# Think Tank > Austrian Economics / Economic Theory >  Was Mises Bankrolled by the Financial Elite?

## green73

Tom Woods:




> I know I am spending too much time on these crazy LaRouchian claims  see my post on the argument that Austrian economics benefits the plutocrats, and therefore has been promoted by them. You will hear it mentioned that the Rockefeller Foundation funded Ludwig von Mises, and that this proves Austrian economics is supported by the elites, even though (1) the elites went to a lot of trouble to establish the worlds central banks, which the Austrian School opposes, and (2) if the elites are that powerful, why is the Austrian School so little known after all their alleged efforts to promote it?
> 
> I asked Mises biographer Guido Hülsmann to comment on this. Heres his reply:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				    The crucial evidence against this interpretation is twofold:
> ...

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## hazek

Utterly irrelevant as to whether or not his theories were valid.

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## Travlyr

> Utterly irrelevant as to whether or not his theories were valid.


The smoke and mirrors are everywhere. The relevance is in whether he could be bought and sold. Mises couldn't be bought just like Ron Paul couldn't. However, Milton Friedman is revered as a great economist, yet he backed the idea of the central bank until his dying days. He is from the Chicago School which was endowed with $80 million from J.D. Rockefeller. In my opinion, Milton Friedman sold out.

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## hazek

I R R E L E V A N T .

I don't care if you are bought but what you say is true, I really don't. And I refuse to idolize any mere man, even if I think they've done something significant. No man is infallible, not a single one.

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## green73

It's important because the greenbackers and lefty types have been spreading this lie to discredit Mises and the Austrians.

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## Travlyr

I don't see anyone idolizing anyone. What I see is *everyone* financed by the elite are obfuscating the truth or else they don't get their funding. Almost everybody has their price but not everyone.

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## misean

> The smoke and mirrors are everywhere. The relevance is in whether he could be bought and sold. Mises couldn't be bought just like Ron Paul couldn't. However, Milton Friedman is revered as a great economist, yet he backed the idea of the central bank until his dying days. He is from the Chicago School which was endowed with $80 million from J.D. Rockefeller. In my opinion, Milton Friedman sold out.


I hate defending Friedman because his monetary ideas are wrong. That said...

He was probably the loudest voice in advocating the elimination of the Federal Reserve for the last 35 years of his life.   

Friedman was actually a reverse sell out. He started out as a Keynesian in college. He got more and more free market as he aged.

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## Travlyr

> I hate defending Friedman because his monetary ideas are wrong. That said...
> 
> He was probably the loudest voice in advocating the elimination of the Federal Reserve for the last 35 years of his life.   
> 
> Friedman was actually a reverse sell out. He started out as a Keynesian in college. He got more and more free market as he aged.


I stand corrected. I have not followed Milton Friedman as closely as I should have to make my claim. I did not hear him call for an end to the Federal Reserve System until his later years. If it was his last 35 years, then I applaud him and retract my claim that he sold out.

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## heavenlyboy34

> I hate defending Friedman because his monetary ideas are wrong. That said...
> 
> He was probably the loudest voice in advocating the elimination of the Federal Reserve for the last 35 years of his life.   
> 
> Friedman was actually a reverse sell out. He started out as a Keynesian in college. He got more and more free market as he aged.


Friedman called for replacing the FED with a computer rather than eliminating central banking completely...unless he changed his mind later on, which IDR.

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## misean

“Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes ‑‑ excusable or not ‑‑ can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic ‑‑ this is the key political argument against an independent central bank. . .To paraphrase Clemenceau: money is much too serious a matter to be left to the Central Bankers.” -Milton Friedman


Also what is wrong with getting money from the Rockefeller Foundation? The answer is nothing. Many established university professors hold a chair from a grant. Mises wrote The Theory of Money and Credit in 1912. He started getting funding from the Rockefeller foundation after he came the US in 1940.  I remember Hazlitt interview saying that Mises had a lot financial problems when he came to the US (he was a Jew in Nazi Germany.) He was the world's greatest economist but he couldn't get an academic job because he was considered "right wing."





> Friedman called for replacing the FED with a computer rather than eliminating central banking completely...unless he changed his mind later on, which IDR.


He was for the Treasury using a computer algorithm to create a constant growth in thrmoney supply for a while (which is definitely not an Austrian idea).  I also remember seeing that he thought private money in a free banking system would work.

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## Travlyr

> Also what is wrong with getting money from the Rockefeller Foundation? The answer is nothing. Many established university professors hold a chair from a grant.


I disagree with you on this. The Rockefeller family had inside information which they used to create somewhat of a monopoly. That gave them unfair advantage against people who did not have that inside information. Then they used their wealth to promote elitist propaganda (central banking) in order to further the wealth of the elite at the expense of the people. And University professors are not yet teaching honest sound money even today. They are still teaching obfuscation by Keynesian economics. Because of their grant money? I think so.




> He was for the Treasury using a computer algorithm to create a constant growth in thrmoney supply for a while (which is definitely not an Austrian idea).


Nor is it honest.




> I also remember seeing that he thought private money in a free banking system would work.


I agree with him.

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## angelatc

> The smoke and mirrors are everywhere. The relevance is in whether he could be bought and sold. Mises couldn't be bought just like Ron Paul couldn't. However, Milton Friedman is revered as a great economist, yet he backed the idea of the central bank until his dying days.


He admitted it was a failed theory right there at the end.

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## erowe1

> Milton Friedman is revered as a great economist, yet he backed the idea of the central bank until his dying days.


No he didn't.
http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/0...deral-reserve/
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/...d-the-fed.html
http://divisionoflabour.com/archives/003603.php
http://hubpages.com/hub/Milton_Fried...l_Reserve_Bank

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## -C-

obviously he was bankrolled by the elite, the entire austrian school of eco is just a rip off version of the London School of Economics. Mises came from Hapsburg money. 

you can say they are larouchian claims all you want, and try to discredit them that way, but its still history. A sovereign nation state having control over its own value of currency, what specie the currency is, and what to do with that currency....it just doesnt go well with the 'free market.'

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## GeorgiaAvenger

If the Rockefeller's were just interested in promoting central banking, then why promote the Austrians and Chicagoans? The Austrians are against it, and the Chicagoans are wary of it.

If they were interested in depopulation, why give to charities?

On the other hand, a lot of the money went to socializing academia and the media.

There are a lot of missing wholes in these theories.

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## GeorgiaAvenger

> obviously he was bankrolled by the elite, the entire austrian school of eco is just a rip off version of the London School of Economics. Mises came from Hapsburg money. 
> 
> you can say they are larouchian claims all you want, and try to discredit them that way, but its still history. A sovereign nation state having control over its own value of currency, what specie the currency is, and what to do with that currency....it just doesnt go well with the 'free market.'


A lot of the money came from the Kochs and the Volker fund.

I know Lionel Robbins of the London School is popular among Austrians.

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## Travlyr

> No he didn't.
> http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/0...deral-reserve/
> http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/...d-the-fed.html
> http://divisionoflabour.com/archives/003603.php
> http://hubpages.com/hub/Milton_Fried...l_Reserve_Bank


So the earliest reference you have to Milton Friedman calling for an end to the Federal Reserve is 1996? Does anybody have any proof that he requested an end to the Fed earlier than that? 

An interesting note about that is that the Internet (the truth machine) was just starting to heat up in 1996. Prior to that we could rely on TV, Radio, and Newspapers to get "honest" information? Now we know we were not getting "honest" information from the media. Also, we could not even go to the library to get honest information as Eustace Mullins and Murray Rothbard's books were not available in public libraries at the time.  

And one more interesting note about J.D. Rockefeller and his connection to the central banking powers. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller is the daughter of Senator Nelson Aldrich.

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## erowe1

> So the earliest reference you have to Milton Friedman calling for an end to the Federal Reserve is 1996? Does anybody have any proof that he requested an end to the Fed earlier than that?


I'm not an expert. But that divisionoflabour blog is written by economists, and they are convinced that he held that view even when he wrote his book with Anna Schwartz. I've seen other economists say that about him, including in a journal article written by one of his students at Chicago.

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## Travlyr

> I'm not an expert. But that divisionoflabour blog is written by economists, and they are convinced that he held that view even when he wrote his book with Anna Schwartz. I've seen other economists say that about him, including in a journal article written by one of his students at Chicago.


I'm looking for documentation. If you have it please post it.

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## low preference guy

> So the earliest reference you have to Milton Friedman calling for an end to the Federal Reserve is 1996? Does anybody have any proof that he requested an end to the Fed earlier than that?


your claim was that Milton backed the Fed "until his dying days". so why do you need a proof he wanted to end it BEFORE 1996? that doesn't seem to make sense.

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## misean

> obviously he was bankrolled by the elite, the entire austrian school of eco is just a rip off version of the London School of Economics.


There is no "London School of Economics" economic thought.  Hayek and Robbins taught there and each had different views. Keynes also taught there and was opposed to the Austrian School.

Not everything is a conspiracy of the Illuminati or whatever you crazy bull$#@! that you believe.

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## Travlyr

> your claim was that Milton backed the Fed "until his dying days". so why do you need a proof he wanted to end it BEFORE 1996? that doesn't seem to make sense.


Because misean said that he has been against the Fed for the last 35 years of his life. I'm just interested in honest information.

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## erowe1

> I'm looking for documentation. If you have it please post it.


I don't have it. But since you're the one who's looking for it, perhaps you can post it when you find it.

ETA: at that divisionoflabour link the refer to the article I mentioned by his student, which was published in 1984.

His co-author of Monetary History, Anna Schwartz, quotes him speaking against the Fed in a 1973 Playboy interview here.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...lton-friedman/

Also, IIRC, episode 9 of his 1980 TV series, Free to Choose (which in its entirety is a great resource) is anti-central banking.
http://www.freetochoose.tv/

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## misean

> Because misean said that he has been against the Fed for the last 35 years of his life. I'm just interested in honest information.


http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj28n2/cj28n2-12.pdf

I'm too lazy to reread this buy it has a brief history of Friedman's monetary views. Here is one quote I pulled out of it "Friedman and Schwartz ultimately conclude that there are in fact no good economic arguments to support government monopolies of hand-to-hand currency."

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## Travlyr

> I don't have it. But since you're the one who's looking for it, perhaps you can post it when you find it.


I have found it. 1996. Thank you erowe1.

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## Travlyr

> http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj28n2/cj28n2-12.pdf
> 
> I'm too lazy to reread this buy it has a brief history of Friedman's monetary views. Here is one quote I pulled out of it "Friedman and Schwartz ultimately conclude that there are in fact no good economic arguments to support government monopolies of hand-to-hand currency."


A view and a public declaration of that view are two different things.

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## idiom

I sorta wish I had billions to bribe Congress into ending the deficit and bring the troops home.

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## erowe1

> I have found it. 1996. Thank you erowe1.


How do you know he changed his view then? Could you post the link?

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## Travlyr

> I don't have it. But since you're the one who's looking for it, perhaps you can post it when you find it.
> 
> ETA: at that divisionoflabour link the refer to the article I mentioned by his student, which was published in 1984.
> 
> His co-author of Monetary History, Anna Schwartz, quotes him speaking against the Fed in a 1973 Playboy interview here.
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...lton-friedman/
> 
> Also, IIRC, episode 9 of his 1980 TV series, Free to Choose (which in its entirety is a great resource) is anti-central banking.
> http://www.freetochoose.tv/


I appreciate the links. And I like Milton Friedman. My claim is that criticizing the Fed is different than calling for an end to it. While Murray N. Rothbard, Eustace Mullins, Ron Paul and others were calling for an end to the Fed in order to create prosperity for individuals, Mr. Friedman was criticizing the Fed for failed policy. That is two different sides of the coin. The difference being that Milton Friedman was on the Fed's payroll while Mullins, Rothbard, Paul, and others calling for an end to central banking weren't.

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## erowe1

> I appreciate the links. And I like Milton Friedman. My claim is that criticizing the Fed is different than calling for an end to it. While Murray N. Rothbard, Eustace Mullins, Ron Paul and others were calling for an end to the Fed in order to create prosperity for individuals, Mr. Friedman was criticizing the Fed for failed policy. That is two different sides of the coin. The difference being that Milton Friedman was on the Fed's payroll while Mullins, Rothbard, Paul, and others calling for an end to central banking weren't.


I basically agree. I definitely wouldn't put him in the same category as the other people you listed. I think he thought we would have been better off if the Fed never existed. And once it did exist, he wished it could be gotten rid of, but didn't think it could, so he proposed compromise measures. I'm not sure if 1996 was the first time he explicitly said it should be abolished or not. But he did at least occasionally put it that way.

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## Travlyr

> How do you know he changed his view then? Could you post the link?


It does not matter when he changed his view. What matters is when he first publicly called for an end to the Fed (which he eventually did). It is my opinion from this discussion and my study that he knew full well that central banking practices were bankrupting the country and controlling society, but he was willing, for personal gain, (self interest... just like we all do) to obfuscate the truth as payback for his fame and fortune.

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## Travlyr

> I sorta wish I had billions to bribe Congress into ending the deficit and bring the troops home.


Get your own printing press and don't tell anybody you have it.

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## misean

> It does not matter when he changed his view. What matters is when he first publicly called for an end to the Fed (which he eventually did). It is my opinion from this discussion and my study that he knew full well that central banking practices were bankrupting the country and controlling society, but he was willing, for personal gain, (self interest... just like we all do) to obfuscate the truth as payback for his fame and fortune.


I don't think there is anything nefarious about Milton Friedman's views on this issue.

I actually don't think he believed the problem with the Fed was bankrupting the country. I think his issue with that the Federal Reserve was that it couldn't manage price inflation very well. His issue was that there was too much of incentive to inflate. 

I don't think see he saw the Fed as an enabler for debt. He definitely didn't agree with the Austrian Business Cycle. He saw rising prices more as the problem and not expansion of credit and malinvestment. He thought Greenspan was great. Before his death in 2006, he was very on board the aggressive action Greenspan took after the Dot Com collapse.

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## Indy Vidual

> ...
> 
> There are a lot of missing wholes in these theories.


Since the wholes _are missing_, then the theories are sound, correct?

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## Travlyr

> Since the wholes _are missing_, then the theories are sound, correct?


Oh No, at this point they are only theories. Theories are not sound. Facts are sound. Facts are derived from theories.

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## angelatc

> Because misean said that he has been against the Fed for the last 35 years of his life. I'm just interested in honest information.


Not being driven by dates, but just the maturing of the philosophy, I've always had the same impression.  I don't think Friedman woke up one day and recanted his earlier opinions.  He remained a scholar to the end. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...558.x/abstract - this is from 1978, and it quotes Friedman's "New Quantity Theory Of Money - 


> _Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes ‑‑ excusable or not ‑‑ can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic ‑‑ this is the key political argument against an independent central bank. . .To paraphrase Clemenceau: money is much too serious a matter to be left to the Central Bankers.”_


He was clearly reacanting it then.

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## specsaregood

> It does not matter when he changed his view. What matters is when he first publicly called for an end to the Fed (which he eventually did). It is my opinion from this discussion and my study that he knew full well that central banking practices were bankrupting the country and controlling society, but he was willing, for personal gain, (self interest... just like we all do) to obfuscate the truth as payback for his fame and fortune.


RP said in an interview a few years ago that Friedman told RP that RP was one of the only people that could make a convincing argument in favor of the gold standard.  That'd be quite a compliment for many.  I suspect it was because he approaches it from a freedom pov instead of simply monetary pov.

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## GeorgiaAvenger

> RP said in an interview a few years ago that Friedman told RP that RP was one of the only people that could make a convincing argument in favor of the gold standard.  That'd be quite a compliment for many.  I suspect it was because he approaches it from a freedom pov instead of simply monetary pov.


I remember seeing an interview on youtube, probably posted here, with Paul talking about Milton.

However, I haven't been able to find it to watch it again.

This is probably the same one. Anybody have a link?

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## specsaregood

> I remember seeing an interview on youtube, probably posted here, with Paul talking about Milton.
> However, I haven't been able to find it to watch it again.
> This is probably the same one. Anybody have a link?


I'm pretty sure the one I'm thinking of is this one.  But I can't listen to it again right now to confirm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVBAqrBbqjY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1TtegjSY08

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## erowe1

> I remember seeing an interview on youtube, probably posted here, with Paul talking about Milton.
> 
> However, I haven't been able to find it to watch it again.
> 
> This is probably the same one. Anybody have a link?


He also gave him a pretty glowing eulogy, which I think you can find on lrc.

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