Here's a little bit more informative post:
Why I Am Not an Austrian Economist
by
Bryan Caplan
Assistant Professor
Department of Economics
George Mason University
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/whyaust.htm
Preface
I was first introduced to Austrian economics during my senior year in high school, when I first read and enjoyed the writings of Mises and Rothbard. The summer before I began my undergraduate work at UC Berkeley, I was able to attend the 1989 Mises Institute summer seminar at Stanford, where I met Murray Rothbard and many of the leading Austrian economists for the first time. It is now eight years later; I have just completed my Ph.D. in economics at Princeton, and will be joining the faculty of the economics department at George Mason in the fall. I thus find this a natural point in my career to articulate precisely why I no longer consider myself an Austrian economist - as I certainly did eight years ago.
I do not deny that Austrian economists have made valuable contributions to economics. Rather, as the sequel will argue, I maintain that:
(a) The effort to rebuild economics along foundations substantially different from those of modern neoclassical economics fails.
(b) Austrian economists have often misunderstood modern neoclassical economics, causing them to overstate their differences with it.
(c) Several of the most important Austrian claims are false, or at least overstated.
(d) Modern neoclassical economics has made a number of important discoveries which Austrian economists for the most part have not appreciated.
Given this, I conclude that while self-labeled Austrian economists have some valid contributions to make to economics, these are simply not distinctive enough to sustain a school of thought. The task of developing an alternate Austrian paradigm has largely failed, producing an abundance of meta-economics (philosophy, methodology, and history of thought), but few substantive results. Whatever Austrian economists have that is worth saying should be simply be addressed to the broader economics profession, which (in spite of itself) remains eager for original, true, and substantive ideas.
Needless to say, I have many friends who think more highly of Austrian economics than I do. I hope that this piece will spark interest and discussion without sparking any kind of personal acrimony
use the link to see Caplan's complete justifications...
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