Economists’ appreciation for the School of Salamanca, andthe contribution that it made to their discipline, has grown in recent years. An economics professor has just released a podcast encapsulating the teachings of its best-known figure, the Jesuit theologian Juan de Mariana – and it takes just eight minutes of your time.

Lucas M. Engelhardt, an associate professor of economics at Kent State University’s Stark Campus, discusses the Spanish thinker’s distinction between rulers and tyrants, the immorality of inflation, and the reason he believed government officials do so poorly when trying to control key aspects of the economy.

“Some, like Jesús Huerta de Soto, have suggested that when you really look at the writings of the Spanish scholastics like Juan de Mariana,” Engelhardt concludes, “one must conclude that the Austrian School was founded ultimately, not in Austria, but in Spain, over 200 years before [Carl] Menger was even born.”

You can listen to his podcast here or download it here.

For prehensive information about the School of Salamanca, seeFaith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholasticsby Alejandro Chafuen,or a collectionof texts by the Late Scholastics on monetary theoryedited by Stephen J. Grabill. See alsoJuan de Mariana’sA Treatise on the Alternation of Money.

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