Against Politics

Toward a depoliticized society

Theodore Dalrymple on the culture of inflation

In the Summer 2009 issue of City Journal Theodore Dalrymple  discusses the cultural effects of inflation:

asset inflation—ultimately, the debasement of the currency—as the principal source of wealth corrodes the character of people. It not only undermines the traditional bourgeois virtues but makes them ridiculous and even reverses them. Prudence becomes imprudence, thrift becomes improvidence, sobriety [...]

The holiest of holy cows

The February 09, 2009 Issue of the American Conservative features a number of heterodox articles on monetary policy. In his article Fed Up: The Popular Uprising Against Central Banking, Thomas Woods writes about the holiest of holy cows of conservative and libertarian leaning think tanks:

The libertarian and conservative think tanks that liberally invoke the names [...]

Puzzled by Robert Lucas

Some people are puzzled by Robert Lucas’ recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he advocates monetary growth policies as a form of economic stimulus. On the positive side, Lucas concludes that:

There is no other way that so much cash could have been put into the system as fast as this $600 [...]

Classical economics and deflation

A 2004 research paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond on Classical Deflation Theory concludes as follows:

Of course, deflation under certain circumstances might not be a bad thing, that is, might have no adverse real effects. If so, policymakers could ignore it or implement it with impunity. Such would be the case for deflations [...]

Crass Keynesianism

A recurrent comment about public policies inspired by Keynesian economics is that they are crass or vulgar. Instead of seeing a complicated  and unpredictable interplay of individuals pursuing their own ends, society is perceived as a giant machine (“the economy”) that needs to be manipulated to produce specific policy outcomes (“economic growth”).  Public policies inspired [...]