Renowned local economist explains controversial Austrian theory (Loyola U.)

The most common criticism of Austrian economics is that it relies solely on logic, and does not seek statistical validation for its claims.

A system that relies on logic in a world chock full of illogical people.

Correct, but it actually goes back further than that.

The founder of Christianity made several references to capitalism in the parable of the talents, the parable of the harvest, the sower and the gatherer and many others.

He also advocated almsgiving from the viewpoint of personal responsibility but, at no time, advocated forcible extraction of alms to be redistributed in a manner he deemed most appropriate.

“Austrian theory is not a mainstream section of economics” - since when? Keynesians came out in 1920s/30s against Austrian theory but the Austrians didn’t go away, they just became a minority over the next 60+ years.

Thanks Para-Ord.45.

Dr. Walter Block holds an endowed chair at Loyola University and is a faculty member of the Mises Institute... "If government is bad, then a shut-down government is good... I wish they would've shut more of it down, they didn't shut enough of it down for long enough." ...Free enterprise is the school's main tenet. Austrian theory says regulation is bad for the general welfare, as well as for economic growth and stability. One thing Block mentioned he would do if tasked with improving the U.S. economy would be to eliminate the minimum wage, because it unnecessarily raises unemployment. "...when you have a minimum wage, you'll create unemployment for people whose productivity is below that level stipulated by the minimum wage."

When there's a national minimum wage, such a one-size-fits-all policy overprices labor in places with low cost of living, while remaining irrelevant in places with high cost of living (like NYC, Chicago, other urban areas), IOW, it doesn't increase employment in the latter, and leads to underemployment (at best) and outsourcing (at worst) in the former.

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