Lecture series
The Business Cycle
The Business Cycle is a free lecture series (24 recordings, 0.5 hours) you can stream or download at freecapitalists.org, with Murray N. Rothbard.
Short clips of Rothbard answering audience questions on business cycle theory. He covers the Austrian explanation of boom and bust, Keynesian and monetarist policy, the 1929 crash and later recessions, antitrust and banking, and why Keynesianism eclipsed Austrian theory after 1936.
Cover painting: a clerk on the Federal Hall steps looks back as crowds fill Broad Street, Black Tuesday, New York, 29 October 1929. See every painting in the art gallery.
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01
2:32 Download MP3
Can you address the recession of 1958?
Rothbard recalls 1958 as the first inflationary recession, when prices kept rising as output fell. Pressed at a lecture on what to do if inflation and recession recur together, Arthur Burns could only answer that officials would have to resign, though Rothbard notes none ever actually have.
Read the transcript 436 words
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02
4:19 Download MP3
What are the origins of the predominant theory of the business cycle?
Rothbard recounts the business cycle appeared as a recurring phenomenon in the eighteenth century. Keynes claimed no classical economist before him had a real theory of depression, and concluded government spending must make up for chronically insufficient private spending.
Read the transcript 680 words
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03
0:58 Download MP3
What is the Keynesian view of the role of government vis-a-vis the free market?
Rothbard likens the Keynesian economy to a car between the abyss of unemployment and inflation. Government is cast as the driver whose task is to fine-tune total spending to keep the economy exactly on the full-employment line.
Read the transcript 166 words
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04
0:36 Download MP3
How do the theories of Mises and Hayek differ?
Rothbard argues the policy implied by Mises and Hayek's theory is nearly opposite Keynesian policy. Where Keynesians pump money into a recession, the Austrian response is to stop creating new money and credit during inflation and, during a recession, let it run its course without government interference.
Read the transcript 100 words
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05
1:10 Download MP3
Why did the theories of Mises and Hayek originally attract attention?
Rothbard recounts Mises and Hayek drew attention in the late 1920s by predicting the depression. Unlike the mainstream, they identified the banking system's credit expansion, not industry or the market economy itself, as the true cause of the coming bust.
Read the transcript 206 words
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06
0:46 Download MP3
Why didn't the Austrian view of the business cycle prevail?
Rothbard argues Austrian theory was briefly adopted because it alone had predicted the Depression. He says the Keynesians never actually refuted Austrian theory; economists simply stopped discussing it, the way fashions change.
Read the transcript 138 words
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07
1:04 Download MP3
Why did the "establishment" accept Keynesianism so readily?
Rothbard argues Keynesianism was the first theory whose advocates actively favored inflation. Because Keynesians enthusiastically endorsed what politicians already wanted to do, their ideas were adopted with unusual enthusiasm by the political establishment.
Read the transcript 171 words
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08
0:28 Download MP3
How did Keynes answer his critics?
Keynes answered long-run objections to his theory by saying that in the long run everyone is dead. Rothbard counters that Keynes himself is now dead while his policies live on, leaving society to suffer through the very Keynesian long run he dismissed.
Read the transcript 71 words
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09
0:31 Download MP3
What about the Chicago school (Milton Friedman)?
Rothbard calls Friedmanite monetarists essentially Keynesians who target the quantity of money. He credits the monetary rather than fiscal emphasis as an improvement but says the underlying policies remain fairly similar to Keynesianism.
Read the transcript 90 words
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10
0:31 Download MP3
Since the FDIC there have been fewer bank failures. Isn't this a good thing?
Rothbard argues deposit insurance has not reduced bank runs so much as removed a healthy check. He says more bank failures would actually be better, since the Federal Reserve system remains inflationary regardless, and the real dispute is over how to interpret the facts.
Read the transcript 112 words
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11
0:31 Download MP3
What purpose do anti-trust laws serve?
Rothbard argues antitrust laws like the FTC are presented as guardians against monopoly. In practice, he says, antitrust creates the very monopoly protection it claims to prevent.
Read the transcript 88 words
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12
0:34 Download MP3
How would a free market prevent monopoly?
Rothbard sees nothing wrong with a monopoly earned purely through superior market performance. A monopoly gained by force, like breaking a rival's arm, is different, and he says antitrust enforcement usually protects the weaker firm rather than the more efficient one.
Read the transcript 109 words
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13
3:41 Download MP3
What is the basic business cycle theory developed by the Currency School?
Rothbard explains the Currency School's business cycle theory built around fractional reserve banking. As a country's banks inflate credit, rising prices push imports up and exports down, draining gold until the banks must contract, triggering recession before the cycle reverses.
Read the transcript 556 words
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14
1:48 Download MP3
Why is the industrial market economy so often blamed for the busts in business cycles?
Rothbard notes the Industrial Revolution and central banking arose together in the eighteenth century. He treats this coincidence of timing as the root of the mistaken, still-dominant theory that industrial capitalism causes boom and bust.
Read the transcript 248 words
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15
0:29 Download MP3
What role did government paper money play in early booms and busts?
Rothbard dates the first government paper money to Massachusetts in 1690; before that, governments could only debase coins. He cites John Law persuading the French royal government to let him act as central banker and print money, an early case of officials believing inflation could erase public debt and bring prosperity.
Read the transcript 101 words
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16
1:04 Download MP3
What theories opposed the currency schools' view of the business cycle?
Rothbard explains the Banking School's view that businessmen's moods cause the business cycle. He says Marx adopted this market-blaming logic to argue business cycles would intensify capitalism's contradictions until the proletariat revolted.
Read the transcript 151 words
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17
1:14 Download MP3
What is the Keynesian approach to business cycles?
Rothbard explains the Keynesian view that insufficient consumer or investment spending causes depressions. He summarizes this as treating government as a wise, all-good deus ex machina correcting an irrational private economy.
Read the transcript 209 words
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18
0:14 Download MP3
What the the Austrian view of recessions?
Rothbard argues in the Austrian view, recessions are good given an inflationary boom has occurred. The euphoric boom that everyone welcomes is the malinvestment the recession must liquidate.
Read the transcript 40 words
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19
0:50 Download MP3
What is the Keynesian solution to depressions?
Rothbard explains that Keynes blamed depression on a loss of businessmen's animal spirits. He characterizes this as casting government as an Olympian, clear-headed planner correcting an irrational private sector.
Read the transcript 124 words
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20
0:36 Download MP3
How can government promote recovery from recession?
Rothbard says the only thing government can do to speed recovery from a recession is cut its budget. He doubts a real budget cut of this kind is likely.
Read the transcript 125 words
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21
0:47 Download MP3
Why doesn't a collapse or recession occur quickly when the money supply is expanded?
Rothbard argues recessions do not hit within weeks because banks keep inflating to validate the boom. He compares this to staying one step ahead of a heroin addict's escalating dosage, until the inflationary boom finally can no longer be sustained.
Read the transcript 155 words
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22
2:54 Download MP3
What caused the depression of 1929?
Rothbard recounts the 1920s boom was fueled by the Federal Reserve doubling the money supply. Because rising productivity kept consumer prices flat, officials saw no inflation on their price index even as bank credit inflated stock and real estate, setting up the 1929 crash.
Read the transcript 535 words
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23
0:06 Download MP3
What is the proper role of the Federal Reserve?
Rothbard says the proper role of the Federal Reserve is simply to disappear. It is a one-line answer with no further elaboration offered in the clip.
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24
0:18 Download MP3
Do you predict inflation or deflation?
Rothbard says he has long predicted inflation rather than deflation and has not been proven wrong. He notes that deflationists predicting deflation since 1973 have been wrong every year without their confidence slipping.
Read the transcript 58 words
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Recording dates and topics for 0 of these 24 lectures come from the Mises Institute's page for The Business Cycle, checked 2026-08-04. The series and lecture summaries above them are written for this archive from the transcripts.
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About this series
- Is The Business Cycle free to listen to?
- Yes. All 24 mirrored recordings stream in the browser or download as audio, at no cost and with no signup.
- How long is The Business Cycle?
- 24 recordings, 0.5 hours in total.
- Who lectures in The Business Cycle?
- Murray N. Rothbard.
- Is there a transcript of The Business Cycle?
- Yes. 23 of the 24 mirrored recordings have one, 4,669 words in total, free to read on each lecture's page and searchable in the browser.
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