The Economic Consequences of Blind Faith

Abstract

Murray Rothbard, Hayek’s fourth generation Austrian School co-leader, proclaimed: ‘we can learn a great deal from Lenin and the Leninists.’ For purposes of ‘cadre development,’ they needed a ‘journal, a Society of Austrian Economists, and a favourable graduate department.’ ‘Conspiratorial silence’ was also required—including suppressing information about Hayek’s and Mises’ mental illnesses. On non-interference grounds, Hayek defended the ‘civilization’ of apartheid from the American ‘fashion’ of ‘human right’—but routinely interfered with a variety of countries to promote his re-feudalization agenda. After ‘German Austrian citizens,’ ‘equal before the law in all respects’ was forcibly imposed on Austrian nobles, Austrian ‘scholars’ continued to use aristocratic incentives to defend the ‘free’ market: ‘Noblemen owned the estates over which they hunted and therefore suffered capital losses if they failed to preserve their game.’ During the resulting Global Financial Crisis, Alan Greenspan acknowledged a ‘flaw’: ‘Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.’