EconTalk – Libertarian perspectives

March 11, 2010Jon Brooks Comments Off

Some of you have no doubt seen the “Fear the Boom and Bust” video featuring the rap stylings of economists John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek, two economic theorists with diametrically opposed views. To put the dispute in its most simplistic terms, Keynes thought government intervention was the only way out of economic downturns, and Hayek…not so much. (Think Paul Krugman vs. Ron Paul to get a picture of two contemporary acolytes of these schools of thought.)

In Wikipedia’s entry on Keynes, the section “Economics: out of favour 1979–2007” is followed by “Economics: the Keynesian resurgence of 2008–2009.”

The Financial crisis of 2007–2010 led to public skepticism about the free market consensus even from some on the economic right. In March 2008, Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, announced the death of the dream of global free-market capitalism, and quoted Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, as saying “I no longer believe in the market’s self-healing power.” In the same month macroeconomist James K. Galbraith used the 25th Annual Milton Friedman Distinguished Lecture to launch a sweeping attack against the consensus for monetarist economics and argued that Keynesian economics were far more relevant for tackling the emerging crises.

So, with governments desperately trying to manage the fall-out from the recent capitalist implosion with courses of action anathema to free-market types, what’s a libertarian to do?

Well, for one, the dream still lives on at the EconTalk podcast, which hosts discussions on all types of economic, business, and financial topics, from a libertarian perspective. A sampling:

  • Barry Ritzholtz on Bailouts, the Fed, and the Crisis – The CEO, author, and blogger discusses the history of bailouts in recent times, beginning with Lockheed and Chrysler in the 1970s. What is the role of the Fed in discouraging prudence through its efforts to keep asset prices and the stock market at high levels?
  • Larry White on Hayek – The George Mason economics professor discusses the business cycle theory of Friedrich von Hayek of the Austrian School of economics and his intellectual battle with economist John Maynard Keynes.
  • Clifford Winston on Market Failure and Government Failure -The Brookings Institution scholar posits that government regulation often fails to meet its objectives and that “idealized theories of government intervention based on textbook theories of market failure are not the way regulation turns out in practice.”
  • Michael Belongia on the Fed – The former St. Louis Federal Reserve economist discusses the inner workings, politics, and economics of the Fed, how “power and politics play in Federal Reserve decision-making,” and how “various Fed chairs used their power to suppress dissent.”

All you Ron Paul renegades and von Mises votaries — check out the archive here.

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