What It Feels Like To Be A Libertarian

Interesting article by this chap at Georgetown.

As a 'practical' libertarian (perhaps I would classify, say, Tyler Cowen as such, although he may not agree) who understands economics and finance exceptionally well (Hello Ph.D. candidate at worldclass university with Nobel Laureates on speed dial), I can say that this author seriously screws up macroeconomics.

This stuff drives me crazy because many libertarians accept, even if implicitly, the ideas behind Austrian macro, if not the theory outright, without even understanding it, as well as real macro, which pretty much makes a mockery of Austrian macro.

Milton Friedman never bought into this trash, and in fact, he helped play a large scholarly role in discrediting it. And yet Austrian macro persists, I reckon, for two reasons:

1.) It's intuitively easy to understand. Let's face it, real macroeconomics is really advanced stuff heavily laden with highly sophisticated math. Austrians, on the other hand, reject math outright, claiming that theory cannot be tested.

2.) Austrian macro conveniently jives with what they already believe. Isn't that the hallmark of an unthinking person? Tell them what they want to hear?

The combination of simplicity and ideological confirmation makes for a very seductive combination which is leading libertarians astray. It's times like these that I wish Milton Friedman were still around to start giving out lessons, even despite the fact that he was not always right in his macro either. But he didn't cling to a dead horse.

With Friedman's passing, I feel as though there is no 'leader' to direct libertarians in the proper direction as it pertains to macroeconomics and monetary policy.

And we devolve into bogus theory, gold fetishism, and ad nauseum soundbites making grand claims with no empirical support.