The Ludwig von Mises comeback

That is the subject of my latest Bloomberg column.  Here is one excerpt:

The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises is having a moment, especially in Latin America. Argentine President Javier Milei admires Mises, and he has adopted some Misesian ideas, such as the notion that “the middle of the road leads to socialism.” Milei used to be an academic economist and knows the ideas of Mises well.

More colorfully, on Saturday the Brazilian UFC fighter Renato Moicano delivered an on-camera polemic (warning: audio in link NSFW) in praise of Mises and defending free speech and private property. His impromptu lecture pointed listeners to Mises and what he called the six lessons of the Austrian School of Economics, as well as his forthcoming podcast. Those lessons — as well as a G-rated version of Moicano’s economics lecture, and a Mises-inspired speech on business-cycle theory by President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador — are available on the website of the (US-based) Mises Institute.

And this:

Meanwhile, among free-market types, the vibes have shifted in a way that has boosted the influence of Mises. For a comparison, the ideas of Friedrich A. Hayek were ascendant in classical liberal circles during the 1990s, in part because Hayek had won a Nobel Prize. Hayek’s writing style was also more gentle, while Mises was uncompromising. As Hayek said about Mises’s book on socialism, published in 1922: “At first we all felt he was frightfully exaggerating and even offensive in tone.”

Milton Friedman was another great economic thinker of the 20th century, and he was renowned for always smiling and never losing his temper at his intellectual opponents. Friedman wrote a book called Capitalism and Freedom. Hayek’s was called The Constitution of Liberty. Mises, meanwhile, was producing books with titles such as Omnipotent Government and The Anti-Capitalist Mentality. He was the one of that troika who allied himself with Ayn Rand.

Today, however, many of Mises’s proclamations no longer sound as outdated as they might have a few decades ago. In his treatise Human Action, he was fond of stressing “Man Acts” as a fundamental principle of economic and social analysis. Whatever that might have meant at the time, these days I would not be surprised to find a comparable phrase in a Jordan Peterson book. Indeed, Peterson recently expressed his admiration for Moicano’s endorsement of Mises.

Finally:

As for Latin America, Mises may be just the kind of market-oriented thinker the region needs. Polemics do sometimes cut through the obfuscations of political discourse. Friedman and Hayek’s generosity toward their opponents is perhaps not the best strategy for the notoriously brutal politics of Latin America. And some of Mises’s more impolite notions — such as the idea that economic policy can simply become worse and worse over time — seem to be proving out in countries such as Brazil, which has been mostly stagnant for a long time now.

Worth a ponder.