Sunday, January 13, 2008
CHICAGO SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS - HOME OF LIBERTARIANS
From Wikipedia:
The Chicago school of economics is a school of thought favoring free-market economics practiced at and disseminated from the University of Chicago in the middle of the 20th century. The leaders were Nobel laureates George Stigler and Milton Friedman.
It is associated with neoclassical price theory and free market libertarianism, the refutation and rejection of Keynesianism in favor of monetarism (until the 1980s, when it turned to rational expectations), and the rejection of regulation of business in favor of laissez-faire. In terms of methodology the stress is on "positive economics" -- that is, empirically based studies using statistics, with less stress on theory.
The school is noted for its very wide range of topics, from regulation to marriage, slavery and demography.
The term was coined in the 1950s to refer to economists teaching in the Economics Department at the University of Chicago, and closely related academic areas at the University such as the Graduate School of Business and the Law School. They met together in frequent intense discussions that helped set a group outlook on economic issues, based on price theory. The 1950s saw the height of popularity of the Keynesian school of economics, so the members of the University of Chicago were considered outcast. Famed economist Friedrich Hayek was teaching there because that is the only place he could find employment at the time [1].
The entry ends by saying that "wrecked countries" were rescued by this method of free market economy which brought about the privatization of third world companies.
It doesn't tell who ended up owning them. Would that be the capitalists of the first world countries who have shipped jobs off shore where there are no labor unions and no government regulation? Where the sweatshop is still with us?
Lord have mercy!
