Critique of Austrian Economics: A Critique [Part 4]

This is part 4 of my critique of the Critique of Austrian Economics by AustrianCritique.

Methodological Subjectivism

AC: "Austrians claim that attempting to understand individual actions through statistics ... is mistaken ... By comparison, mainstream economists find it useful to know that unemployment has risen from 6 to 12 percent ... There are several problems with subjectivism, both new and old. Even granting the premise that humans are endowed with free will, there is no denying that even impersonal forces affect human actions..."

Really: This entire clip can be easily summarized: AC has no idea what he's talking about. To understand what ASE actually has to say on this, I suggest reading Mises[1].

Methodological Individualism[2]

AC here demonstrates yet again that he's never even seen a book by Mises. This one quote basically demolishes the entire premise of his video.

It is uncontested that in the sphere of human action social entities have real existence. Nobody ventures to deny that nations, states, municipalities, parties, religious communities, are real factors determining the course of human events. Methodological individualism, far from contesting the significance of such collective wholes, considers it as one of its main tasks to describe and to analyze their becoming and their disappearing, their changing structures, and their operation. And it chooses the only method fitted to solve this problem satisfactorily.

~Ludwig von Mises - Human Action Chapter II Section 4 [1]

Unsurprisingly, the methodological sections were quite horrible. After all, you'd have to actually understand Austrian methodology to be able to criticize it. And that would require reading some of the major works.

To be continued...

[1] Human Action
[2] Critique of Austrian Economics: Methodological Individualism

Critique of Austrian Economics: A Critique [Part 3]

This is part 3 of my critique of the Critique of Austrian Economics by AustrianCritique.

Statistics

AC's critique is going downhill and fast. This segment really has no substance in it.

AC starts by saying that Austrians don't think statistics are very good, since they refer only to the past and can never tell us everything we need to know. He does not tell us why we're wrong, but instead gives us the stupidest analogy ever.

The Austrian take on statistics is much more in-depth than what AC here shows us and he quotes Rockwell without understanding why the aggregate "K" is a problem. Then he gives us an example of how the study of gases is and was conducted. With this he tries to argue that aggregates are actually fine and Austrians are idiots. I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to.

But wait, there's more! Austrians actually hate statistics, because they prove that Austrians are wrong. The fastest growth period in American history[1933-1973] was a time of big government and high marginal tax rates, so obviously ASE would reject those kinds of statistics. Problem with this:

1. Mises criticized statistics already in 1912[1].
2. 1933-1973 isn't the fastest growth period in US history; late 19th century is and the markets were pretty free back then.
3. Deductions and loopholes enabled people to avoid those marginal tax rates. The amount of people who actually paid the 91% was practically non-existent[2].
4. Why start at 1933? The "New Deal light" already began under Hoover in 1929[3].
5. Bretton-Woods enabled the exportation of inflation, which Austrians understood already in 1944[4].

I wonder... Does AC believe war creates prosperity? After all, GDP usually goes up during war. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that needs an Austrian approach to it[5].

Next AC wonders how Austrians can talk about the real world at all. After all, we get a lot of our information about the economy from statistics, so aren't Austrians simply cherry-picking? Except that as AC himself earlier said, Austrians do use statistics. Simply not always the same way as mainstream economists do.

"Even the Austrian's allies in business would not want to live in a world without statistics."

There are no "allies" and Austrians don't say we shouldn't have any statistics.

AC ends with a quote from Mike Huben:
"Business employs two kinds of economists: those who can create and use statistics, and those who can create and apply corporatist propaganda. Guess which the Austrians are..."

And I thank you AustrianCritique, for making me waste my time on this worthless piece of shit critique.

To be continued...

[1] The Theory of Money and Credit
[2] Bose Needs Lesson in Tax History
[3] America's Great Depression [Chapters 8-12]
[4] Hazlitt's Battle with Bretton Woods
[5] Depression, War, and Cold War: Challenging the Myths of Conflict and Prosperity

Critique of Austrian Economics: A Critique [Part 2]

This is part 2 of my critique of the Critique of Austrian Economics by AustrianCritique.

Critique of Austrian Economics: The Scientific Method

AC: Mainstream economists use the scientific method, while Austrians use deduction from a priori truths. People are free to choose and unpredictable and can act differently even if placed in the same situation twice, which is why according to Austrians positivism doesn't work.

"A priori knowledge is logic, or knowledge that exists in a person's mind prior to, and independent of, outer world experience. For example, the statement "two plus two equals four" is true whether or not a person goes out into his garden and verifies this by counting two pairs of tomatoes."

The mainstream approach is inductive, while the Austrian is deductive. This doesn't mean Austrians don't refer to real-world events and data in their writings. They just don't do it in the usual scientific way.

So Austrians get to critique the real world, while the real world is prevented from informing their theories. Even their predictions are "qualitative" and not "quantitative" so they can call the government "bad" even if the numbers don't show this.

Really: That people are unpredictable and free to choose is indeed a blow against positivism. But that's not all. There is no Ceteris Paribus in the real world, so we can't do experiments like scientists in laboratories do. A myriad of things are not even measurable, so statistics can't help with those even if laboratory-like conditions were achievable.

Austrians get to critique the real world if they have the truth on their side. If they don't, then it shouldn't be hard to demonstrate that there's a mistake in their line of reasoning somewhere. But more importantly it's not like Austrians haven't taken information from the real world to theorize. When the first draft of the business cycle was completed in 1912[1], there probably was no theory behind the overconsumption boom yet. When the real world indicated that this was possible, a theory was formed as to how that was possible within the Austrian framework[2].

Now the part about qualitative vs. quantitative prediction is pretty funny from my perspective. I think that quantitative prediction is nothing but an act of hubris. Basically it's like saying "I can make god-like predictions about the future by making a model out of an entire society." This kind of mentality is one of the reasons mainstream economics is dead from the neck up. Making qualitative predictions is simply acknowledging the limitations of what we can know.

AC: The Austrian approach(rationalism) to philosophy hasn't been considered serious since the 17th and 18th century. It was widely abandoned after its inadequacies were laid bare by other schools of thought: empiricism, positivism and most famously by Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The Austrian approach is a relic of history.

Really: There is something called The Whig Theory of the History of Science[3]. It states that science always progresses onward, becoming always better. What we have now is better than what we had before. Obviously this is not how the world works and just because something is old doesn't mean it's untrue. But here we find something quite ironic. Unsurprisingly AC has not read Mises(actually he probably hasn't read Kant either), or he would realize that Kant was a great influence on Mises and that Mises actually built upon what Kant had previously said. The philosophies of those two aren't incompatible with each other, quite the opposite[4].

AC: "The problem with rationalism is that it makes the search for truth a game without rules. Rationalists are free to theorize anything they want, without such irritating constrictions as facts, statistics, data, history or experimental confirmation. Their only guide is logic."

Really: On the other hand there are no rules, on the other hand it is guided by logic? Logic is a rule! A priori knowledge is obviously another rule. You can't make stuff up and say it's a priori knowledge, because even an amateur philosopher could spot the mistake if you made one. And to quote J. Grayson Lilburne: "The reality of action is an experienced fact.[5]"

AC: "Starting assumptions and trains of logic may contain inaccuracies so small as to be undetectable, yet will yield entirely different conclusions."

Really: There might be a celestial teapot on the orbit right now. It can't be detected, but it's still probably there. Seriously this is his argument? We need to scrap the entire thing, because there might be a mistake somewhere and this mistake is so small it can't be detected?!? This is the most pseudo-scientific critique I've read in months. And hey, doesn't this same argument apply to statistics? Oops!

AC: "In fact, if we accepted all the tenets of the Austrian School, we would have a second reason for why it fails to qualify as science. To be a science, a school must produce theories that are falsifiable --that is verifiable. If a theory's or correctness cannot be verified, then it is not science. ... Austrian economists make claims about the market(such as markets know better than governments), but then deny us the tools for verifying those claims(such as statistics). One might ask: How do they know?"

Really: Unless you argue that collected data is 100% precise, everything in the economy is measurable and that there exists ceteris paribus, then mainstream economists can't verify or falsify anything either. But then again, it's not like Pythagoras' theorem can be verified with empirical evidence, so I guess geometry isn't a science?

Austrians say that the price mechanism and incentive system make it so that governments probably don't allocate resources as efficiently as the private sector. That is not the same as "markets know better" in the mainstream sense.

And in the final part of this "video" AC really messes up. Let me quote him in lenght.

AC: "Austrians claim to know these things by logic. But although their literature frequently evokes the term "a-priori" knowledge, this term appears to be misused. Human are not born knowing "two plus two equals four." It is something they must learn from their environment, namely school. Forging this learned knowledge into axioms comes later, and then through a process of trial and error. So in this sense, "a-priori" knowledge doesn't even exist, unless one refers to a very basic level of knowledge capability, such as the physical construction of the human brain or animal instincts."

Really: Well now we know AC hasn't read any Kant, since he conflates a priori with inborn knowledge; two completely different things. More Lilburne:
"He tries to say that because we learn 2 + 2 = 4 via experience (school), that 2 + 2 = 4 is a posteriori knowledge. But a posteriori knowledge is knowledge that is derived from the facts of experience, not knowledge learned in the course of experience. That 2 + 2 = 4 is necessarily true is derived from pure definition, and is thus a priori."

AC: "Austrians may be using the term “a priori” to mean logical proofs or axioms, such as “If A = B and B = C, then A = C.” But if Austrians were creating economic axioms that were true by logical force, then the Austrian School would become world famous overnight, whether mainstream economists liked it or not."

Really: Many mainstream economists do recognize some of these axioms as true... Marginal utility, law of demand and so on? "Humans act" is an economic axiom too, maybe AC could refute that somehow(without acting would be nice...)?

To be continued...

[1] The Theory of Money and Credit
[2] Can ABCT Explain the Overconsumption Boom
[3] Why I Wrote My Histories of Thought
[4] Was Mises Right?
[5] A Critique of Pure Nonsense

Critique of Austrian Economics: A Critique [Part 1]

So someone actually made a longer critique of the Austrian School of Economics(ASE) and it didn't look as bad as they normally do[1]. Austrians always have an advantage, since we're forced to learn mainstream economics in school. Mainstream economists on the other hand know almost nothing about Austrian theory. This is why many of the so-called critiques out there are quite funny.

Critique of Austrian Economics: Introduction[2]

AC: Youtuber AustrianCritique(AC from now on) starts by stating that ASE is a "...branch of laissez-faire economics..."

Really: Economics is a value-free science. If one values economic welfare and human well-being, then understanding Austrian economics does usually lead to advocating laissez-faire. But it doesn't have to be so. E.g. you can be a communist and an Austrian economist at the same time(that would make sense for misanthropes).

AC: Paul Samuelson says deduction and a priori reasoning are wayyy overrated. Mark Blaug says that Austrian methodologies are(I think it should be "methodology is") "so cranky and idiosyncratic that we can only wonder that they have been taken seriously by anyone."

Really: Obviously this is a clear case of Argument from Authority. Ironically he quotes Samuelson, who wrote things on the Soviet Union that should discredit him completely[3]. And how many absolute economic laws has positivist mainstream methodology produced? The answer: none

AC: The mainstream doesn't agree with the Austrians, which automatically means the Austrians are wrong. In 1974 Hayek wins the Nobel Prize in economics "...for a contribution to monetary theory..." and ASE "...receives a huge burst of academic attention. But it was quickly rejected..."

Really: The mainstream isn't always right. A world where that was the case would be a world without change. Hayek won(shared with Gunnar Myrdal) the prize "for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena[4]." Not just "for a contribution to monetary theory." And I don't know what "huge burst of academic attention" AC is talking about. People were a little suprised when Hayek received a Nobel, but that was it.

AC: "In classic crank tradition, Austrians have a conspiracy theory to explain ... [their] failure." AC quotes Patrick Gunning(an Austrian), who says that there are two reasons for the failure of subjectivist economics. "The first is that ordinary people cannot tell the difference between good and bad economics. The second is that the training ground for professional economics is the university. ... In a democracy, government funding [of universities] implies (1) a competition for funds and (2) bureaucracy. Both of these characteristics favor positivism."

Really: Who the hell is Patrick Gunning and why should we care? I've heard a dozen or so theories for why no one cares about ASE. Some of them are probably correct, some probably aren't. And more to the point: Is anything Gunning says there untrue? Does AC even know what a conspiracy theory is?

AC: ASE "...is kept alive by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a think-tank financed entirely by wealthy business donors." LvMI is just another right-wing institute founded by institutions such as the Bradley, Coors or Koch family foundations, and these right-wing ties help Austrians get on conservative talk shows etc. And something about FEE(Foundation for Economic Education) helping LvMI out.

Really: If we go by AC's definitions, then this would certainly constitute a "conspiracy theory", would it not? LvMI is funded by "...thousands of donors in 50 states and 80 foreign countries.[5]" I don't even know why FEE was mentioned, not that this paragraph had any point to it anyway(guilt by association maybe?). People at the LvMI usually reject the right/left separation, so I don't know why AC identifies them as right-wingers.

Conclusion

AC: Mainstream economists use the scientific method, while Austrians deduce truths from a priori knowledge(pre-scientific).

Really: Good enough, but I've never heard anyone describe deduction as "pre-scientific." Whatever.

AC: Mainstream economists rely heavily on statistics, while Austrians think they have very little value, because of their limitations.

Really: I think the more important distinction is that Austrians use statistics for illustration, not as proof.

AC: Mainstream scientists believe in both objective(absolute) and subjective(personal) truth; Austrian believe only in subjective.

Really: Why did "economists" become "scientists" suddenly? Anyway this is abject nonsense. I don't even know what AC is trying to say, but it sure as hell doesn't have anything to do with Austrian economics. Since when is economics about "believing" in different kinds of "truths?"

AC: "Mainstream scientists seek to explain human behavior on many different different levels: the gene, the individual, the group and the specie. Austrians believe that all explanations of human behavior can be traced back to the individual."

Really: Austrians simply say that only individuals act. AC makes it look like Austrians completely ignore the things he cites. They don't.

AC: Mainstream economists think monopolies can arise for various reasons, while Austrians say only governments cause monopolies.

Really: There is no way for me to explain this briefly, so I'll just point to Rothbard[7]. But AC is 97% right here. But for example Mises believed that some monopolies could emerge under laissez-faire.

AC: Mainstream economists favor fiat money, Austrians favor the gold standard.

Really: Austrians usually favor the money that the market chooses. Historically it has been gold, which is why they talk about it so much. Austrian economics itself doesn't recommend any money, it's simply a theory on money(value-free).

AC: "Mainstream economists assert that the mystery of the business cycle is deep and poorly understood; Austrians claim the government causes it."

Really: This is false. Even a stateless society could have business cycles, if the banking system operated on fractional reserves. The government has only made the process worse.

To be continued...

[1] The Austrian School Deception : Why the Austrian School of Economics would result in Global Genocide
The Hangover Theory by Krugman
[2] Critique of Austrian Economics
[3] Keynesian Predictions vs. American History [17:35 - 24:25]
[4] The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
[5] About the Mises Institute
[6] Chapter 10 - Monopoly and Competition

Capitalism and Income Inequality

We can't get rid of income inequality even if we wanted to. But does capitalism create greater or lower income inequality? Are the proponents of greater income equality on the right track when they try to hamper the market economy?

The policies advocated by the welfare school remove the incentive to saving on the part of private citizens. On the one hand, the measures directed toward a curtailment of big incomes and fortunes seriously reduce or destroy entirely the wealthier people's power to save. On the other hand, the sums which people with moderate incomes previously contributed to capital accumulation are manipulated in such a way as to channel them into the lines of consumption.
~Ludwig von Mises

The rich usually save more out of their income. This leads to greater capital accumulation, greater productivity and higher real wages. Obviously wealth transfer programs impede this process. This on the other hand hurts wage earners, as they now have less capital to work with. Setting the morality of welfare programs aside, I'm quite certain that this process hurts precisely those it's supposed to help.

This also creates all the wrong kinds of incentives. Many are stuck in poverty, because unemployment is subsidized and income taxes penalize working. The psychological effect of progressive taxation creates entire generations of people who know that working your way to the top means higher and higher taxes as you work your way up there.

But hey, maybe these problems are worth it? If capitalism creates income inequality, then maybe we don't want more capitalism?

Capitalism is essentially a system of mass production for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses. It pours a horn of plenty upon the common man. It has raised the average standard of living to a height never dreamed of in earlier ages. It has made accessible to millions of people enjoyments which a few generations ago were only within the reach of a small elite.
~Ludwig von Mises

Wealth transfer programs may indeed reduce income inequality, if this inequality is measured in money. But here it gets tricky. We don't want money just to have money(or at least most of the time we don't). We want the goods this money can buy, and this is absolutely critical if we want to understand the inequality capitalism creates.

Most of the land, labor and capital in the world is used for satisfying the needs of the masses. This can be easily seen by simply walking into any supermarket. This results in a disproportionately advantageous price/quality ratio of the goods produced for the common man.

If we go back in time we can easily see what this means. The difference between being poor and rich 1000 years ago could've easily meant the difference between starving to death and not doing so. The rich might've had 100 times more income, but so what? I'd say that life has an infinitely greater amount of "utility" than death(not just 100 times greater).

With capitalism this has been reversed. 200 years ago the transportation the rich could afford was on a different planet compared to the poor. What about now? The poor(in capitalistic countries) have an old car, while the rich might drive a new BMW. But they both have a car and can actually travel. The ultimate end is to get from point A to point B. They can both attain this end, when it used to be that the poor could not. Does a €400 bottle of wine offer 20 times more utility than a €20 bottle? What's the real difference between the internet connections of the rich and the poor nowadays? How about 10 years ago?

Even from a completely utilitarian perspective, there's no way you could argue that the additional enjoyment the rich get from the goods they buy is comparable to how much more income they earn.

If the last few hundred years can tell us anything, it's that capitalism reduces economic inequality in real terms.

Income Inequality

Income(or wealth) inequality is seen as a bad thing for various reasons. I just read an article[1] about how income inequality in Finland is now as bad as it was 40 years ago. Expert Heikki Taimio explains that we're going in the wrong direction and that high income inequality correlates with social and health problems. The article elaborates on this and lists obesity, violent deaths and criminal behavior as some of these problems.

Statistics

There are several problems with how income inequality is treated. First of all many measurements use pre-tax income to measure this inequality. This is obviously extremely misleading to say the least, and when consumption inequality is measured, it becomes apparent that the poor are really not doing as bad as income inequality would have us believe.

How were the correlations between health problems and income inequality achieved? By looking at different countries. Looking at the same country during different time periods leads to completely different conclusions[2].

Talk

I would also like to point out some of common language used in the discussion over income inequality. Normally we are told that the share of wealth owned/earned by the lowest 20% has shrunk. This creates the illusion of the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer, while most of the time this isn't the case at all.

I also find the talk about correlation infuriating. Causation is clearly implied, but they can't say it because there is no real theory behind it(or if there is, it's rare).

Another annoying term is income distribution. Distribution creates the image of a fixed amount of wealth that's then handed out to members of society, when obviously that doesn't represent the market economy in the slightest. A market economy is a series of voluntary exchanges and the amount of wealth is certainly not fixed. Someone earning more money does not mean someone else has to earn less. In fact if earning more represents greater productivity, then it necessarily benefits others.

Theory

As economists we must resist the temptation to make interpersonal utility comparisons. And that's what most of the discussion boils down to. E.g. applying the concept of marginal utility to money and assuming identical value scales among people makes it very easy to make the case for income equality(and maximum "total utility"). After all, what's one euro to a millionaire?

Ironically by using some (incorrect) armchair logic we can argue that precisely the rich value money much more than others, otherwise they wouldn't have gone to great lenghts to acquire and preserve all that wealth. Here I'm refuting a fallacy with a fallacy, since in reality we can't know people's value scales unless they are acting on them.

Do any of the problems that correlate with income inequality go away or get better if the state confiscates almost all of the wealth of the richest 1% and burns it to the ground? After all if income inequality is the cause, then that should help.

Someone might protest and say that I've got it all wrong. The argument is actually as follows: Taking from the rich and giving to the poor gives the poor better access to (e.g.) healthcare and education, and that's how their situation is ameliorated(and the rich are still rich enough to have good healthcare and education). Ok fair enough, but we're no longer talking about income inequality; we're talking about poverty. I recognize that poverty causes many problems, but poverty is not caused by income inequality(talking about real poverty, not "the lowest 20%").

And hey, what do you know? Poorer countries usually have greater inequalities than rich countries. No strawberry milkshake, Sherlock! That might have something to do with the correlations under discussion. The first applicable scenario that comes to mind is high inflation. Not only does that wreck the economy and make people poorer, it also wipes the middle class out(one of the classic symptoms of an inflationary policy is high income inequality).

Causes

After 15 seconds of Zen-like thinking I've come up with a complex theoretical framework that explains in detail why there is economic inequality. My answer: Some are just better at earning or stealing money. Not only are they better, but the best of the best are way better at it. Grab some online game that tracks how much and well people play it. Compare the differences between the best 100 players, then look at 100 mediocre players and you will understand what I'm talking about. You can look at sports, music or pretty much anything and the same pattern appears. The skill curve is "exponential" if you will.

No different with making money. Income equality has never been achieved on a large scale and schemes sold with it as a promise have ended up rewarding those who can navigate the political process(stealing). In a free society those rewarded know how to navigate the market process(earning) and in a mixed economy reward goes to those who can navigate both.

Consequences

I admit right now that income inequality might indeed have some negative consequences that make sense. However it must be remembered that even if these theories are correct, they must face the fact of opportunity costs(is it worth fighting this "problem?"). Measuring the costs and benefits of greater equality will always hit the wall of interpersonal utility comparison. Econometricians threw that principle out the window a long time ago, so they've obviously done some studies on this. Even so, it doesn't seem to me like the negatives are understood that well(not that I'd expect an econometrician to understand economics).

Income inequality does have one dangerous consequence that I'm aware of. It apparently causes people to lose their minds and come up with some pretty frikin' stupid ideas.

So here's the deal; income inequality allegedly causes depressions. I first stumbled on this idea in a speech given by Thomas E. Woods[3]. Two mainstream historians(David L. Wilson & Eugene P. Trani) wrote a book on the presidency of Warren G. Harding[4] and told us the following:

The tax cuts [after WWI], along with the emphasis on repayment of the national debt and reduced federal expenditures, combined to favor the rich. Many economists came to agree that one of the chief causes of the Great Depression of 1929 was the unequal distribution of wealth, which appeared to accelerate during the 1920s, and which was a result of the return to normalcy. Five percent of the population had more than 33 percent of the nation's wealth by 1929. This group failed to use its wealth responsibly.… Instead, they fueled unhealthy speculation on the stock market as well as uneven economic growth.

Woods' answer:

If this absurd attempt at a theory were correct, the world would be in a constant state of depression. There was nothing at all unusual about the pattern of American wealth in the 1920s. Far greater disparities have existed in countless times and places without any resulting disruption.

In fact, the Great Depression actually came in the midst of a dramatic upward trend in the share of national income devoted to wages and salaries in the United States — and a downward trend in the share going to interest, dividends, and entrepreneurial income.

Stupid ideas never die, so now you can find quite a few articles on how income inequality caused the Great Recession. More importantly someone I know very well(someone who IMO should know better) told me she believes in this theory. As I can't articulate my ideas well without writing them down, I simply said I disagreed with her. Now I write. As Woods already pointed out, historically the theory makes no sense.

The rich save and invest more. So if more goes to them and not the wages of normal people who'll just consume most of their income, it'll create a speculative bubble. I guess the rich have now "too much" to invest and so they take more and more risk. I'd like to point out that one main reason for the demand for higher yields was the fact that central banks kept interest rates too low. Safe investments didn't pay.

This theory resembles the "savings glut from China" argument that we heard so often in 2008(I haven't seen that argument in a while... maybe it actually went away?). Globally the savings rate was actually lower than in the previous decade, so empirically it makes no sense. And why was the bubble biggest in the US? After all, their savings rate went negative, so they should've had the smallest bubble of them all. In China it should be the opposite.

The short answer is that more saving and investment simply creates... more investment projects. Nowhere in this "theory" is the "cluster of errors"[5] made by entrepreneurs explained. To be fair, if no one saved and invested anything, then we indeed wouldn't have business cycles. We wouldn't have anything for that matter, since we'd be living in the stone age.

Equality

"Equal" is a mathematical term that is used when two things are exactly the same. People are not the same, they are all different. It is a blessing that this is so, or social cooperation and the division of labor wouldn't be nearly as beneficial as it is now. A world of income equality isn't real, it is an absurdity that denies the existence of differences between people. One might as well try to create a world without geniuses and dullards.

I do not say that income inequality is "good" or "bad". The only "equality" I believe in is the one before law.

[1] Tuloerot repesivät yhtä isoiksi kuin 40 vuotta sitten
[2] Look at the changes, not at the levels
[3] Why You've Never Heard of the Great Depression of 1920
[4] Presidency of Warren G. Harding
[5] The Positive Theory of the Cycle