“We Are All Austrians Now”

Ah, the Austrian School.  That marvelous brand of free-market reasoning borne of a turn-of-the-century respect for laissez-faire capitalism, nurtured to maturity beneath the sun-kissed awnings of prewar Austria-Hungary’s street-side salons and coffee shops, and from there, exported across the world as a beacon of truth to the oppressed and centrally-planned.  (For a brief historical perspective on the Austrian school and its tumultuous relationship with Keynesianism, check out this PBS documentary – made available online in its entirety by viewers like you.)

But with the rise of Keynes came a casting-out of the Austrian perspective, relegating both its original founders and new adherents to fringe status in mainstream academia and public policymaking.  A status quo that remained, effectively unchallenged, for decades.  Until…now?

In the wake of the recent global economic crisis and the ostensive vindication of vocal Austrian analysts by ensuing events, free-market thinkers the world over gathered in broad daylight and, in hushed-yet-hopeful tones, communed bullishly on the possibility of a mainstream rediscovery of the forgotten tomes of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich August Hayek, and other authors of Germanic etymological nomenclature.

Those prayers, it seems, may have been answered.  The mainstream media’s long-awaited return to sanity seems to finally be upon us.  Check out this CNBC article for starters, or–even more startling–this one, published in opinion-leading Newsweek.  What a twist, eh?

Perhaps we are approaching a tipping point in popular opinion, with people simply waking up to the notion that “those guys”, who have been quietly – and correctly – predicting economic outcomes for the past century, may have been onto something after all.

Note: Scrupulous observers may notice that the Newsweek article is based entirely on promoting Hayek as the poster child of Austrian economics, rather than the more appropriate Mises, Hayek’s mentor and teacher and a thinker far more stubborn in his adherence to Austrian principles.  Hayek, on the other hand, proved throughout his career a knack for taking up conciliatory – and, often, self-defeating – positions that his predecessor Mises would have considered anathema to free market argumentation.  This is worth mentioning as a precaution to those who would otherwise take mainstream media’s distillation of Austrian thought for granted, and I remind readers to keep an eye out for policymakers’ deceptive co-opting of the Austrian brand as a way to promote central-planner ideologies within the public forum.  Watch out!