Austrian School

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"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action."

The Austrian School, though not an actual political ideology and rather a school of economic theory, has been greatly influential among libertarian circles. It may be taken as the political ideology usually adhered to by those who follow this school of economics, given rise to the term Austrolibertarianism shortened to Austrobert. Thus, as a political ideology, it usually takes form as libertarian, economically laissez-faire, and culturally variable but usually leaning right.

Philosophically, it is important to note that Mises' concept of praxeology as his methodology for the study of economic theory, stems from the kantian idea of the existence of synthetic a priori truths (that is, truths that can be deduced a priori but that require more than the use of formal logic), contrary to empiricism, which claims that the only synthetic truths that exist are discovered through a posteriori experience.

From this epistemological pre-supposition about the nature of knowledge, follows that economics studies can't be done by empirical methods due to it being a social science and not a hard science, making precise economic measurements completely impossible and thus economics theory can only be studied a priori deducted from the "action axiom".

This, however, does not mean that it completely rejects empiricism on the area of economics. It makes a distinction between economic theory and economic history, believing that it is perfectly possible to accurately back claims about economic history with empirical evidence, but rather that these claims are useless in order to prove or disprove any claim in the realm of economic theory, simply exemplifying it.

History

Tenets

The Austrian-American economist Fritz Machlup has distinguished six general principles which distinguish the methodology of the Austrian school of economics, as well as two additional principles which together with the methodological principles conform the politics of Austrolibertarianism.[1]

Methodological Individualism

Methodological individualism is the scientific principle that social phenomena are to be explained through the actions of individuals, instead of groups, as the latter can be explained by the former. According to methodological individualists, collectives may only exert influence through the actions of their individual members, and whether or not an action is attributed to the group or to an individual depends on the interpretation of the observer.

Methodological Subjectivism

Methodological Subjectivism is the principle that economic phenomena are generally to be explained through the subjective judgements made by different economic actors, taking into account that each one seeks to maximize their utility, usually through maximizing their monetary revenue.

Tastes and Preferences

Subjective valuations of goods and services determine the demand for them, so their prices are influenced by the current and potential scales of preference of consumers.

Opportunity Cost

Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the next best alternative foregone (that is not chosen). It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or a group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices.
Opportunity cost is a key concept in mainstream economics and has been described as expressing "the basic relationship between scarcity and choice". The notion of opportunity cost plays a crucial part in ensuring that resources are used efficiently.

Marginalism

Marginalism is an economic theory that states that the value of a determined good is the value of its subjectively least valuable use. Thus, the marginal value (of the next unit of the good in question to be acquired) decreases as most valuable uses for the good are satisfied, or the opposite happens as one's stock of a good decreases, as one forgoes the least valuable uses for a good firstly upon losing a certain amount of such good.
Consequently, in all economic designs, the values, costs, revenues, productivity and so on are determined by the significance of the last unit added to or subtracted from the total stock.

Time Structure

Decisions to save (for future consumption) or spend reflect "time preferences" regarding consumption in the immediate, distant, or indefinite future and investments are made in view of larger outputs (interest) expected to be obtained if more time-taking production processes are undertaken.

Consumer Sovereignty

The influence consumers have on the effective demand for goods and services and through the prices which result in free competitive markets, on the production plans of producers and investors, is not merely a hard fact but also an important objective, attainable only by complete avoidance of governmental interference with the markets and of restrictions on the freedom of sellers and buyers to follow their own judgment regarding quantities, qualities and prices of products and services.

Political Individualism

Only when individuals are given full economic freedom is it possible to secure political and moral freedom. Restrictions on economic freedom lead, sooner or later, to an extension of the coercive activities of the state into the political domain, undermining and eventually destroying the essential individual liberties which the capitalistic societies were able to acquire in the 19th century

Variants

Distributist Libertarianism

Flag of Distributist Libertarianism

Distributist Libertarianism (also known as Southern Distributism) is an economically center-right to right-wing, libertarian and culturally centre-right ideology, advocating for an economic system based on widely-spread property ownership and a society culturally based on Catholic social teachings. Distributist Libertarians do not believe that laissez-faire Austrian school economics results in an unfair concentration of power, but rather that the vast majority of concentration of power in capitalist economic systems occurs because of state intervention in the economy (for example; Intellectual "Property", Subsidies, Inconsistent Taxation, everything Keynes advocates for, and such).

How to Draw

Austrian School's design is a combination of Austria's and the Gadsden flags.

Flag of Austrian School
  1. Draw a ball
  2. Separate the ball into 3 equal horizontal bars (a tricolor), with the top and bottom being pinkish-red, and the middle one being white
  3. Draw in black rattlesnake in the middle of the ball
  4. Add green grass below the snake
  5. Lower below, add some variation of the quote "DON'T TREAD ON ME", like "no step on snek"
    1. Alternatively, you can write "TRITT NICHT AUF MICH" or simply "NEIN" (in German, meaning "DO NOT TREAD ON ME" and "NO" respectively)
  6. Draw the eyes

You're done!

Color Name HEX RGB
Pinkish Red #EE2436 238, 36, 54
White #FFFFFF 255, 255, 255
Black #141414 20, 20, 20
Grass Green #194619 25, 70, 25


Relationships

Austrobert's behavior is based on one of the stereotype of Mises, calling everyone a socialist (Especially for "modern liberal" in the Western sense and even Friedmanite-style Libertarians or Hayekians.)

True Capitalists

  • Classical Liberalism - My greatest influence and the best granddad I could ask for.
  • Hayekism - My son and a fellow Austrian.
  • Paleolibertarianism - Similar to me, but a bit more traditional.
  • Anarcho-Capitalism - Rothbardian Ancap, very based indeed.
  • Minarchism - Separation of state and business? Based!
  • Hoppeanism - Fellow Rothbardian, though some quotes of his are a little... odd...
  • Libertarianism - He's fun to hang out with, he needs to read some Mises.
  • Chicago School - We agree on most of the things and want to get to the almost the same results, but we disagree on the way to analyze the economy and some instances of monetary policies.
  • National Liberalism - 19th century patriotic liberal movements in Europe were a great advance on liberty.
  • National Libertarianism - Improved contemporary version of above.
  • Autarchy - Yes individuals are self-owners therefore have the right to self-government.
  • MGTOW & Neomasculinity - Manly!

Commie Sympathyzers

  • Paleoconservatism - He used to be a cool guy back in the day, but now he's a protectionist that doesn't value free trade, also too statist.
  • Dengism - Some of us think you're allowing markets to flourish, while others think you're still imposing a lot of controls that stifle economic growth. In short, housing bubbles and post-Keynesianism are dangerous.
  • Fascism - "It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error."
  • Austrofascism - My fascist twin. Thanks for choosing me as your main economic advisor.
  • National Capitalism - My beloved son, loves laissez-faire economy. BUT WHY WOULD HATE THE JEWS? JEWS ARE THE BEST AUSTRIAN ECONOMIST!
  • Reactionary Liberalism - Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddinh and Vilfredo Pareto are based though you take too many steroids .
  • Clock Crossroad - That's what I'm talking about, besides we have a Frenemieship: he calls me utopic and essentially cosmopolitist but I'm also a great inspiration for him in the economic field.
  • National Democracy - Paleocon, but Polish. Roman Rybarski and Adam Heydel are pretty based at least.
  • Neoliberalism & Ordo-Liberalism - Stop granting legitimization to socialism.
  • Alt-Lite - Some of you are based specially Naomi Seibt but Bannon hates me.
  • Neo-Libertarianism - Why are you an imperialist?

SOCIALISTS!!!!!

Further Information

For overlapping political theory see:

Classical Liberalism • Capitalism • Anarcho-Capitalism • Libertarianism • Hoppeanism • Paleolibertarianism

Literature

Critiques

Wikipedia

Videos

Channels

Online Communities

References

  1. ↑ Ludwig von Mises: A Scholar Who Would not Compromise by Fritz Machlup

Gallery

Comics

Portraits and Artwork

Alternative designs

  • Distributist Libertarianism

    Distributist Libertarianism

  • Distributist Libertarianism 2

    Distributist Libertarianism 2

Navigation

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