An economic school has led to gridlock in Washington

[jsr]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-jr-an-economic-school-has-led-to-gridlock-in-washington/2014/02/09/12de8df0-9020-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html

An economic school has led to gridlock in Washington
By E.J. Dionne Jr., Sunday, February 9, 7:03 PM

One of my favorite moments during the 2012 Republican presidential contest came when Ron Paul, fresh from his strong showing in Iowa, triumphantly told his supporters: “We’re all Austrians now!”

I imagined many Americans scratching their heads and wondering: Why do we want to be Austrians? They live in a nice country with stunning mountains and all that, but aren’t we perfectly happy to be Americans?

Of course those in the know, particularly Paul’s enthusiasts, understood the libertarian presidential candidate’s reference: that Americans were rejecting the economic ideas of John Maynard Keynes that encouraged government intervention and provided intellectual ballast for the New Deal. Instead, they were coming around to the principles of the anti-government economics of Austrians Friedrich A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.

Hayek and Mises perceived little difference between democratic governments that used their power to plan against recessions and dictatorships that did the same thing. In this view, the policies of Franklin Roosevelt led down what Hayek called the “Road to Serfdom” and were thus objectively comparable to those of Hitler or Stalin.

[fasttense]

1. We have been doing the "Austrian" thing for the past 33 years

when will these fools acknowledge a failed ideology?

[kristopher]

2. von Mises etal are fruitcakes. nt

[blkmusclmachine]

3. Chicago!

[bemildred]

4. And people wonder where Orwell got his "Freedom is Slavery" lines.

"Democratic government is the road to serfdom" fits real well.