Where Do Conservatives And Liberals Come From?

This book is a relentless assault on the ideas of Krugman and on the Keynesian economics that would have the government direct the economy in order to maximize prosperity and prevent recessions.

In fact, the more they try to manage the economy the worse they make it - as during the housing bubble years when the Fed and the federal government colluded to gin up the housing market in order to keep the economy robust after 9/11. Oops.

Unfortunately for Krugman and his followers, Krugman is able to declare victory for Keynesianism only by citing highly selective data, by ignoring or misrepresenting his own predictions, or by misstating the views of his opponents. Krugman even claims to have predicted the housing bubble - after having called for the very policies that created it.

Economist Robert Murphy (PhD, NYU) has an uncanny ability to recall Krugman's columns and interviews and puts his command of this material to devastating use in this book. As Murphy shows, in no way can it be said that Keynesian analysis has won the day. To the contrary, the Austrian School - which has been critical of government intervention, particularly central banking - has been vindicated in episode after episode.

Topics include:

Listen to this book, and never lose a debate again.

In 1927, classical liberalism, based on a belief in individualism, reason, capitalism, and free trade, was dying, when one of the 20th century's greatest social thinkers wrote this combative and convincing restatement. Nowhere are the key principles of Mises' philosophy better represented than in this timeless work.

Mises was a careful and logical theoretician who believed that ideas rule the world, and this especially comes to light in Liberalism.

"The ultimate outcome of the struggle" between liberalism and totalitarianism, say Mises, "will not be decided by arms, but by ideas. It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used. It is they alone, and not arms, that, in the last analysis, turn the scales."