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Steve Keen on Austrian Economics

Summary:
Steve Keen gives an interesting lecture below on the Austrian school of economics.[embedded content]Some critical points: (1) it is an oversimplification to say that Austrians do not support equilibrium as the essential feature of a capitalist economy (see 2.20 onwards), though admittedly there is some balance in this point later on. In fact, it is really only the stream of Austrian economics connected with Ludwig Lachmann that questions whether a tendency to general equilibrium is a feature of real world capitalism. The other streams of Austrian theory are fully on board with the idea that capitalism has an inherent tendency towards an equilibrium state (usually Mises’ final state of rest), even if it never reaches it (see also here).However, it is very curious indeed that Carl Menger’s original Austrian theory seems to have shunned modern general equilibrium theory in important ways.(2) I am very much afraid that in a talk on Austrian economics a disproportionate amount of time is spent on Schumpeter. Schumpeter was not an Austrian, but an idiosyncratic neoclassical.(3) for a more wide-ranging critique of Austrian economics, see my post here.

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Steve Keen gives an interesting lecture below on the Austrian school of economics.

Some critical points:

(1) it is an oversimplification to say that Austrians do not support equilibrium as the essential feature of a capitalist economy (see 2.20 onwards), though admittedly there is some balance in this point later on. In fact, it is really only the stream of Austrian economics connected with Ludwig Lachmann that questions whether a tendency to general equilibrium is a feature of real world capitalism. The other streams of Austrian theory are fully on board with the idea that capitalism has an inherent tendency towards an equilibrium state (usually Mises’ final state of rest), even if it never reaches it (see also here).

However, it is very curious indeed that Carl Menger’s original Austrian theory seems to have shunned modern general equilibrium theory in important ways.

(2) I am very much afraid that in a talk on Austrian economics a disproportionate amount of time is spent on Schumpeter. Schumpeter was not an Austrian, but an idiosyncratic neoclassical.

(3) for a more wide-ranging critique of Austrian economics, see my post here.

Lord Keynes
Realist Left social democrat, left wing, blogger, Post Keynesian in economics, but against the regressive left, against Postmodernism, against Marxism

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