Opinion of Lew Rockwell/Ludwig Von Misses Institute libertarianism

[ingemann]

Personal I think that when people talk about the Austrian School of Economics, they should read up on Austria-Hungary. In fact the minarchist approach of the government was a major reason for why the Austrians failed to develop the empire's infrastructure. That may be answered with a so what? But it was a major reason for why the empire did so badly in WWI, because they had trouble getting materials to the fronts. It also limited the industrial development of the empire to the borderland of Germany, which specialised in export to Germany, while the rest of the empire was mostly raw material producer. Germany on the other hand made active investments in infrastructure, which enabled them to both growing the economy in peace time and to move troops faster to the front than their enemies, thereby placing the front in enemy territory rather than in their own.