Idag är undertecknad intervjuad på Tom Woods Show. Temat är Sverige – och givetvis den globala myten om den socialistiska utopin. Långt ifrån mitt bästa framträdande, men förhoppningsvis sticks några hål på den uppblåsta mytballongen.
Man kan lyssna på detta avsnitt av Tom Woods Show här.
Jag tycker att du gjorde ett bra och intressant framträdande. Inför många lyssnare, får man anta, eftersom Tom Woods show tydligen är tvåa på Ituneslistan över podcasts!
Din forskning kring 90-talskrisen som en illustration av den österrikiska konjunkturcykelteorin låter spännande, håll oss gärna uppdaterade om det! 🙂
Om jag får försöka mig på lite konstruktiv kritik, så skulle det kanske vara bra om du, Per, stoppade in lite snabba och pedagogiska svar i din verktygslåda på de frågor som ställdes för de lär väl få svara på dem flera gånger. Annars bra, men för ont om tid att svara på frågorna.
Måste säga jag blev en smula besviken på att en historiker som Tom Woods beskriver Sverige som om det alltid varit en del av den industrialiserade Västvärlden, och inte alls nämner det libertarianska systemskifte som lade grund för det svenska ”ekonomiska undret”.
Murray Rothbard skrev t.ex.:
http://library.mises.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/Austrian%20Perspective%20on%20the%20History%20of%20Economic%20Thought_Vol_2.pdf
”Sweden was a country heavily influenced by Bastiat, who became the
major authority in Swedish economics and politics. A young Swede, Johan
August Gripenstedt (d. 1874), met Bastiat on a trip to France, and was deeply
influenced for the rest of his life by the French laissez-faire leader. Gripenstedt
became the greatest of the economic liberals in Sweden during the 1860s and
1870s, as well as the most influential politician in Sweden. By 1870,
Gripenstedt, almost single-handed, had managed to eliminate all import and
export prohibitions in Sweden, to abolish all export duties, to reduce tariffs
on manufactured goods, and to bring about free trade in agricultural products
Shortly after Gripenstedt’s death, his followers and disciples formed the
Stockholm Economic Society in 1877, dedicated to the principles of Bastiat
and Gripenstedt. Some of the leading members were: Johan Walter Arnberg,
director of the Bank of Sweden, who warned of the dangers of socialism
stemming from businessmen’s demands for government subsidies; G.K. Hamilton,
professor of economics at the University of Lund, so dedicated to
Frederic Bastiat that he named his son ’Bastiat’ in 1865; A.O. Wallenberg,
founder of the Stockholm Euskilda Bank; and Johan Henrik Palme, leading
banker,’ dedicated to free trade.
Two prominent laissez-faire political leaders in the Economic Society
should be mentioned. One was Axel Gustafsson Bennich, director-general of
the customs, and right-hand man of Gripenstedt. Bennich was an indefatigable
and joyous battler for free trade and laissez-faire throughout his long life.
Another was the president of the Stockholm Economic Society, Carl Freidrich
Waern, a Gothenburg merchant who became minister of finance and head of
the board of trade. Waern resigned from the latter post because he refused to
sign a law mandating protection of young timber in the forests, a measure he
denounced as an egregious invasion of the rights of private property.
As was true of laissez-faire thinkers and activists in England and France,
Swedish libertarians were split on what to do about banking. Central banker
Johan Arnberg .and economist Hans Forssell favoured the central Bank of
Sweden as a means of abolishing all private bank notes, which they considered
inflationary and pernicious. On the other hand, banker A.O. Wallenberg
championed free banking.
By the mid.. 1880s, however, in Sweden as in the rest of Europe, statism
began to make a successful comeback and gradually to become dominant.
Protectionists began to infiltrate the Economic Society by the mid-1880s, and
Sweden adopted a protective tariff system in 1888. In 1893, the symbol of
protectionist triumph came with a protectionist being chosen president of the
former central nucleus of free trade, the Stockholm Economic Society. During
the 1880s, too, despite the bitter attacks of Forssell and other founding stalwarts,
the society began to champion social welfare and other Kathedersozialist
(’socialism of the chair’) policies. In this way, Swedish economic theory and
policy shifted, during the decade, from its original French laissez-faire orientation
toward the German historical school and its ’monarchical socialism’. This
sharp change was greatly facilitated by German being made the dominant
foreign language in the Swedish public schools in 1878.”
Johan Norberg har också skrivit en utmärkt essä ”How Laissez-Faire made Sweden rich”:
http://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/how-laissez-faire-made-sweden-rich