Summary of Mike Huben's Critiques of Austrian Economics

Looks like I've basically finished all the links of interest (to a Misesian like me) from Mike Huben's index:

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/austrian.html

I've done Bryan Caplan, Paul Krugman, John Quiggin, Steve Kangas and Mike Huben himself in my earlier posts. All the other links are not worthy separate ones, so let's do them here.

Going from top to bottom, the first link I've not yet discussed is Scrooge Defended, "Michael Levin's Austrian Economics perspective on Dickens, so Panglossian and full of stacked assumptions that it is howlingly funny". Mike must have been really desparate, providing "funny" article from http://www.mises.org/ as a "critique of Austrian Economics".

Then follow 5 Hayek critiques, including one written by anarcho-capitalist Hans-Hermann Hoppe (poor Mike, just when I thought he could not get any more desparate). As a Misesian, for all I care, the more correct they are, the better.

Next there is An Austrian (Mis)Reads Adam Smith: A Critique of Rothbard as Intellectual Historian, which is interesting, though irrelevant. Basically, Peter Hans Matthews argues that Smith was not quite as bad as Rothbard painted him. In fact, Peter argues, one can even interpret Smith was aware of entrepreneurs after all... Okay, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. So how does that exactly constitute a "critique of Austrian Economics"?

I let myself skip a link to "an outstanding page of criticisms, including luminaries such as David Friedman, Gordon Tullock, and Robert Nozick", same as later "index of books and articles criticizing Austrian Economics", I trust Mike, if he does not grant them direct links, they shouldn't be too relevant (especially when many links he does provide are irrelevant). But I no longer think Mike is desparate, rather, perfectly indiscriminate. He hates "libertarianism" so much that he can call the most ardent free-traders (and even anarcho-capitalists like David Friedman) "luminaries", provided they at least once criticise some other free-traders or libertarians on anything.

For Mises' Sake is an article by Tom G. Palmer who "savages Llewellyn Rockwell, the Ludwig von Mises Institute and Hans-Hermann Hoppe for Austrianism above and beyond the call of sanity." I have tried to read this, but see for yourself, this seems to be very personal, chaotic rant about Habsburgs, King of Spain, Hitler, Jews, Turkish invasion of Central Europe, Emperor Franz Joseph's and Kim Il Sung... I suspect Tom G. Palmer is psychically unstable.

The Social Welfare State, beyond Ideology is where Jeffry Sachs shows us "how social welfare states do as well as or better than low-tax, high-income countries". So what, correlation is not causation. Sure, rich states can afford to waste taxpayers money on welfare programs, that's all there is to it. And Jeffry Sachs forgets socialist countries have always had the most advanced welfare programs out there (with guaranteed jobs, even).

Now there is Some Capital-Theoretic Fallacies of Austrian Economics, where "Robert Vienneau attacks assumptions of Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Highly technical." Highly technical ideed. Let me quote:

3.0 Critique of Austrian Theory with a Detailed Example
Consider an entrepreneur who perceives the economy, or at least the markets he is
most concerned with, to be tending towards an Evenly Rotating Economy 

The fuck??? Robert Vienneau, time for sanity check, real world to ivory tower, please hit your head against the wall then come back.

Then two more critiques of Hayek, very good.

Finally, Mike blesses us with An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought critique, where Tony Endres calls it "highly jaundiced and purblind." Go ahead, read the "critique", it's fun. What Tony actually does, he simply repeats about 50 times (count for yourself) that Rothbard's work is ("unashamedly", I like this one best)... an Austrian Perspective, rather than a Liberal Perspective. Tony evidently assumes Austrian views are something you should be "ashamed" for.

That's it. Mike has spent 16 years to collect Critiques of Austrian Economics. 16 years. I have to congratulate Mike on all his work again (apart from my previous thank-you). There is no better place where one can evidently see how ineffectual all the "critiques" of Austrian School are. It's like when I always pray (even though I'm an atheist) for new socialist countries, because they are the best examples there can ever be of collectivist thinking dismal failure. Same for Mike's Critiques of Austrian Economics. Let us all pray there are more people like Mike.