Economics, Austrian School of

What is it about the Austrian School of Economics that attracts adherents even more than 100 years after the school's founding by Carl Menger in 1871? Many think the answer lies in the libertarianism that is so closely associated with this analysis of economic issues. No doubt in the case of many teachers and scholars, the libertarian conclusions reached by many Austrian economists go a long way toward explaining their interest in the subject. However, if one is primarily concerned with the conclusions drawn by libertarianism, which, after all, is primarily a political theory, it does not follow that one must adhere to the Austrian School's teachings on economics. Milton Friedman, probably the most notable of all libertarian economists, was methodologically and analytically at odds ...