Ta debata je sicer dokaj irelevantna za te kraje, čeprav imamo tudi tukaj precej ljubiteljev prve ali druge šole. Bistveno bolj je relevantna za ZDA, kjer je free-market fundamentalizem “avstrijske šole” zasedel ideološko platformo republikancev, nato pa so jo republikanski ideologi premešali še z monetaristično šolo Miltona Friedmana in pri tem spregledali, da se (sicer tudi free-market fundamentalist) Friedman globoko ni strinjal z Avstrijanci glede potrebnosti ekonomske politike. V Evropi te debate ni, ker je prisotno manj ideologije v ekonomski politiki, seveda če zanemarimo nemško pragmatično ideologijo varčevanja, ki pa ima svojo podlago bolj v pragmatičnih razlogih (Nemci bi imeli prosto trgovino in skupno valuto, nočejo pa plačevati za dolgove drugih držav, ki so v veliki meri nastali prav zaradi te slabo dizajnirane skupne monetarne unije) kot pa v zaresnih niansah med eno ali drugo strujo free-market fundamentalizma.

Najprej o razliki med avstrijanci in Friedmanom. Avstrijanci so v svoji teoriji poslovnega cikla (bili in so še) zelo kategorični glede škodljivosti vsakršne ekonomske politike, ki – zaradi poseganja v prostovoljne odločitve posameznikov glede varčevanja in porabe – samo zasadi seme naslednje krize. Zato tudi ob nastopu krize zavračajo vsakršno poseganje države, pač pa je treba dovoliti, da neučinkovita podjetja propadejo, da se spet vzpostavi ravnovesje med ponudbo in povpraševanjem, nakar bodo “nezaposleni resursi” postopno spet našli zaposlitev: Hayek (str. 275):

The thing which is needed to secure healthy conditions is the most speedy and complete adaptation possible of the structure of production to the proportion between the demand for consumers’ goods and the demand for producers’ goods as determined by voluntary saving and spending. If the proportion as determined by the voluntary decisions of individuals is distorted by the creation of artificial demand, it must mean that part of the available resources is again led into a wrong direction and a definite and lasting adjustment is again postponed. And, even if the absorption of the unemployed resources were to be quickened in this way, it would only mean that the seed would already be sown for new disturbances and new crises. The only way permanently to “mobilize” all available resources is, therefore, not to use artificial stimulants—whether during a crisis or thereafter—but to leave it to time to effect a permanent cure by the slow process of adapting the structure of production to the means available for capital purposes.

Friedman je v obrambi svojega monetarizma, torej uporabe monetarne politike kot sredstva za reševanje krize, seveda ta avstrijanski pogled (“that the only sound policy was to let the depression run its course, bring down money costs, and eliminate weak and unsound firms“) povozil in ga označil kot “atrophied and rigid caricature” kvantitativne teorije denarja (povzeto po Krugmanu). Leta 1998 pa je v intervjuju  šel še korak naprej in ga označil kot zelo škodljiv:

I think the Austrian business-cycle theory has done the world a great deal of harm. If you go back to the 1930s, which is a key point, here you had the Austrians sitting in London, Hayek and Lionel Robbins, and saying you just have to let the bottom drop out of the world. You’ve just got to let it cure itself. You can’t do anything about it. You will only make it worse. You have Rothbard saying it was a great mistake not to let the whole banking system collapse. I think by encouraging that kind of do-nothing policy both in Britain and in the United States, they did harm.

(Mimogrede, v istem intervjuju je Friedman tudi pravilno ocenil, da dizajn evropske monetarne unije ne more delovati, ker nima mehanizma za prilagajanje, zato bo generator recesije)

No, če avstrijanci zavračajo vsakršno ekonomsko politiko (razen zagotavljanja robnih pogojev za prosto delovanje trgov, pa so v realnem svetu makroekonomske politike seveda nujne, ker povsem prosto delovanje trgov (že zaradi vgrajenih market failures in drugega) pripelje do kriz (eno, zelo hudo, pravkar doživljamo zaradi prostega delovanja nereguliranih finančnih trgov). Glede učinkovitosti ekonomskih politik pa je pomembna delitev na keynesiance (Keynes), monetariste (Friedman) in neoklasično sintezo (Samuelson), pri čemer zadnja velja za sintezo obeh prejšnjih. Krugman:

Paul Samuelson’s “neoclassical synthesis”, as described in a nice survey by Olivier Blanchard, was the notion that monetary and fiscal policy could be used to solve the problem of recessions and depressions, and that once you did that, conventional microeconomics — with its favorable view of free markets — could go back to its old self. Samuelson:

Solving the vital problems of monetary and fiscal policy by the tools of income analysis will validate and bring back into relevance the classical verities.

Friedman’s contribution, if you like, was to take out the words “and fiscal”, and furthermore to suggest that monetary policy could be reduced to simple, mechanical rules.

During the era of the Great Moderation, it seemed as if Friedman had won much though not all of this war: quantity-theory monetary policy was out, but Taylor-rule policy seemed to be doing the job, with no need for discretionary fiscal policy.

But the experience of the past 6 years, since the financial crisis began, has blown apart not just Friedman’s position but much of Samuelson’s as well.

First of all, the liquidity trap is real; conventional monetary policy, it turns out, can’t deal with really large negative shocks to demand. We can argue endlessly about whether unconventional monetary policy could do the trick, if only the Fed did it on a truly huge scale; but the fact is that the Fed hasn’t ever been willing, or felt that it had sufficient political room, to do that experiment.

Second, while the evidence from austerity programs strongly suggests that fiscal policy does in fact work, with multipliers well above one, the political economy of policy turns out to make an effective fiscal response to depression very difficult.

Predlagam, da preberete debato pod Krugmanovim tekstom.