design. undertaken. Government borrowing also drains society's "Following the intellectual tradition of Austrian eco­ savings in a particularly direct and damaging way. nomics, from Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises through If federal deficits are financed through Federal Reserve Murray Rothbard and Hans Sennholz, has been a most creation of bank credit, the dollar is depreciated, with all of rewarding challenge to me over the last two and a half the economic suffering and societal instability inflation years. brings. And today, that is the way more and more of the "I was introduced to Austrian economics and the free deficit is being financed. That's why non-seasonally ad­ market after two semesters of strict Keynesianism. In justed M 1 rose a mind-boggling $1 7.9 billion one week in knowledge and understanding of Austrian economics I am, August. of course, only a beginner. I will continue to read and study Will higher taxes help? No, because the politicians will the staple texts again and again, and read other works as always spend every dime they extract in taxes, and more, well. I want to spend my career studying, teaching, and and a giant percentage of society's resources is already promoting the ideas of the Austrian perspective, and hope wasted by government. to contribute someday myself to scholarly research in this area. In the short term, we can only work for lower federal spending in every area of the budget. In the long term, we "I will be pursuing my Masters and then my PhD in can work for a gold standard. economics at the University of Houston, and a Mises Fel­ lowship would help me reach my goals. I would consider it A real gold standard makes inflationary credit creation a great honor to be associated with the Institute, and will impossible. Combine that with a constitutional prohi­ do my absolute best to promote the ideas embodied in this bition against unbalanced budgets (and against off-budget "",reat intellectual tradition." • financing), and a people watchful against high government spending and taxes, and we have the kind of system the The Institute was very glad to be able-through the generosity of Founders envisioned. Go on as we are-in monetary, fiscal, its Members-to help this fine student. and trade policy-and we face another Great Depression. 2 Bank Runs and Water Shortages by Murray N. Rothbard It was a scene familiar to any nostalgia buff: all,night lines waiting for the banks (first in Ohio, then in Mary, land) to open; pompous but mendacious assurances by the bankers that all is well and that the people should go home; a stubborn insistence by depositors to get their money out; and the consequent closing of the banks by government, while at the same time the banks \vere permit, ted to stay in existence and collect the debts due them by their borrowers. In other words, instead of government protecting private property and enforcing voluntary contracts, it deliberately violated the property of the depositors by barring them from retrieving their own money from the banks. All this was, of course, a replay of the early 1930s: the last era of massive runs on the banks. On the surface the Murray Rothbard (left) and Lew Rocktt-ell (center) u:ith David Fand (right) weakness was the fact that the failed banks were insured by of Wa)·ne State University, the Heritage Foundation's John M. Olin Fellou;, at an Institute seminar in Washington. private or state deposit insurance agencies, \vhereas the banks that easily withstood the storm were insured by the This means that the depositor who thinks he has federal government (FDIC for commercial banks; FSLIC $10,000 in a bank is misled; in a proportionate sense, there for savings and loan banks). is only, say, $1,000 or less there. And yet, both the check, ing depositor and the savings depositor thinks that he can But why? What is the magic elixir possessed by the withdra\v his money at any time on demand.
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