Analysis on Austrian economics

The BBC’s Radio 4 Analysis programme on the Austrian school of economics is well worth listening to. Jamie Whyte, a management consultant and former philosophy lecture, takes a look at this ultra-free market school of economics whose most famous thinker was Friedrich Hayek.  Such economists object even to the existence of central banks as well as to the bail-out of commercial banks. Robert Skidelsky, a biographer of John Maynard Keynes, provides the alternative view. More information is available on the website including (at least for those in Britain) a chance to listen to or download the programme.

Next week Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight’s economics editor, will look at economists who focus on the “financialisation” of capitalism.

There are problems with both these critiques of mainstream economics but I will leave dealing with them till a later date.