The Austrian School of Economics: An Introduction

Austrian Economics

Tags: Austrian Economics Overview, World History

03/11/2005 Friedrich A. Hayek

A full-employment policy produces unemployment. Keynesian economics became the dominant theory wherein inflation was endorsed as a method of increasing aggregate demand which should boost employment.

Hayek opposed this expansionist policy of Keynes. Inflation misdirects labor and distorts prices. Halting inflation produces unemployment.

Hayek would prefer to have a better term than equilibrium. It is over simplified.

(Anecdote: Hayek was almost deaf in his left ear. Marx was deaf in his right. Hayek suggests this says something about their politics.)

Friedrich A. Hayek explains Austrian Economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Colorado on April 28th, 1975. Special thanks to Mr. Fred Glahe for his generous donation of this lecture audio to the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

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