Archived from the live Mises.tv broadcast, this lecture by Walter Block was presented at the 2012 Mises University in Auburn, Alabama. Includes an introducti…

Learn more: http://www.khanacademy.org/video?v=hPkh8kOldU4 Contrasting Keynesian and Classical Thinking.
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53 Responses to “An Austrian Critique of Mainstream Economics | Walter Block”

  • SaulOhio:

    0:59:20, he says “in the 1930′s”, I think he means 1830′s.

  • B Charron:

    Before you call me a communist, let me tell you what I really am. I am a Communalist. I believe in communalism/barter/free market system. Look that up as you probably never heard of it.

  • B Charron:

    Watch this and learn:  watch?NR=1&v=4Xv7ZPvVbxs&feature=endscreen

  • B Charron:

    like as if you really know me, my ideas, and value system. Everything starts with an idea! some are good, and some are just plain old bad. Here is my idea: A moneyless,classless,STATELESS world of human communities where we cooperate to take care of our needs and well being. Capitalism is the MARKET MEHANISM of artificial scarcity and employment system of wage slavey for the abstract process of CAPITAL ACUMULATION and CONCENTRATION for the ruling elite.

  • RPFS2008:

    Stop making excuses for not following your own alleged principles.

    No-one is stopping you from sharing out the resources that you have control over (in fact, according to you, your control is illegitimate to begin with)

  • B Charron:

    sure if we put our resources together we wouldnt have to borrow from the blasted banks and could put our kids through school alot faster and with less debt.

  • RPFS2008:

    “my high school children who I still have to put through university”

    Hang on! You should be sharing those resources between us all. They’re mine, and everyone else’s, just as much as yours.

    Right?

  • FishFromInnsmouth:

    Monica Lewinsky made 7 fake accounts and disliked this.

  • MINIMANTRA BLITZKRIEG:

    “Multiculturalism” is a program that is FORCED upon EVERY & ONLY White countries.
    “Multiculturalism” is a program to turn EVERY White country into a non-White country.
    This IS geNOcide. WHITE geNOcide.
    If you are White, and you object to your own geNOcide, you are called a RACIST!
    Well guess what, my people, White people, are catching on very quickly to the following two things:
    1 — Multiculturalism is a code for White geNOcide.
    2 — Anti-racist is a code for anti-White.
    /watch?v=203-BKE5MgU

  • Joe11Blue:

    Faith doesn’t grow enough corn to last a winter or raise enough chickens to survive.

    Those communities are too inefficient, and people generally would rather not live the subsistence lifestyle. They want computers and electricity and movies. It’s ok, I will make sure your grandchildren understand fully and can turn back the mess.

  • B Charron:

    You need to have more faith in humankind if you think we can’t be self sufficient. Ideally, a self sufficient community would be optimal. Such communities used to be more common, but what happened to us? Did we get too greedy? Did we allow the state to take over? Is this what you are talking about in your reasoning about why we can’t be self sufficient? I don’t really get the full picture of what you are saying sorry.

  • Joe11Blue:

    Sure I don’t know you, but you apparently are not aware what greed, avarice, and self-sufficient actually mean. No human is capable of being self-sufficient.

  • B Charron:

    No man you got me all pegged completely wrong. I have already worked and saved enough to be self sufficient. The only thing holding me back right now is my high school children who I still have to put through university. You dont need much to be self sufficient at all with a life of simplicity! I am the furthest from greedy. I donate directly to 3rd world countries as I have family in South America. So because you dont really know me other than on this youtube channel I wont hold it against you.

  • Joe11Blue:

    You say that you don’t want to sacrifice time to accumulate enough wealth, but you want enough wealth to be self-sufficient.

    Did you even think that reply out first? You want everything but are unwilling to work to obtain it. That’s called greed and avarice. The same things you would likely accuse those willing to work for those things of being guilty of.

  • B Charron:

    sacrificing so much time for material accumulation is what I am referring too. What is important to a quality of life to you? To me its what I have already explained, and may I add that I would like to reside in a safe community with low crime and happy friendly people living a life worry free with abundance of energy, good health, and enough wealth to be self sufficient.

  • B Charron:

    When you dont require many needs, you have a reduced stress load and more time to focus on important ideas. Americans enslave themselves by wanting to many material things, but fail badly at committing to relationships with people and especially in the institution of marriage. Money and material wealth accumulation is not as fulfilling as you might think. I think sacrificing our time and slaving away until we are old and frail and full of regret is a life wasted away…

  • B Charron:

    The only belongings I need is good shelter, clothing, food, and enough land and fresh water source. Anything else is just extra. I know a lad that built an earth ship. Look that up and learn something. Look up Mike Reynolds. He helped a village of survivors of the tsunami flood in Indonesia to built one of these shelters that gave them abundant fresh water (from the sky), and ability to grow food, and shelter themselves from the elements. He also helped earthquake victims in Mexico. He’s a saint

  • Joe11Blue:

    You can feel free to give up you belongings if it offends you so much. I prefer to understand that humans are barely sentient apes and require this sort of system to prevent other barely sentient apes from screwing us out of our hard work.

  • rastogi umesh:

    This is economics-you dont exchange anything-but sit in the old markets for months together to buy a loaf you had to sell your donkey.
    You had to learn economics until you start thinking if it was the science or Economics brought this earth to this stage.Science created the abundance,
    but Economics changed the goods in an hour or minute or second.

  • pecosRoy:

    austrian economists question the ‘keystone’ assumptions upon which neoclassical economics rest. if you don’t buy into the assumptions the edifice crumbles, sort of like the emperor’s new clothes. let’s assume that ‘people make rational economic decisions’….nice & juicy.

  • B Charron:

    I am an investor in prescious metals also. I was just questioning philisophically why humanity craves Gold? Its just a nice looking shiny metal that is hard to find. About rivers, no one should own it. We should share it collectively since its a resource that we share, and violators should be penalized severely if they pollute it. Man’s mentality is about owning everything, and extracting, and exploiting until there is no more left. This is very distructive parasitic behaviour which is appaling

  • wildCATcanACT:

    The Keynesian model here is generally based on a stimulated economy (of the short run) and when dealing with fiscal policy of government, is built on monetizing debt. So when you have the Keynesian model, it’s based on a system of monetized debt through a government that tries pushing up the pendulum. The thing is, pushing the pendulum will result in a back swing.

  • tiki2188:

    Gunna try a masters in economics, hope Khan academy has some math videos to help with my rust calc :(

  • tiki2188:

    He said it. Shame that other ideas are so dogmatic, because I DO NOT really support the Austrian school, but since the late 80s I think they may have some validity. But sadly even thinking about thinking about the idea gets you totally burned alive and called many terrible things.
    In theory Keynes make sense and some of it works, but I do think in reality (we are humans and not numbers) there are issues, and not sure if totally works.

  • Mitt Romney:

    Woah, this is cool!

  • Haskanawa72:

    They should interview me! “Why should they interview you?” Because I’m so fucking cool!!!

  • Curlinfam:

    Hello Mr. khan. I’m currently using your website and noticed that you can’t flag or vote on comments. There is a user who is really not helpful and posting very low quality comments. Could you flag him yourself or allow other users to flag comments?

  • wff f:

    Hi, could you do a video about milton friedman’s fooling model and business cycles? Thanks

  • Matt Paul:

    A moral hazard is created by rewarding bad behavior – such as bailing out the banks. More inflation through QE creates a hazard by rewarding debtors and hurting creditors. Whether or not you think its a good policy is another debate – i’m telling y its ‘evil’-. its a tax on savings (and income) because of price increases. Not everyone is protected from it. I can’t waste any more time with you-cuz im busy getting paid to use math you couldn’t comprehend. Have fun with ur mental masturbation tho.

  • TheShorterboy:

    WTF has moral hazard got to do with the average punter, it was a moral hazard bailing out banks for free. And what do you think 80k is going to do for a couple at 3% interest except keep them in poverty. This is why we got rid of the BS manage your own fund in the 50′s.You should learn to add if you want numbers, 5% inflation on a 200k house is more than 5% reduction in the average persons 3.2k savings. You use big words but somehow can’t do division and multiplication.

  • Matt Paul:

    Lots of numbers and no citing.. typical. I’m not worried about the average person, I worry about retired couples with 80k in the bank..Do you understand how printing money and QE affects the business cycle? Booms and busts come from arbitrary expansions of credit, like we saw before the housing crisis – soz, i dont think having an over leveraged populace is a good thing.. In fact its a bad thing – and rewarding overly leveraged businesses and individuals – forgiving debt – creates a moral hazard

  • TheShorterboy:

    It’s only of consequence if you have money, the average american has just over $3k in a bank so inflation has next to zero effect on the majority. The average person has more value tied up in fixed assets like houses and cars, these rise with inflation so on average the average american is better off with inflation than without. It also reduces the cost of borrowing to purchase those assets over time. It’s called maths try it some time.

  • buggld:

    … What?

  • TheShorterboy:

    It’s only of consequence if you have money, the average american has just over $3k in a bank so inflation has no effect on the majority. The average person has more value tied up in fixed assets like houses and cars, these rise with inflation so on average the average american is better off with inflation than without. It’s called maths try it some time.

  • Matt Paul:

    Inflation is to deflate the value of money – therefore to individuals its a depletion of savings. A person’s money is (in unfettered markets) a representation of service to others. Service requires labor. Transitively inflation destroys someones past labor (essentially enslaving them). Its a flat tax on wealth (large and small), which is the accumulation of past labor. Enslaving is evil – this is just a nice form enslavement. Its not dogma, its logic. use it.

  • Justin Forester:

    The fallacy in your argument is your assumption that popularity for a theory and the education level of its supporters relates to its legitimacy and accuracy. I guess that is why economics is a SOCIAL science, not a real science.

    Milton Friedman used to dominate the teachings of most economics departments (and still does to some extent) yet he has been proven wrong many times. It’s not a popularity contest. Legitimacy should be based on evidence and ability to make predictions using theory

  • Hall Johnes:

    Even if we assume that the ABCD example would take place in reality, the money not spent and horded by C will automatically increase the value of the remaining dollars into the economy, so the other players can afford more goods from each other.

  • Hall Johnes:

    one dimensional thinking

  • zg76:

    We’ve had Keynesian solution for 70+ years(and in 2001 as well),consequences are catastrophic.Just watch:Keynesian Predictions vsAmerican History|Woods /watch?v=6XbG6aIUlog
    OR The Fed’s Dismal Record |Selgin – /watch?v=hQXeUckvrPM
    Top Three Myths about the Great Depression and the New Deal -
    mises org/daily/3788
    wiki mises org/wiki/Depression_of_1920%E2­%80%9321
    /Keynesian-Predictions-vs-American-History
    /a-question-to-krugman-from-an-austrian-renegade-professor/
    /paul-krugman-asimov-economics

  • illston102:

    political science dept*

  • MINIMANTRA BLITZKRIEG:

    “Multiculturalism” is a program that is FORCED upon EVERY & ONLY White countries.
    “Multiculturalism” is a program to turn EVERY White country into a non-White country.
    This IS geNOcide. WHITE geNOcide.
    If you are White, and you object to your own geNOcide, you are called a RACIST!
    Well guess what, my people, White people, are catching on very quickly to the following two things:
    1 — Multiculturalism is a code for White geNOcide.
    2 — Anti-racist is a code for anti-White.
    /watch?v=203-BKE5MgU

  • TheSpiritOfTheTimes:

    Absolutely untrue. It’s both common sense and empirically as confirmed as it’s possible with these things.

  • RonnieD1970:

    Khan I have never seen you so misquoted before. Everybody commenting seems to have an agenda

  • buggld:

    You dot your i’s so far ahead of the actual letter… That’s the number one thing I learned, lol.

  • dgreek7:

    @iTold Youh think ideology

  • iTold Youh:

    Dogmatic…?
    

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