The Hope of Austrian Economics

Austrian Economics was founded on the principles of the Austrian economist, Carl Menger and later on expanded upon by fellow Austrians, like Friedrich von Wieser, Friedrich August von Hayek, and Eugen von Bohn-Bawerk. The majority of Menger’s Economics was a reconstruction effort of the then ‘British classical school of economics’. The British classical school of economics was ‘flawed ’ in Menger’s view, he thought that it just did not make sense. So, he took it upon himself to ‘reshape ’ this school and correct the wrong. So, how is there hope in this? Well, the hope is in the principles and methods that these great Austrian economists laid forth in the Austrian school of economics. Each one of these men and others who have come and gone before and after them, have laid the groundwork for a method whose potential is to give greater economic freedom to the individual and can be realized. It is the most free of any economic systems known of to date. The Austrian school starts out with an emphasis on a method and builds up from the British classical school of economics and into this understanding of economics. After all, the Austrian school of economics owes much of its foundation to the British classical school of economics and to the Scottish Enlightenment in economics, lead by Adam Smith. Smith’s method is in his Book, The Wealth of Nations. This book and his method were an outgrowth and “logical follow-up to Smith’s earlier lectures on civil and natural law.”1 Smith’s book is, like Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State, is as to a history of man’s progress to a civilized society. Smith said of his work, of how “commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government and with them, the liberty and security of individuals.”2 Is has been said tha