From Vienna to Madrid: A Libertarian Vision of Scientific and Moral Truth | Jesús Huerta de Soto
Summary
Austrian Economics: The speaker advances the Austrian view that voluntary cooperation and spontaneous order drive prosperity without centralized coercion.
Anti-Statism: Argues the state is unnecessary and coordination by coercion is impossible, advocating an anarcho-capitalist framework.
Banking and Inflation: Critiques fractional-reserve banking and fiduciary media for distorting prices, creating bubbles, and causing crises, with inflation framed as a hidden tax.
Critique of Mainstream Economics: Condemns positivism, neoclassical equilibrium models, macroeconomics, and Keynesianism as pseudo-scientific justifications for state intervention.
Entrepreneurial Creativity: Emphasizes that entrepreneurial discovery creates and transmits information that coordinates markets, which cannot be replicated by AI algorithms.
Market Outlook: No specific sectors or companies were pitched; the overall stance favors minimal intervention and maximum market freedom as the path to growth.
Political/Economic Risks: Highlights statism, rent-seeking, bureaucratic myopia, and vote-buying in democracies as persistent threats to prosperity and liberty.
Regional Note: Mentions Argentina’s President Javier Milei promoting Austrian and anarcho-capitalist ideas globally, indicating ideological—not investment—shifts.
Transcript
Well, uh, thank you very much to the Mrs. Institute and Joe Salerno for the his kind introduction as well as for inviting me to deliver this Ludic Mesmorial lecture to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Moray Rothbart birthday. It is the second time I visit the business institute to deliver this most important lecture. The first one was almost 30 years ago back in April 1997 when I delivered a lecture on the escolastic roots of the Austrian school. And in this second opportunity, I'm very happy to have been able to accept Joe's invitation and to come with a very well represented as you saw retinue of 10 of my colleagues and doctoral students. Thank you very much for coming to help me. Thank you. All of them are teaching as professor or making their research at our more than 20 year old doctoral and master programs in Austrian economics at King Huos University back in Madrid and as you have heard is the only one officially approved and with full validity inside the whole European Union. They had no idea what what they were authorizing 20 years ago. You know they thought oh that's a great idea. Some Spaniers do want to study the economy of Aia. Let us approve that immediately and it will be a model for the rest of the countries in Europe. You have already had the opportunity to hear from each one of them a detailed descript description of the so-called Madrid Austrian research hub and of all the activities we are developing every year including and I'm we are very proud of it 54 doctoral thesis on a economics that have been read up to now in our program and here in the back of this room you have also copies of the English version of our main books published by Rod Lech Edward Elgar and by the Mcmillian Austrian series edited by my colleagues Bagus and Hen. And you will have the the unique opportunity to buy these books that as you know have a hefty price of almost 100 each one at the almost stolen property and symbolic price of $5 per copy. Thanks to the most generous help of the Spanish Foundation that is helping to finance our participation in this very important event. And now what I will do in the next 40 minutes is to try to summarize not only all my main contributions but also I was wrong what what I say when I say a libertarian vision I'm entirely wrong not a libertarian vision the libertarian vision the libertarian vision of the scientific and moral truth as we see it from our Austrian school hub in Madrid and I will do it by focusing in on a series of fund fundamental points. The first one is that economics being the last science to arrive or as Mrs. said the youngest of all sciences has nevertheless achieved the milestone of providing humanity with the most important scientific contribution. For the first time and thanks to the e economic sense, human beings have discovered and understood that voluntary social cooperation free from all institutional and systematic external coercion generates a spontaneous order that cannot be designed nor organized by anyone and that peacefully and without limits drives the prosperity and expansion of humankind. This is a radically revolutionary message. For the first time, it has been scientifically demonstrated that estates in any of their forms are neither necessary nor viable. That society understood as a process of voluntary human interactions does not need anyone to govern it because it regulates and organizes itself spontaneously. And that the attempt to coordinate society on the basis of social engineering and state coercive commands is impossible, doomed to failure and gives rise to all kinds of distortion, social conflicts and violence that continually hinder and block human progress. The second point is that economics has been generalized into a whole theory of liberty understood as the most essential attribute and requirement of human nature. Liberty means that all human actions are carried out voluntarily based on the principle of non-aggression and free of external coercion or violence imposed and organized from above by the always minority very minority group of human beings who under whatever title exercise any kind of political power. Moreover, economics dismantles and turns upside down the erroneous unbiased account of Thomas Hops and his followers. Neither was the state of nature a terrifying situation, nor did a supposed social contract ever exist, or was it necessary to create and maintain a state that would impose order and guarantee peace. What happened was precisely the opposite. Natural evolution consisted above all in the spontaneous discovery of the great advantages provided by voluntary exchanges and peaceful trade. systematic and generalized violence, war and terror arose only with the appearance of states as coercive institutions composed of the most antisocial and violent human beings who wanted and still want to live at the expense of plundering those citizens who earn their living by working and trading peacefully with each other. Thus, economics demonstrates that whatandi named voluntary servitude is an anti-human aberration to which human beings have been subject for centuries and that it is not necessary to continue with a resigned habit of obeying the state. Nor do governments enjoy an hour of prestige but are literally stripped of any attribute of intellectual or moral superiority. Nor is the cast or pritorian guard of intellectuals, experts and acolytes that surround the states and rulers to be regarded as untouchable. Nor should we allow ourselves to be seduced and deceived by subsidies or perks, whether supposed or real, with which they seek to purchase the will and secure the loyalty of exploited human beings, so that they will consent voluntarily and permanently to their exploitation and servitude. The third point is that economic science has reached its highest level of development thanks to the Austrian school of economics. As Mr. said always implicitly, economics is Austrian economics of course only. As you know, our school is based on the realism of its analytical assumptions in the dynamic approach based on the entrepreneurial creative and coordinating capacity of every human being and in the study of the spontaneous and self-regulated order of the social process of voluntary human interactions. The institutional and multidisciplinary approach of the afternoon school is also very relevant. As a result of the spontaneous social process, important institutions emerge which in turn make it possible and drive it forward. Law and property rights rooted in human nature and discovered and developed spontaneously outside the state. The family, a basic and essential institution on which the expansion of humanity is made possible and consolidated. Moral principles which act as a true automatic pilot for liberty in which human beings internalize and transmit from generation to generation thanks to the family and other community or religious institutions. economic institutions of course and in particular monet which also evolves spontaneously outside the state. Our fourth point is that the first theorist of the spontaneous order emerged in the field of law led by the great jurist of classical Rome. They were the first ones to understand the organic and evolutionary nature of the social process. And so they became without being aware of it the first economists. Their tradition was kept alive throughout the middle ages thanks to the Catholic Church and through thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas, San Antonio Florence and San Bernardino de Sena eventually came to influence the Spanish scholastics of the 16th and 17th centuries gathered around the University of Salamanca. And for that reason, Rodart used to say that well the Austrian school should be called more precisely the Spanish school. And in fact, these Spanish scholastics were already able to articulate the following 10 essential principles which constitute the theoretical foundation of the Aian school. And one of my field of research is precisely that. So you will we will remember those very briefly 10 essential principles. Firstly, the subjective theory of value developed by the bishop of Segoia, Deod Karubius, who as early as 1555 clearly explained that although the objective nature of wheat is the same in Spain as in America, its price was higher in America because there human beings subjectively valued it much more highly. From this follows the correct relationship between prices and costs set out by Luis Salabia de la in the sense that it is market prices that determine cost and not the other way around as equilibrium theorist mistakenly believe. These scholastics also realize that equilibrium models and prices lack realism and theoretical meaning because they presuppose a degree of knowledge so complex that only got and in no case human beings could ever acquire it in Latin mathemat was already explained by the cardinal jualas in 1617 and Juan deugo in 1643. more than 300 years earlier that Haya could conclude that and I quote him, "A science which assumes knowledge that can never be acquired is not a science." End of quote. Also the dynamical concept of competition is fundamental understood as a process of rivalry among sellers based on the dynamical conception of market processes developed by Heronimo Castio de Molina in 1589 and 1597 and that has nothing to do with the estatic model of perfect competition of equilibrium theories and also the important contributions of the Spanish scholastics related with capital theory business cycles and the effects of fiduciary media. generated by banks. So particular emphasis should be placed on the rediscovery of the principle of time preference by Martia Pileta following what Leinez had already stated in 1285 as well as on the fact that bankers commit mortal sin when they operate with fractional reserves. So all bankers to the hell creating creating bank deposits as a form of virtual money or asina said in Latin hographunarium. So money only in written form in the books of accounting books of banks that only exists in their accounting books and distorts the structure of relative prices creating bubbles and deep economic crisis that ultimately bring everything crashing down. This the literal quotation of Sarabay marcado that so vividly explained the process in the 16th century. And in short the scholastic idea that it is impossible to organize society through coercive commands due to lack of the information that will be required to give them coordinating content as well as the discovery that inflation is a hidden tax very harmful tax that arises from an act of tyranny. it since it is neither known nor accepted by citizens which would even justify the assassination of the king. According to the theory of the tyrannicide, a contribution originally made by the Castellian communos eventually defeated by the tyrant king Charles I in 1521 and later developed this tyrannicite theory by the father Ju Mariana almost a century late. This entire line of protoastian scholastic thought also spread throughout the Americas especially in the newly founded university of San Marcos de Lima. I will receive an honorary degree from this left university one month from now and Mexico City in 1551 where really disciples of these scholastics who had studied at the university of Salamanca itself came to occupy prominent academic positions. Finally, and this is very important for you, the Americans of the United States, the doctrine of our scholastics did spread even to North America two centuries later through the books of Ju Mariana, who greatly influenced Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers of the United States when they declared its independence exactly 250 years ago. Let us now turn in greater detail to the most important contribution of economics. For me, economics is Austrian economics school. And those most important contribution as a matter of fact are my contribution not I'm not original on them. I'm just following the noble tradition of the Australian school as you will see. First, human cooperation takes place spontaneously without the need the need for anyone to organize it coercively from outside. This is so because human beings are endowed with an entrepreneurial and creative capacity that continually drives them to discover the multiple opportunities for profit that arise in their environment. Each of these opportunities embodies a previous discordination in human behavior that remains latent and until it is discovered and overcome by the corresponding entrepreneurial act. This entrepreneurial act always arises from a creative tension and interpretation of events of the outside world that is essentially subjective and that therefore cannot be reproduced by any artificial intelligence algorithm. In other words, the same objective events can be interpreted in multiple ways, even in contradictory ones, without it being possible to postulate which is correct until the corresponding entrepreneurial process is completed in the form of a subjective subjective profit. In any case, every entrepreneurial act involves firstly the creation of information that did not exist before precisely regarding the opportunity for profit that arose from the previous discordination that had gone unnoticed. Secondly, the transmission of that knowledge directly to the parties involved in the entrepreneurial act and indirectly through a series of institutions and signals such as market prices. And third and finally, the coordination of the previous maladjustments takes place when the parties involved learned moto propio that is voluntarily and for their own benefit to discipline their behavior according to the needs of others. For example, when they discover that they achieve their ends more effectively by specializing and trading peacefully the mutual results of their efforts. The discovery of the essence of this pure entrepreneurial act with its elements of creation and transmission of information and the spontaneous coordination of the previous maladasmen continually generated of course by human coexistence constitutes the most important contribution that economic science has provided to humanity and explains why the spontaneous process of voluntary social cooperation that drives the multiplication of human beings and the expansion of civilization does not require any estate. system of institutional coercion. Another essential contribution of economics is the concept of dynamic efficiency. I mean my concept of dynamic efficiency understood as the process of a limited expansion of human creativity and entrepreneurial coordination that arises only within a specific institutional framework of moral and legal norms. This framework is the one grounded on the ethical principle according to which every human being has a natural right to appropriate the results of his entrepreneurial creativity. That is a property right over what what one has created and which did not previously exist which is the most obvious and important human right. For this reason, dynamic efficiency and morality and justice properly understood cannot be separated one from the other. Or as we might say, they are two sides of the same coin in the sense that only justice and morality induce and generate efficiency. And at the same time, what is dynamically efficient in economic terms cannot be neither unjust nor immoral. All of which on the other hand demonstrates the integrated order that exists in the social universe and highlights the three levels of research theoretical, ethical and historical that complement and reinforce with each other and are essential in our search for truth. Finally, another key contribution of economic science action economics is to have demonstrated the impossibility of socialism or better let us forget of socialism the impossibility of aesthetism in the sense that it is impossible for the state to achieve and coordinate what it promises and for the following and this for the following four reasons. First because of the enormous volume of information required for such coordination which the state cannot acquire because it is dispersed dispersed in the minds of the 8 billion human beings who participate and interact in the social process every day. Second given the tacit and inarticulate character of this information and therefore its inability to be transmitted in an objective manner. Third, because the information that is generated is not given, nor is nor is it a stated aesthetic, but instead changes continuously as a result of human creativity, make it it impossible to transmit today information that will only be created tomorrow and which is precisely the information that the organs of the state intervention and the so-called experts would need today in order to direct society to achieve their objectives tomorrow. And fourth and above all, because the coercive nature of the state of a state commands that blocks the entrepreneurial creativity of creating the very information which the state organization itself would need in order to give its commands a coordinating content. In some the state is always and everywhere violence and coercion. Coercion blocks the entrepreneurial act of creation, discovery and adjustment of this coordinated human behavior while at the same time preventing the creation of the information and the emergence of free markets prices that make economic calculation. That's the key words Joe Salerno was waiting for. Economic calculation and social coordination possible. For this reason, aesthetism is not only unnecessary, but it is also scientifically impossible. All of these scientific contributions have so far achieved only a very partial, imperfect, unlimited impact on the inertia of a social and political reality that has for centuries been characterized by the coercive power of states and rulers and by the more or less resigned servitude of the citizens. And despite the very limited nature of this impact to date, which at best has materialized in a series of naive and liberal revol revolutions aim with as much arrogance as lack of success toward the impossible objective of trying to separate and limit the powers of states and rulers through political constitutions, I'm sorry, like the American one and the United States one and liberal democracies. Humanity has been propelled as never before in those places and historical moments where it has managed despite everything to at least partially free itself from the state and open up some of the new channels of liberty shown by the teachings of economics. beginning with the industrial revolution which was but the first chapter of the never completed revolution of liberty inspired by economics. And although what has been achieved in terms of prosperity and the standard of living by the now 8 billion human beings seems relatively significant and indeed it is. Of course, we cannot even conceive of the standard of living and population size that could be achieved if humanity were able to take full advantage and fully implement the teachings of economics science. We can be few and poor in a context of servitude and submission to the state or many and wealthy in a context of liberty. As Hayek said, the globe is practically empty of human beings. The earth's current population would fit in an area equivalent to that of the state of Alaska with a population dens the city equal to that of Brussels. We cannot even imagine the prosperity that could be achieved in a free market daily driven by 80 billion or even 800 billion human beings. Economics explains and demonstrates that the increasing prosperity of an ever growing population of human beings never results from deliberate and coercive estate plans, nor from the egalitarian income distribution, nor from increases in public spending, nor from subsidies, debt or inflation, but only arises from the free market of the capitalist system. Therefore, it is crucially important for the future of humanity that it be able to take full and maximum advantage of the lessons and essential message in pursuit of human liberty that economics provides. But this will only be be possible if we are able to unmask and carefully analyze the powerful forces of the soscientific and counterrevolutionary reaction that has been mobilized to prevent the advance of the theory of liberty derived from economic science. Despite their diverse origins, they all converge on the same objective to attempt to justify and preserve a state coercion at all costs under the appearance of scientific legitimacy. They are driven by the fatal conceit of many visionaries, thinkers, and supposed experts who believe themselves so clever enough to correct the spontaneous market order. Of course, using the violence and coercive power of the state together with a privileged cast of rulers, bureaucrats and acolytes, they continually manipulate a humanity that is sadly accustomed to serving the state. For all of them is vital that estatism be maintained and that the message of liberty provided by economics never prevail. Next we will list the main reactionary sodcientific currents that have infiltrated economic science like lethal virus and that constitute in Hexek's terminology the counterrevolution of science. First positivism and a scientism is a science. By a scientism, we must understand the improper application of the methods of the natural sciences to the field of economic science. Thus, while the natural sciences study their object of research as something external, measurable, and quantifiable, economics studies the implications of the voluntary actions of human beings. And given the essentially creative nature of human beings, the supposed empirical evidence has at best only a superficial, partial and always historically contingent value. In Bastiad words of what is seen, or rather what is believed to have been seen, but not what is not seen. And at worst it always entails the assumption that human beings are an object of research that can be manipulated as the matter of the external world studied by the natural sciences. This inevitably introduces the idea that to improve the world the state and its rulers must use their coercive power to manipulate and change the things they believe they see in their historical contingent empirical photos. But these empirical photos cannot capture the underlying dynamic essence of a spontaneous social processes let alone what is already happening spontaneously to solve and coordinate every problem. Secondly, the sod sign of neocclassical economics 90% of the economic departments is characterized by its claim that only its own approach constitutes true science that is the approach based on the principles of equilibrium, maximization and constancy. Moreover, in addition to the lack of realism of its assumptions, it adds the reductionism of a mathematical language that has developed in response to the needs and demands of the naturalist sciences, but which is alien to the economic science because it does not allow for the subjective concept of time and entrepreneurial creativity. Neocclassical economists developed the Sudo science. Sodo science based not on real human beings of flesh and blood but on ideal types that are like robotic penguins who even in their most sophisticated dynamic stoastic general equilibrium models are limited to moving and reacting to events and state coion as if they were characters of a sort of economic video game. Yet neocclassical sodor science despite its apparent and everinccreasing sophistication is not capable of accounting for the immense complexity of the real world and rebels against the idea of a spontaneous market order in two ways that are equally harmful to human liberty. On the one hand, by promoting the coercive social engineering of central banks, states and governments to use fine-tuning to force reality towards the mathematical optimum of their models. And on the other hand, by labeling as market failures everything they believe they observe in reality that does not coincide in their empirical studies with their ghostly model of perfect equilibrium and adjustment. Not also how neocclassical sod science needs and fits upon the empirical work of the previous sudo science positivism in order to justify its conclusions against humanity and human liberty and in favor of state coercion so that positivists and neocclassicists join hands and end up reinforcing reinforcing each other in their reactionary agenda. Third, sudoscience, macroeconomics andism. The very macro approach already entails inevitably an obvious bias in favor of justifying state intervention, aggression, and coercion against the spontaneous order of the market and human liberty. Ask said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech back in 1974, "Microeconomists ignore everything they cannot measure. Specifically, truly relevant economic processes and theories. At the same time, they believe that certain aggregate concepts which lack genuine economic meaning have a real existence that permits to collect empirical information or evidence that can be manipulated and statistically treated. Once again, macroeconomic soda science goes hand inhand with positivist pseudocience and the two reinforce with each other in their counterrevolutionary reaction. Furthermore, Keynesianism is particularly harmful. Not only does it flatly deny the coordination capacity of creative entrepreneurship and the spontaneous market, but it also builds as an alternative explanation a whole model. of course of equilibrium with permanent unemployment to justify the coercive intervention of the state in the lives of human beings in the form of all kinds of fiscal and monetary manipulations. Moreover, the macroeconomic engs and it's reinforced by the sientific approach of the neocclassical school to the point that the so-called neocclassical king thesis became throughout the 20th century the main reactionary movement inside economics. But we have let left left the quasi religious mysticism of Marxist s science for last because Marxism was a scientifically dead even before it was born. In fact, it emerged and was theoretically demolished by the subjectivist revolution led by the Austrian school of economics. From the beginning, the Austrian school's development of the time preference in capital theory revealed the contradictions and grave scientific errors of Marxism while at the same time exposing its pronounced character as an intellectual fraud. This intellectual fraud was historically illustrated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and of virtually all other communist countries after many decades of unspeakable human suffering for a large part of the world's population. All of which was perfectly consistent with the theory on the impossibility of aestheticism developed by the Austrian school beginning with the form of 1920 and which was the final nail that forever sealed the coffin of the corpse of Marxist soda science. Finally, in this context, we must mention the destructive role played by a number of distinguished economists who although they defend liberty and the market economy could be described as a kind of useful innocence in Mrs. terminology. I would rather say in some cases useful idiots, but probably it's too strong. So erase that useful innocence. This is so because even though they officially oppose rampant estatism and defend liberty by accepting even if only partially some of the postulates of the reactionary sudo scientific currents we have described. They ultimately end up often without intending to and much to their regret providing additional impetus and ammun ammunition to the statist reaction within our discipline. For example, when they insist on advising states with proposals aim at making them more efficient and at helping them to do somewhat better things that they should not be doing at all. By way of illustrations, we should include in this category of useful innocence. For example, thinkers as it was my friends as the car copper of the open society and its enemies who came to admire the scientific capacity and even the humanism of Carl Marx and who proposed an estatist strategy of peace meal social engineering or George Stigler my fellow past fellow in the polar society plenty of counterrevolutionaries that society of course or Jose Stigler where he claimed that only empirical evidence could determine which economic system socialist or capitalist might might function. As a matter of fact, the Stigler was following word by word Frank Knight who said that economic science has no argument, nothing to say about socialism. This is only a matter for political science and empirical studies. What a what an awful man. And more generally, the members of the Chicago school, awful people led by Gary Becker and Milton Friedman. Becker when defending that only economics develop within the strict limits of equilibrium, constancy and maximization typical of the neocclassical sense constitutes true economic science. So all of us are outside the science. No, we are in the science. Are them who are outside the science? And even more serious could be considered the case of Milton Friedman whose very sincere love of liberty, an intense and popular media support for free markets stand in sharp contrast to his sudo scientific approach based on the aggregate method of economics of Keian origin on positivist and empiricism and on the full acceptance of the unrealism of assumptions. Only in this way it can be explained Friedman's litany of scientific errors which much to his regret has invariably ended up reinforcing statistics interventionism to the point that Hajek himself was forced to conclude that after Kane's the general theory the book that has done the greatest harm to economic science and of course to humankind has been Freriedman's essays in positive economics. So I hope Freeman will be in the purgatory at least four 5,000 more years with Gary Becker. Of course, not directly to the hell. Hopefully we will see him in the you know heaven but many thousand years from now as we see also many classical liberals and advocates of liberal democracy have also acted as useful innocents. The fatal error of classical liberals lies in the failure to realize that the program is theoretically impossible because it incorporates within itself the seeds of its own destruction precisely to the extent that it considers necessary and accepts the existence of a state even if it is minimal understood as the monopolistic agency of institutional coercion. Therefore the great error of classical liberals is very basic. They believe in a program of political action, an economic doctrine that aims to limit the power of the state while at the same time accepting it and even considering a state's existence necessary. However, economic science has already shown that the state is unnecessary. That estatism, even it is in its minimal form, is theoretically impossible, and that given human nature, once the state exists, it is impossible to limit its power. On the other hand, liberal democracy is a concept as naive as it is impossible. Mrs. already warned us that democracy could only function if all its participants accepted the classical liberal principles which of of course is impossible because democracy itself encourages and amplifies both buying and the partisan use of power. So the inevitable conclusion is that liberal democracy is a contradiction in terms as absurd as speaking following a deasai of a square circle of hot snow or of a virgin prostitute and even hayek even hayek considered democracy and workable if it is understood as the exercise of absolute power by majorities karattos in classical Greek. It should therefore come as no surprise that democracy once and again tends to be perverse a perverse system based on lying and buying boats with money stolen through taxation. The fact is that the state attracts like a magnet the worst passions and vices of human nature. For instance, when individuals try to obtain rents produced by others using the state squarive power. Moreover, the combined effect of the privileged groups, the phenomena of governmental myopia and boat buying, the megalomaniacal character of politicians and the irresponsibility and blindness of bureaucracies generate a dangerous, unstable and explosive cocktail that continually shaken by social, economic and political crisis which paradoxically are always used by the political cast to justify further doses of intervention and estatism that instead of solving problems further aggravate them. Estatism therefore corrupts the entire social body and at the same time blocks the spontaneous and free market solution of social and economics economic problems. In fact, the state has become the idol that almost everyone turns to and worships. The statutory is the most serious and dangerous social disease of our time. We are educated to believe that all problems can and must be detected and solved by the state. Our destiny depends on the state and the politicians who control it are expected to guarantee everything our well-being may require. Human beings remain immature and rebel against their own creative nature which makes their future always uncertain. They demand a crystal ball that assures them not only knowing what will happen but also that any problems that arise will be solved for them. This infantilization of the masses is encouraged by politicians as it justifies their own existence and ensures their popularity, position of dominance and capacity to control. In addition, a whole legion of intellectual, so-called experts and social engineers join in this arrogant intoxication of power. Not even the church, when I say the church, I refer to the Catholic Church, of course. Not even the church and the most respectable religious denominations have been able to realize that today constitutes the principal threat to the free, moral, and responsible human being. that the state is a false idol of immense power woripped by all and that does not allow humanity to be free from its control or have moral or religious loyalties beyond those the state can dominate. Furthermore, it is kept hidden from the public that the state is the true source of social conflicts and evils and escape goats such as capitalism, private property and so on are blamed for the problems and they become the goal of the most serious condemnation even from moral and religious leaders almost none of whom have realized the deception or dave to denounce that is the main threat in the present century to religion, morality and therefore to human civilization. Perhaps the main exception within the church is included in the brilliant biography entitled Jesus of Nazareth written by Benedict the 16th. that the state and political power constitute the institutional incarnation of of the antichrist should be obvious to anyone with a minimal knowledge of history who reads the former pope's consideration on the most serious temptation that evil one country said to us and I quote rashing rashinger literally from now on the tempter is not so crude as to propose to us directly to worship of the devil he merely proposes that We opt for the rational solution that we prefer a planned and organized world in which God may have a place as a private spiritual matter but must not be allowed to interfere in our essential purposes. Solop attributes to the antichrist a book entitled the open road to world peace and prosperity. it becomes the new Bible and its core message is the worship of well-being and rational planning by the state. End of quote. And so we should not be surprised that for example the great author of the Lord of the Rings, Jr. Ten, whose Catholic anarchism I fully share, went so far as to say that he would arrest anyone for simply daring to pronounce the word estate because because the state is always and everywhere a reality of violence, a systematic coercion against the most intimate essence of the human being, which is his capacity to act freely, creatively, and spontaneously. And so it is unavoidable to conclude that the state is essentially immoral and an estatism constitutes the empirical the the principal threat to humankind. And almost without realizing it, we can go ahead with a theological digression on how dismantling the state is a logical and moral necessity inseparable from the work of God. I fully understand that the referring to God in this conference may come as a shock to many of to many of those present. But I would ask that even those who do not believe in God at least as a personal favor and for dialectical purposes make an effort of imagination for the next few minutes imagine that God does indeed exist. And what do we mean by God? We must understand God to be the a supreme being created of out of love of all things. And the most important creature that God has created is precisely the human being in his image and likeness. And if there is a point of connection between God and man, it is precisely the creative entrepreneurial ability, the capacity to discover, to see, to create new things, goals, and actions. But now I'm going to go one step further and attempt to demonstrate that God is not only the supreme loving creator of all things but that moreover God is libertarian. And what does it mean to say that God is libertarian? It means that God the Lord of all the universe has absolute power of it of over it. And yet he chooses not to use force but always leaves his creators free to the point that he gives human beings the freedom to rebel against him. Even though again and again God forgives human beings and allows them to rise up and begin a new. God always let the universe he has created flow in a spontaneous manner. could be the motor of our libertarian God. And this despite the fact that human beings tempt God again and again and we demand that he manifest his absolute power that he give us clear and indisputable signs of his existence and supreme power in order for us to believe in him. But of course, God does not accept our challenge. And why? Very easy. Because love and liberty are inseparable. And a forced conversion, for example, by an evident cataclysm would be completely contrary to that liberty with with which God has created human beings out of love. Moreover, the kingdom of God is not of this world. Jesus himself says this to a fearful Roman estate official who was also in charge of judging him. My kingdom is not of this world. Does this mean that there are two types of kingdoms? The kingdoms of this world or estates which would be legitimate at their own level. Remember render and to Caesar the things that are Caesars. The kingdom of God of render unto God the things that are gods. That is the standard interpretation that has prevailed until now. But I think it's completely wrong. The kingdom of God which is the exact opposite of the kingdom kingdoms or estates of this world never bake systematic youth of violence or and coion. It is a kingdom that has already come to us and moreover has been given to us freely in an act of immense mercy and love. And just as the hateful institution of a slavery came to an end, the kingdom of God will also dismantle the kingdoms of this world, the states of this world or as St. Paul said of every every principality, power and glory because God is libertarian and must man is made in the image and likeness of God. Ludik formes in his book interventionism introduced the term destructionism to refer to the economic and social effects of estatism. If evil represented by estatist destructionism in misses terminology were to prevail the human race and hiization would have disappeared long ago. The fact that despite everything and the immense power of seduction of estatism over humankind, the process of social cooperation continues to unfold and even prosper in certain historical periods and geographical areas is a clear manifestation that God does not abandon the world nor leave libertarians alone in their struggle against the able. and that good represented by liberty, the principle of non-aggression, the spontaneous order of the market, entrepreneurial creativity and coordination, and above all moral principles always with God God's helps prevails and is capable of overcoming evil represented by the fatal conceit of the statist ideal and the destruction that it produces. And now I will finish with some thoughts on anarcho capitalism as the only possible system of social cooperation truly compatible with human nature. The most important intellectual and moral event that is taking place nowadays precisely now is the full fusion between Christianity and anarchco capitalism. Write that because anarchco capitalism is the only possible system of social cooperation that is truly compatible with human nature. Anarcho capitalism is the purest representation of the spontaneous market order in which all services including law, justice and public order are provided through a voluntary process of social cooperation. In this system, no area is closed to the drive of human creativity and entrepreneurial coordination. Efficiency and justice in the resolution of problems are simultaneously enhanced while the conflicts, inefficiencies and discoordinations generated by the state are eradicated at the root. The progressive abolition of estates and their gradual replacement by dynamic network of private agencies sponsoring different legal system and providing all kind of prevention and defense services constitutes the most important social transformation that will take place in the 21st century without forgetting that Skina says exactly what prevents us from knowing with precision what the future without the state will look like. The creative nature of entrepreneurship is what give us the peace of mind of knowing that any problem will tend to be resolved and overcome once the entrepreneurial effort and creativity of humanity are devoted to its solution. Therefore, the revolution against the old regime carried out in the 18th and 19th centuries by the old classical liberals today finds its natural continuation in the anarcho capitalist revolution of the 21st century. The message of anarchco capitalism is clearly revolutionary. I am a revolutionary. revolutionary in terms of its goal, the dismantling of the state and its replacement by a competitive market process consistent in a of a network of private agencies, association and organizations and revolutionary in terms of its means especially in the scientific economic social and political fields. First scientific revolution in the field of economic science which becomes the general theory of spontaneous market order extended to all social areas. Second, an economic and social revolution as we cannot even imagine today the immense human achievements and discoveries discoveries that could be made in an entrepreneurial environment totally free from aesthetism. And when human beings become more and more aware of the perverse nature of the states that restrict them and of the immense possibilities that are frustrated each day when the state blocks the driving force of their entrepreneurial creativity, the social demand to reform and dismantle the state will multiply creating a future that is largely unknown to us but that will be elevate human civilization to heights that we cannot even imagine today. And finally, a political revolution in which although day-to-day political struggle is important, it should not be the top priority. It is true that the least interventionist alternatives must always be supported in clear alliance with the efforts of classical liberals in their long-term impossible democratic limitation of the state. But the anac the the anac capitalist does does not stop at this task for he knows that he can and must do much more. He knows that the ultimate goal is the total dismantling of the state and this goal leads all his imagination and political action in everyday life. And here we cannot fail to mention the unprecedented impact of our disciple and follower of our master program in Austrian economics in Madrid. The president of Argentina, Javier Mille, who has done more than anyone else before to disseminate the principles of the Austrian school and the anarcho capitalist ideal. principles that he never ceases to quote and explain in extension and defend once and again in all his public appearances from the United Nations to the Davos forum and in all his meetings with other heads of states, universities and parliaments to whom he even gives always copies of the most important Austrian works by Mrs. Hajek and even myself as he did for example with the two popes Francis and Leo the 14th with the French president Mcron the Italian prime minister Melani etc and etc that and even with Ilum Musk for us it is a great honor that MLE has to a large extent as he says always emerged from the option school of Madrid and that he continually keeps drawing inspiration from us. And all this with tireless enthusiasm in the search for scientific moral truth, an attitude that inspired by the immortal work of Miguel de Cervantes, Doniote could describe could describe as follows. It matters not whether they be giants or windmills, where the plume of our helm is steered by the winds of tenacity and faith. And always creating a future that although it may seem distant today, may at any moment witness giant steps that will surprise even the most optimistic among us. History has entered into an accelerated process of change, which although it will never stop, will open a whole new chapter when humankind finally succeeds in reading itself definitely of the state, reducing it to no more than a dark historical relic of tragic memory. Thank you very much. Thank you. You made me very happy. Thank you. You will. Thank you.
From Vienna to Madrid: A Libertarian Vision of Scientific and Moral Truth | Jesús Huerta de Soto
Summary
Transcript
Well, uh, thank you very much to the Mrs. Institute and Joe Salerno for the his kind introduction as well as for inviting me to deliver this Ludic Mesmorial lecture to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Moray Rothbart birthday. It is the second time I visit the business institute to deliver this most important lecture. The first one was almost 30 years ago back in April 1997 when I delivered a lecture on the escolastic roots of the Austrian school. And in this second opportunity, I'm very happy to have been able to accept Joe's invitation and to come with a very well represented as you saw retinue of 10 of my colleagues and doctoral students. Thank you very much for coming to help me. Thank you. All of them are teaching as professor or making their research at our more than 20 year old doctoral and master programs in Austrian economics at King Huos University back in Madrid and as you have heard is the only one officially approved and with full validity inside the whole European Union. They had no idea what what they were authorizing 20 years ago. You know they thought oh that's a great idea. Some Spaniers do want to study the economy of Aia. Let us approve that immediately and it will be a model for the rest of the countries in Europe. You have already had the opportunity to hear from each one of them a detailed descript description of the so-called Madrid Austrian research hub and of all the activities we are developing every year including and I'm we are very proud of it 54 doctoral thesis on a economics that have been read up to now in our program and here in the back of this room you have also copies of the English version of our main books published by Rod Lech Edward Elgar and by the Mcmillian Austrian series edited by my colleagues Bagus and Hen. And you will have the the unique opportunity to buy these books that as you know have a hefty price of almost 100 each one at the almost stolen property and symbolic price of $5 per copy. Thanks to the most generous help of the Spanish Foundation that is helping to finance our participation in this very important event. And now what I will do in the next 40 minutes is to try to summarize not only all my main contributions but also I was wrong what what I say when I say a libertarian vision I'm entirely wrong not a libertarian vision the libertarian vision the libertarian vision of the scientific and moral truth as we see it from our Austrian school hub in Madrid and I will do it by focusing in on a series of fund fundamental points. The first one is that economics being the last science to arrive or as Mrs. said the youngest of all sciences has nevertheless achieved the milestone of providing humanity with the most important scientific contribution. For the first time and thanks to the e economic sense, human beings have discovered and understood that voluntary social cooperation free from all institutional and systematic external coercion generates a spontaneous order that cannot be designed nor organized by anyone and that peacefully and without limits drives the prosperity and expansion of humankind. This is a radically revolutionary message. For the first time, it has been scientifically demonstrated that estates in any of their forms are neither necessary nor viable. That society understood as a process of voluntary human interactions does not need anyone to govern it because it regulates and organizes itself spontaneously. And that the attempt to coordinate society on the basis of social engineering and state coercive commands is impossible, doomed to failure and gives rise to all kinds of distortion, social conflicts and violence that continually hinder and block human progress. The second point is that economics has been generalized into a whole theory of liberty understood as the most essential attribute and requirement of human nature. Liberty means that all human actions are carried out voluntarily based on the principle of non-aggression and free of external coercion or violence imposed and organized from above by the always minority very minority group of human beings who under whatever title exercise any kind of political power. Moreover, economics dismantles and turns upside down the erroneous unbiased account of Thomas Hops and his followers. Neither was the state of nature a terrifying situation, nor did a supposed social contract ever exist, or was it necessary to create and maintain a state that would impose order and guarantee peace. What happened was precisely the opposite. Natural evolution consisted above all in the spontaneous discovery of the great advantages provided by voluntary exchanges and peaceful trade. systematic and generalized violence, war and terror arose only with the appearance of states as coercive institutions composed of the most antisocial and violent human beings who wanted and still want to live at the expense of plundering those citizens who earn their living by working and trading peacefully with each other. Thus, economics demonstrates that whatandi named voluntary servitude is an anti-human aberration to which human beings have been subject for centuries and that it is not necessary to continue with a resigned habit of obeying the state. Nor do governments enjoy an hour of prestige but are literally stripped of any attribute of intellectual or moral superiority. Nor is the cast or pritorian guard of intellectuals, experts and acolytes that surround the states and rulers to be regarded as untouchable. Nor should we allow ourselves to be seduced and deceived by subsidies or perks, whether supposed or real, with which they seek to purchase the will and secure the loyalty of exploited human beings, so that they will consent voluntarily and permanently to their exploitation and servitude. The third point is that economic science has reached its highest level of development thanks to the Austrian school of economics. As Mr. said always implicitly, economics is Austrian economics of course only. As you know, our school is based on the realism of its analytical assumptions in the dynamic approach based on the entrepreneurial creative and coordinating capacity of every human being and in the study of the spontaneous and self-regulated order of the social process of voluntary human interactions. The institutional and multidisciplinary approach of the afternoon school is also very relevant. As a result of the spontaneous social process, important institutions emerge which in turn make it possible and drive it forward. Law and property rights rooted in human nature and discovered and developed spontaneously outside the state. The family, a basic and essential institution on which the expansion of humanity is made possible and consolidated. Moral principles which act as a true automatic pilot for liberty in which human beings internalize and transmit from generation to generation thanks to the family and other community or religious institutions. economic institutions of course and in particular monet which also evolves spontaneously outside the state. Our fourth point is that the first theorist of the spontaneous order emerged in the field of law led by the great jurist of classical Rome. They were the first ones to understand the organic and evolutionary nature of the social process. And so they became without being aware of it the first economists. Their tradition was kept alive throughout the middle ages thanks to the Catholic Church and through thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas, San Antonio Florence and San Bernardino de Sena eventually came to influence the Spanish scholastics of the 16th and 17th centuries gathered around the University of Salamanca. And for that reason, Rodart used to say that well the Austrian school should be called more precisely the Spanish school. And in fact, these Spanish scholastics were already able to articulate the following 10 essential principles which constitute the theoretical foundation of the Aian school. And one of my field of research is precisely that. So you will we will remember those very briefly 10 essential principles. Firstly, the subjective theory of value developed by the bishop of Segoia, Deod Karubius, who as early as 1555 clearly explained that although the objective nature of wheat is the same in Spain as in America, its price was higher in America because there human beings subjectively valued it much more highly. From this follows the correct relationship between prices and costs set out by Luis Salabia de la in the sense that it is market prices that determine cost and not the other way around as equilibrium theorist mistakenly believe. These scholastics also realize that equilibrium models and prices lack realism and theoretical meaning because they presuppose a degree of knowledge so complex that only got and in no case human beings could ever acquire it in Latin mathemat was already explained by the cardinal jualas in 1617 and Juan deugo in 1643. more than 300 years earlier that Haya could conclude that and I quote him, "A science which assumes knowledge that can never be acquired is not a science." End of quote. Also the dynamical concept of competition is fundamental understood as a process of rivalry among sellers based on the dynamical conception of market processes developed by Heronimo Castio de Molina in 1589 and 1597 and that has nothing to do with the estatic model of perfect competition of equilibrium theories and also the important contributions of the Spanish scholastics related with capital theory business cycles and the effects of fiduciary media. generated by banks. So particular emphasis should be placed on the rediscovery of the principle of time preference by Martia Pileta following what Leinez had already stated in 1285 as well as on the fact that bankers commit mortal sin when they operate with fractional reserves. So all bankers to the hell creating creating bank deposits as a form of virtual money or asina said in Latin hographunarium. So money only in written form in the books of accounting books of banks that only exists in their accounting books and distorts the structure of relative prices creating bubbles and deep economic crisis that ultimately bring everything crashing down. This the literal quotation of Sarabay marcado that so vividly explained the process in the 16th century. And in short the scholastic idea that it is impossible to organize society through coercive commands due to lack of the information that will be required to give them coordinating content as well as the discovery that inflation is a hidden tax very harmful tax that arises from an act of tyranny. it since it is neither known nor accepted by citizens which would even justify the assassination of the king. According to the theory of the tyrannicide, a contribution originally made by the Castellian communos eventually defeated by the tyrant king Charles I in 1521 and later developed this tyrannicite theory by the father Ju Mariana almost a century late. This entire line of protoastian scholastic thought also spread throughout the Americas especially in the newly founded university of San Marcos de Lima. I will receive an honorary degree from this left university one month from now and Mexico City in 1551 where really disciples of these scholastics who had studied at the university of Salamanca itself came to occupy prominent academic positions. Finally, and this is very important for you, the Americans of the United States, the doctrine of our scholastics did spread even to North America two centuries later through the books of Ju Mariana, who greatly influenced Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers of the United States when they declared its independence exactly 250 years ago. Let us now turn in greater detail to the most important contribution of economics. For me, economics is Austrian economics school. And those most important contribution as a matter of fact are my contribution not I'm not original on them. I'm just following the noble tradition of the Australian school as you will see. First, human cooperation takes place spontaneously without the need the need for anyone to organize it coercively from outside. This is so because human beings are endowed with an entrepreneurial and creative capacity that continually drives them to discover the multiple opportunities for profit that arise in their environment. Each of these opportunities embodies a previous discordination in human behavior that remains latent and until it is discovered and overcome by the corresponding entrepreneurial act. This entrepreneurial act always arises from a creative tension and interpretation of events of the outside world that is essentially subjective and that therefore cannot be reproduced by any artificial intelligence algorithm. In other words, the same objective events can be interpreted in multiple ways, even in contradictory ones, without it being possible to postulate which is correct until the corresponding entrepreneurial process is completed in the form of a subjective subjective profit. In any case, every entrepreneurial act involves firstly the creation of information that did not exist before precisely regarding the opportunity for profit that arose from the previous discordination that had gone unnoticed. Secondly, the transmission of that knowledge directly to the parties involved in the entrepreneurial act and indirectly through a series of institutions and signals such as market prices. And third and finally, the coordination of the previous maladjustments takes place when the parties involved learned moto propio that is voluntarily and for their own benefit to discipline their behavior according to the needs of others. For example, when they discover that they achieve their ends more effectively by specializing and trading peacefully the mutual results of their efforts. The discovery of the essence of this pure entrepreneurial act with its elements of creation and transmission of information and the spontaneous coordination of the previous maladasmen continually generated of course by human coexistence constitutes the most important contribution that economic science has provided to humanity and explains why the spontaneous process of voluntary social cooperation that drives the multiplication of human beings and the expansion of civilization does not require any estate. system of institutional coercion. Another essential contribution of economics is the concept of dynamic efficiency. I mean my concept of dynamic efficiency understood as the process of a limited expansion of human creativity and entrepreneurial coordination that arises only within a specific institutional framework of moral and legal norms. This framework is the one grounded on the ethical principle according to which every human being has a natural right to appropriate the results of his entrepreneurial creativity. That is a property right over what what one has created and which did not previously exist which is the most obvious and important human right. For this reason, dynamic efficiency and morality and justice properly understood cannot be separated one from the other. Or as we might say, they are two sides of the same coin in the sense that only justice and morality induce and generate efficiency. And at the same time, what is dynamically efficient in economic terms cannot be neither unjust nor immoral. All of which on the other hand demonstrates the integrated order that exists in the social universe and highlights the three levels of research theoretical, ethical and historical that complement and reinforce with each other and are essential in our search for truth. Finally, another key contribution of economic science action economics is to have demonstrated the impossibility of socialism or better let us forget of socialism the impossibility of aesthetism in the sense that it is impossible for the state to achieve and coordinate what it promises and for the following and this for the following four reasons. First because of the enormous volume of information required for such coordination which the state cannot acquire because it is dispersed dispersed in the minds of the 8 billion human beings who participate and interact in the social process every day. Second given the tacit and inarticulate character of this information and therefore its inability to be transmitted in an objective manner. Third, because the information that is generated is not given, nor is nor is it a stated aesthetic, but instead changes continuously as a result of human creativity, make it it impossible to transmit today information that will only be created tomorrow and which is precisely the information that the organs of the state intervention and the so-called experts would need today in order to direct society to achieve their objectives tomorrow. And fourth and above all, because the coercive nature of the state of a state commands that blocks the entrepreneurial creativity of creating the very information which the state organization itself would need in order to give its commands a coordinating content. In some the state is always and everywhere violence and coercion. Coercion blocks the entrepreneurial act of creation, discovery and adjustment of this coordinated human behavior while at the same time preventing the creation of the information and the emergence of free markets prices that make economic calculation. That's the key words Joe Salerno was waiting for. Economic calculation and social coordination possible. For this reason, aesthetism is not only unnecessary, but it is also scientifically impossible. All of these scientific contributions have so far achieved only a very partial, imperfect, unlimited impact on the inertia of a social and political reality that has for centuries been characterized by the coercive power of states and rulers and by the more or less resigned servitude of the citizens. And despite the very limited nature of this impact to date, which at best has materialized in a series of naive and liberal revol revolutions aim with as much arrogance as lack of success toward the impossible objective of trying to separate and limit the powers of states and rulers through political constitutions, I'm sorry, like the American one and the United States one and liberal democracies. Humanity has been propelled as never before in those places and historical moments where it has managed despite everything to at least partially free itself from the state and open up some of the new channels of liberty shown by the teachings of economics. beginning with the industrial revolution which was but the first chapter of the never completed revolution of liberty inspired by economics. And although what has been achieved in terms of prosperity and the standard of living by the now 8 billion human beings seems relatively significant and indeed it is. Of course, we cannot even conceive of the standard of living and population size that could be achieved if humanity were able to take full advantage and fully implement the teachings of economics science. We can be few and poor in a context of servitude and submission to the state or many and wealthy in a context of liberty. As Hayek said, the globe is practically empty of human beings. The earth's current population would fit in an area equivalent to that of the state of Alaska with a population dens the city equal to that of Brussels. We cannot even imagine the prosperity that could be achieved in a free market daily driven by 80 billion or even 800 billion human beings. Economics explains and demonstrates that the increasing prosperity of an ever growing population of human beings never results from deliberate and coercive estate plans, nor from the egalitarian income distribution, nor from increases in public spending, nor from subsidies, debt or inflation, but only arises from the free market of the capitalist system. Therefore, it is crucially important for the future of humanity that it be able to take full and maximum advantage of the lessons and essential message in pursuit of human liberty that economics provides. But this will only be be possible if we are able to unmask and carefully analyze the powerful forces of the soscientific and counterrevolutionary reaction that has been mobilized to prevent the advance of the theory of liberty derived from economic science. Despite their diverse origins, they all converge on the same objective to attempt to justify and preserve a state coercion at all costs under the appearance of scientific legitimacy. They are driven by the fatal conceit of many visionaries, thinkers, and supposed experts who believe themselves so clever enough to correct the spontaneous market order. Of course, using the violence and coercive power of the state together with a privileged cast of rulers, bureaucrats and acolytes, they continually manipulate a humanity that is sadly accustomed to serving the state. For all of them is vital that estatism be maintained and that the message of liberty provided by economics never prevail. Next we will list the main reactionary sodcientific currents that have infiltrated economic science like lethal virus and that constitute in Hexek's terminology the counterrevolution of science. First positivism and a scientism is a science. By a scientism, we must understand the improper application of the methods of the natural sciences to the field of economic science. Thus, while the natural sciences study their object of research as something external, measurable, and quantifiable, economics studies the implications of the voluntary actions of human beings. And given the essentially creative nature of human beings, the supposed empirical evidence has at best only a superficial, partial and always historically contingent value. In Bastiad words of what is seen, or rather what is believed to have been seen, but not what is not seen. And at worst it always entails the assumption that human beings are an object of research that can be manipulated as the matter of the external world studied by the natural sciences. This inevitably introduces the idea that to improve the world the state and its rulers must use their coercive power to manipulate and change the things they believe they see in their historical contingent empirical photos. But these empirical photos cannot capture the underlying dynamic essence of a spontaneous social processes let alone what is already happening spontaneously to solve and coordinate every problem. Secondly, the sod sign of neocclassical economics 90% of the economic departments is characterized by its claim that only its own approach constitutes true science that is the approach based on the principles of equilibrium, maximization and constancy. Moreover, in addition to the lack of realism of its assumptions, it adds the reductionism of a mathematical language that has developed in response to the needs and demands of the naturalist sciences, but which is alien to the economic science because it does not allow for the subjective concept of time and entrepreneurial creativity. Neocclassical economists developed the Sudo science. Sodo science based not on real human beings of flesh and blood but on ideal types that are like robotic penguins who even in their most sophisticated dynamic stoastic general equilibrium models are limited to moving and reacting to events and state coion as if they were characters of a sort of economic video game. Yet neocclassical sodor science despite its apparent and everinccreasing sophistication is not capable of accounting for the immense complexity of the real world and rebels against the idea of a spontaneous market order in two ways that are equally harmful to human liberty. On the one hand, by promoting the coercive social engineering of central banks, states and governments to use fine-tuning to force reality towards the mathematical optimum of their models. And on the other hand, by labeling as market failures everything they believe they observe in reality that does not coincide in their empirical studies with their ghostly model of perfect equilibrium and adjustment. Not also how neocclassical sod science needs and fits upon the empirical work of the previous sudo science positivism in order to justify its conclusions against humanity and human liberty and in favor of state coercion so that positivists and neocclassicists join hands and end up reinforcing reinforcing each other in their reactionary agenda. Third, sudoscience, macroeconomics andism. The very macro approach already entails inevitably an obvious bias in favor of justifying state intervention, aggression, and coercion against the spontaneous order of the market and human liberty. Ask said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech back in 1974, "Microeconomists ignore everything they cannot measure. Specifically, truly relevant economic processes and theories. At the same time, they believe that certain aggregate concepts which lack genuine economic meaning have a real existence that permits to collect empirical information or evidence that can be manipulated and statistically treated. Once again, macroeconomic soda science goes hand inhand with positivist pseudocience and the two reinforce with each other in their counterrevolutionary reaction. Furthermore, Keynesianism is particularly harmful. Not only does it flatly deny the coordination capacity of creative entrepreneurship and the spontaneous market, but it also builds as an alternative explanation a whole model. of course of equilibrium with permanent unemployment to justify the coercive intervention of the state in the lives of human beings in the form of all kinds of fiscal and monetary manipulations. Moreover, the macroeconomic engs and it's reinforced by the sientific approach of the neocclassical school to the point that the so-called neocclassical king thesis became throughout the 20th century the main reactionary movement inside economics. But we have let left left the quasi religious mysticism of Marxist s science for last because Marxism was a scientifically dead even before it was born. In fact, it emerged and was theoretically demolished by the subjectivist revolution led by the Austrian school of economics. From the beginning, the Austrian school's development of the time preference in capital theory revealed the contradictions and grave scientific errors of Marxism while at the same time exposing its pronounced character as an intellectual fraud. This intellectual fraud was historically illustrated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and of virtually all other communist countries after many decades of unspeakable human suffering for a large part of the world's population. All of which was perfectly consistent with the theory on the impossibility of aestheticism developed by the Austrian school beginning with the form of 1920 and which was the final nail that forever sealed the coffin of the corpse of Marxist soda science. Finally, in this context, we must mention the destructive role played by a number of distinguished economists who although they defend liberty and the market economy could be described as a kind of useful innocence in Mrs. terminology. I would rather say in some cases useful idiots, but probably it's too strong. So erase that useful innocence. This is so because even though they officially oppose rampant estatism and defend liberty by accepting even if only partially some of the postulates of the reactionary sudo scientific currents we have described. They ultimately end up often without intending to and much to their regret providing additional impetus and ammun ammunition to the statist reaction within our discipline. For example, when they insist on advising states with proposals aim at making them more efficient and at helping them to do somewhat better things that they should not be doing at all. By way of illustrations, we should include in this category of useful innocence. For example, thinkers as it was my friends as the car copper of the open society and its enemies who came to admire the scientific capacity and even the humanism of Carl Marx and who proposed an estatist strategy of peace meal social engineering or George Stigler my fellow past fellow in the polar society plenty of counterrevolutionaries that society of course or Jose Stigler where he claimed that only empirical evidence could determine which economic system socialist or capitalist might might function. As a matter of fact, the Stigler was following word by word Frank Knight who said that economic science has no argument, nothing to say about socialism. This is only a matter for political science and empirical studies. What a what an awful man. And more generally, the members of the Chicago school, awful people led by Gary Becker and Milton Friedman. Becker when defending that only economics develop within the strict limits of equilibrium, constancy and maximization typical of the neocclassical sense constitutes true economic science. So all of us are outside the science. No, we are in the science. Are them who are outside the science? And even more serious could be considered the case of Milton Friedman whose very sincere love of liberty, an intense and popular media support for free markets stand in sharp contrast to his sudo scientific approach based on the aggregate method of economics of Keian origin on positivist and empiricism and on the full acceptance of the unrealism of assumptions. Only in this way it can be explained Friedman's litany of scientific errors which much to his regret has invariably ended up reinforcing statistics interventionism to the point that Hajek himself was forced to conclude that after Kane's the general theory the book that has done the greatest harm to economic science and of course to humankind has been Freriedman's essays in positive economics. So I hope Freeman will be in the purgatory at least four 5,000 more years with Gary Becker. Of course, not directly to the hell. Hopefully we will see him in the you know heaven but many thousand years from now as we see also many classical liberals and advocates of liberal democracy have also acted as useful innocents. The fatal error of classical liberals lies in the failure to realize that the program is theoretically impossible because it incorporates within itself the seeds of its own destruction precisely to the extent that it considers necessary and accepts the existence of a state even if it is minimal understood as the monopolistic agency of institutional coercion. Therefore the great error of classical liberals is very basic. They believe in a program of political action, an economic doctrine that aims to limit the power of the state while at the same time accepting it and even considering a state's existence necessary. However, economic science has already shown that the state is unnecessary. That estatism, even it is in its minimal form, is theoretically impossible, and that given human nature, once the state exists, it is impossible to limit its power. On the other hand, liberal democracy is a concept as naive as it is impossible. Mrs. already warned us that democracy could only function if all its participants accepted the classical liberal principles which of of course is impossible because democracy itself encourages and amplifies both buying and the partisan use of power. So the inevitable conclusion is that liberal democracy is a contradiction in terms as absurd as speaking following a deasai of a square circle of hot snow or of a virgin prostitute and even hayek even hayek considered democracy and workable if it is understood as the exercise of absolute power by majorities karattos in classical Greek. It should therefore come as no surprise that democracy once and again tends to be perverse a perverse system based on lying and buying boats with money stolen through taxation. The fact is that the state attracts like a magnet the worst passions and vices of human nature. For instance, when individuals try to obtain rents produced by others using the state squarive power. Moreover, the combined effect of the privileged groups, the phenomena of governmental myopia and boat buying, the megalomaniacal character of politicians and the irresponsibility and blindness of bureaucracies generate a dangerous, unstable and explosive cocktail that continually shaken by social, economic and political crisis which paradoxically are always used by the political cast to justify further doses of intervention and estatism that instead of solving problems further aggravate them. Estatism therefore corrupts the entire social body and at the same time blocks the spontaneous and free market solution of social and economics economic problems. In fact, the state has become the idol that almost everyone turns to and worships. The statutory is the most serious and dangerous social disease of our time. We are educated to believe that all problems can and must be detected and solved by the state. Our destiny depends on the state and the politicians who control it are expected to guarantee everything our well-being may require. Human beings remain immature and rebel against their own creative nature which makes their future always uncertain. They demand a crystal ball that assures them not only knowing what will happen but also that any problems that arise will be solved for them. This infantilization of the masses is encouraged by politicians as it justifies their own existence and ensures their popularity, position of dominance and capacity to control. In addition, a whole legion of intellectual, so-called experts and social engineers join in this arrogant intoxication of power. Not even the church, when I say the church, I refer to the Catholic Church, of course. Not even the church and the most respectable religious denominations have been able to realize that today constitutes the principal threat to the free, moral, and responsible human being. that the state is a false idol of immense power woripped by all and that does not allow humanity to be free from its control or have moral or religious loyalties beyond those the state can dominate. Furthermore, it is kept hidden from the public that the state is the true source of social conflicts and evils and escape goats such as capitalism, private property and so on are blamed for the problems and they become the goal of the most serious condemnation even from moral and religious leaders almost none of whom have realized the deception or dave to denounce that is the main threat in the present century to religion, morality and therefore to human civilization. Perhaps the main exception within the church is included in the brilliant biography entitled Jesus of Nazareth written by Benedict the 16th. that the state and political power constitute the institutional incarnation of of the antichrist should be obvious to anyone with a minimal knowledge of history who reads the former pope's consideration on the most serious temptation that evil one country said to us and I quote rashing rashinger literally from now on the tempter is not so crude as to propose to us directly to worship of the devil he merely proposes that We opt for the rational solution that we prefer a planned and organized world in which God may have a place as a private spiritual matter but must not be allowed to interfere in our essential purposes. Solop attributes to the antichrist a book entitled the open road to world peace and prosperity. it becomes the new Bible and its core message is the worship of well-being and rational planning by the state. End of quote. And so we should not be surprised that for example the great author of the Lord of the Rings, Jr. Ten, whose Catholic anarchism I fully share, went so far as to say that he would arrest anyone for simply daring to pronounce the word estate because because the state is always and everywhere a reality of violence, a systematic coercion against the most intimate essence of the human being, which is his capacity to act freely, creatively, and spontaneously. And so it is unavoidable to conclude that the state is essentially immoral and an estatism constitutes the empirical the the principal threat to humankind. And almost without realizing it, we can go ahead with a theological digression on how dismantling the state is a logical and moral necessity inseparable from the work of God. I fully understand that the referring to God in this conference may come as a shock to many of to many of those present. But I would ask that even those who do not believe in God at least as a personal favor and for dialectical purposes make an effort of imagination for the next few minutes imagine that God does indeed exist. And what do we mean by God? We must understand God to be the a supreme being created of out of love of all things. And the most important creature that God has created is precisely the human being in his image and likeness. And if there is a point of connection between God and man, it is precisely the creative entrepreneurial ability, the capacity to discover, to see, to create new things, goals, and actions. But now I'm going to go one step further and attempt to demonstrate that God is not only the supreme loving creator of all things but that moreover God is libertarian. And what does it mean to say that God is libertarian? It means that God the Lord of all the universe has absolute power of it of over it. And yet he chooses not to use force but always leaves his creators free to the point that he gives human beings the freedom to rebel against him. Even though again and again God forgives human beings and allows them to rise up and begin a new. God always let the universe he has created flow in a spontaneous manner. could be the motor of our libertarian God. And this despite the fact that human beings tempt God again and again and we demand that he manifest his absolute power that he give us clear and indisputable signs of his existence and supreme power in order for us to believe in him. But of course, God does not accept our challenge. And why? Very easy. Because love and liberty are inseparable. And a forced conversion, for example, by an evident cataclysm would be completely contrary to that liberty with with which God has created human beings out of love. Moreover, the kingdom of God is not of this world. Jesus himself says this to a fearful Roman estate official who was also in charge of judging him. My kingdom is not of this world. Does this mean that there are two types of kingdoms? The kingdoms of this world or estates which would be legitimate at their own level. Remember render and to Caesar the things that are Caesars. The kingdom of God of render unto God the things that are gods. That is the standard interpretation that has prevailed until now. But I think it's completely wrong. The kingdom of God which is the exact opposite of the kingdom kingdoms or estates of this world never bake systematic youth of violence or and coion. It is a kingdom that has already come to us and moreover has been given to us freely in an act of immense mercy and love. And just as the hateful institution of a slavery came to an end, the kingdom of God will also dismantle the kingdoms of this world, the states of this world or as St. Paul said of every every principality, power and glory because God is libertarian and must man is made in the image and likeness of God. Ludik formes in his book interventionism introduced the term destructionism to refer to the economic and social effects of estatism. If evil represented by estatist destructionism in misses terminology were to prevail the human race and hiization would have disappeared long ago. The fact that despite everything and the immense power of seduction of estatism over humankind, the process of social cooperation continues to unfold and even prosper in certain historical periods and geographical areas is a clear manifestation that God does not abandon the world nor leave libertarians alone in their struggle against the able. and that good represented by liberty, the principle of non-aggression, the spontaneous order of the market, entrepreneurial creativity and coordination, and above all moral principles always with God God's helps prevails and is capable of overcoming evil represented by the fatal conceit of the statist ideal and the destruction that it produces. And now I will finish with some thoughts on anarcho capitalism as the only possible system of social cooperation truly compatible with human nature. The most important intellectual and moral event that is taking place nowadays precisely now is the full fusion between Christianity and anarchco capitalism. Write that because anarchco capitalism is the only possible system of social cooperation that is truly compatible with human nature. Anarcho capitalism is the purest representation of the spontaneous market order in which all services including law, justice and public order are provided through a voluntary process of social cooperation. In this system, no area is closed to the drive of human creativity and entrepreneurial coordination. Efficiency and justice in the resolution of problems are simultaneously enhanced while the conflicts, inefficiencies and discoordinations generated by the state are eradicated at the root. The progressive abolition of estates and their gradual replacement by dynamic network of private agencies sponsoring different legal system and providing all kind of prevention and defense services constitutes the most important social transformation that will take place in the 21st century without forgetting that Skina says exactly what prevents us from knowing with precision what the future without the state will look like. The creative nature of entrepreneurship is what give us the peace of mind of knowing that any problem will tend to be resolved and overcome once the entrepreneurial effort and creativity of humanity are devoted to its solution. Therefore, the revolution against the old regime carried out in the 18th and 19th centuries by the old classical liberals today finds its natural continuation in the anarcho capitalist revolution of the 21st century. The message of anarchco capitalism is clearly revolutionary. I am a revolutionary. revolutionary in terms of its goal, the dismantling of the state and its replacement by a competitive market process consistent in a of a network of private agencies, association and organizations and revolutionary in terms of its means especially in the scientific economic social and political fields. First scientific revolution in the field of economic science which becomes the general theory of spontaneous market order extended to all social areas. Second, an economic and social revolution as we cannot even imagine today the immense human achievements and discoveries discoveries that could be made in an entrepreneurial environment totally free from aesthetism. And when human beings become more and more aware of the perverse nature of the states that restrict them and of the immense possibilities that are frustrated each day when the state blocks the driving force of their entrepreneurial creativity, the social demand to reform and dismantle the state will multiply creating a future that is largely unknown to us but that will be elevate human civilization to heights that we cannot even imagine today. And finally, a political revolution in which although day-to-day political struggle is important, it should not be the top priority. It is true that the least interventionist alternatives must always be supported in clear alliance with the efforts of classical liberals in their long-term impossible democratic limitation of the state. But the anac the the anac capitalist does does not stop at this task for he knows that he can and must do much more. He knows that the ultimate goal is the total dismantling of the state and this goal leads all his imagination and political action in everyday life. And here we cannot fail to mention the unprecedented impact of our disciple and follower of our master program in Austrian economics in Madrid. The president of Argentina, Javier Mille, who has done more than anyone else before to disseminate the principles of the Austrian school and the anarcho capitalist ideal. principles that he never ceases to quote and explain in extension and defend once and again in all his public appearances from the United Nations to the Davos forum and in all his meetings with other heads of states, universities and parliaments to whom he even gives always copies of the most important Austrian works by Mrs. Hajek and even myself as he did for example with the two popes Francis and Leo the 14th with the French president Mcron the Italian prime minister Melani etc and etc that and even with Ilum Musk for us it is a great honor that MLE has to a large extent as he says always emerged from the option school of Madrid and that he continually keeps drawing inspiration from us. And all this with tireless enthusiasm in the search for scientific moral truth, an attitude that inspired by the immortal work of Miguel de Cervantes, Doniote could describe could describe as follows. It matters not whether they be giants or windmills, where the plume of our helm is steered by the winds of tenacity and faith. And always creating a future that although it may seem distant today, may at any moment witness giant steps that will surprise even the most optimistic among us. History has entered into an accelerated process of change, which although it will never stop, will open a whole new chapter when humankind finally succeeds in reading itself definitely of the state, reducing it to no more than a dark historical relic of tragic memory. Thank you very much. Thank you. You made me very happy. Thank you. You will. Thank you.