Steve Bannon Dismisses Austrian Economics

Austrian economics is clear and concise. It is elegant in its simplicity. Ebb and flow. Markets clear. When manipulated undue harm is done markets and society.

We aren’t surprised to hear this from Mr. Bannon. We assumed that this was probably about where he was on the economics question. No fan of Austrian economics would call for a massive infrastructure program for instance. (As Bannon has.)

Saying that, Bannon is in many respects a breath of fresh air. (He’s no neocon shill for instance and that counts for a lot. We also believe that he understands  – correctly – the critique of crony capitalism. That also counts for a lot. ) No one is perfect and one can always learn. Everyone can, even advisors to the president.

(From Mises)

“What’s that Dostoyevsky line: Happy families are all the same, but unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique ways?” (He meant Tolstoy.) “I think the Democrats are fundamentally afflicted with the inability to discuss and have an adult conversation about economics and jobs, because they’re too consumed by identity politics. And then the Republicans, it’s all this theoretical Cato Institute, Austrian economics, limited government — which just doesn’t have any depth to it. They’re not living in the real world.” – Steve Bannon

Third, Bannon’s use of the word “depth” belies a progressive longing for merging nation with state. And of course he’s right: Austrian economics per se, or any brand of economics, has very little to say about blood, culture, soil, language, and nationhood. Social science, at least honest social science, is not prescriptive. Economics can’t provide  a normative system, political science can’t Make America Great Again. But the libertarian response to this is simple and direct — nation is not state. Greatness, even goodness, is outside the purview of government. Culture is beyond the realm of politics. Work, family, markets, and civil society are the foundations of a robust civilization, not the state. The deeper the state, the shallower the civilization — and vice versa. To the extent Bannon sees “limited government” and laissez-faire economics as abstractions that fail to provide a satisfactory worldview, it’s because he sees government as the organizing principle for society. It’s a grandiose view of statecraft that libertarians reject.

Finally, there’s the old “not living in the real world” chestnut. How many times have libertarians heard this one? All around us are the almost unimaginable benefits of markets, cooperation, and technology, yet somehow we’re naïve if we don’t want to funnel human activity through government cattle chutes. The vast material and digital abundance we enjoy every day is provided without any state apparatus, in fact in spite of that apparatus. Is this private world not part of reality? Government is the artifice, and statists are the utopian dreamers who imagine that individuals acting under the magical banner of government can plan, coerce, and coordinate millions of lives. Realpolitik, Bannon’s idea of real-world governance, created a pile of several million bodies in the 20th century. If that’s the real world, perhaps it’s time to give libertarian theory a try.

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http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/