Why Austrian Economists Can’t Get No Respect: It Is Political

Abstract

Austrians are the Rodney Dangerfields of economics. We can’t get no respect. Why not? On an intellectual level, our adherence for the necessary a posteriori (often termed synthetic a priori) is strongly off putting to the majority of this profession, who are in thrall to logical positivism, which adamantly rejects this type of claim. There are also divergences as regards the causes and cures for the business cycle, anti-trust, market failures such as public goods, externalities and utility. From an economic self-interest level, were this praxeological school ever to take root within the dismal science, thousands of jobs would be lost and salaries would be greatly lowered. It may be that for both of these reasons, Austrianism is deemed a “cult”. We argue that Austrian economics is far more based on modern mathematics and physics than is mainstream economics.