Skip to main content

Welcome Note

By Jimbo Ar

I like to start this blog by introducing my self, my name is Jaime Artieda. I am currently pursuing a double degree in Economics and Global Affairs at George Mason University. If you got to this web blog home page you are either my family, friend, colleague, professor or you are naturally interested in the subjects of economics, politics, philosophy and liberty.

The name of this blog may sound a bit strange to some of you. However, behind the name of “Austrian Knights,” there is an emotional, historical and academic reason. In the fall of 2005 I was introduced to the documentary called The Commanding Heights of the Economy produced by PBS based on the book written by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. The battle of ideas of who should control the economy, debate that developed in between F.A. Hayek and John Maynard Keynes, is the main subject of the documentary’s first chapters. The argument of whether the state or the free market should control the economy takes the viewer to know about the Austrian School of Economic Thought.

The Austrian School believes that markets work and governments do not. The fight of capitalism against communism, socialism, and totalitarianism was the core of human history of the 20th century. In late 1980’s and early 1990’s with the Fall of the Berlin Wall some thought that the battle was over. Unluckily for all of us the battle is not near to its end. On a daily basis people who have little to none knowledge in economics blame the so called “market failures” and “capitalism” still grow a bigger gap among rich and poor, and among developed and developing world.

However, that is not true. It has been the government interventionism within the economy and our lives the reason why the free market has not been able to create a better society, a better us. History is full of examples of how big governments have denied people of important principles such as freedom, economic prosperity, and human growth. Just to name a few examples; Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Kim Jong-Il, and Hugo Chavez, have or had neglected human principles and created totalitarian regimes.

Individuals like; Frederic Bastiat, Carl Menger, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser,Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Israel Kirzner, to name a few were interested in how the free market would be a tool that will develop individual prosperity. All these exceptional individuals are members of the Austrian School of Economics. (In a coming post I will talk in more depth about the origins and history about this school)

After this brief introduction to this web blog, I want to thank you for your interest in this blog. This blog was created in the pursuit of freedom, seeks to promote free market values through the understanding of politics, philosophy, and economics.

Welcome to Austrian Knights!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wisdom from the Gossip Crowd

By
Last week, Dan Klein had met with a group of students on a draft of his recent paper. During the discussion he had raised a question that all students with the love for liberty usually ask themselves , "How come I get it? How come all these other people I know get it, but the everyday citizen does not get it?" The "it" being government intervention within our personal lives being more harmful and not as efficient as the market. Those in the room shared his agony with the question and for me coincided with the question, " Why does the battered wife not leave her beating husband? " The solution was simple when I sat around a table with my cousins and my wife and heard a discussion of a guy who felt he owned the world going out with other girls and yet his girlfriend stays by him. When the remark was made that his girlfriend was stupid for staying by him, I heard the words that made me understand why people still don't get "it". " She belie...
2 comments
Read more

Subjective Value through Non-Austrians

By
James Buchanan in his book The Reason of Rules(10.2.9) states: The individual is the unique unit of consciousness from which all evaluation begins. Note that this conception does not in any way reject the influence of community or society on the individual. The value structure of an isolated human being may be totally divergent from that of such a person described by membership in one or many social relationships. The presupposition requires only that societal or communitarian influences enter through modifications in the values that are potentially expressed by the individual and not externally. Armen Alchian and William Allen in Exchange and Production: Competition, Coordination, and Control : Groups, organizations, communities, nations, and societies are best understood by focusing on the incentives and actions of their members. A business, union, or family may be formed to further some common interest of its members, but group actions are still the results of decisions of individu...
2 comments
Read more

Saying No is hard; but in this case at what cost

By Jimbo Ar
Ecuador’s President, Daniel Noboa, called the electorate to the ballots on a National Referendum. The eleven questions established for this political process were in two main fields: security and labor market reforms. The Referendum took place on April 21, 2024.      The official results of the National Referendum are that in 9 out 11 yes-no-questions the Ecuador’s electorate gave the option of Yes a majoritarian support to the Administration’s plans. However, two questions the support leaned towards No; those questions main focus was on reforms to labor and foreign investment. The following graph show the results of the Referendum. Graph 1 Results of the National Referendum Source: CNE (National Electorate Council for it acronym in Spanish)        In the graphs, question D (3) stated that: Do you agree that the Ecuadorian State should recognize international arbitration as a method for resolving disputes in investment, contractual, or commercial matte...
Post a Comment
Read more