I was going to summarize my criticisms of your point of view but wikipedia already did it better.
It is enough to say that I concur.
By the way, just because people put extensive thought into something doesn't imply it is correct. The communists had lots of theories about why that model was better. Empirically, they didn't prove out. Many people saw the consequences of communism as mathematically obvious. That did not make them closed minded.
For the record, I'm a pragmatic libertarian. Believe but do your own math. Math works. Empirically validated functions rule. Philosophy is easy to twist to any whim. That is my philosophy! :-)
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Criticism of the Austrian School
Critics have concluded that modern Austrian economics generally lacks scientific rigor,[10][12] which forms the basis of the most prominent criticism of the school. Austrian theories are not formulated in formal mathematical form,[107] but by using mainly verbal logic and what proponents claim are self-evident axioms. Mainstream economists believe that this makes Austrian theories too imprecisely defined to be clearly used to explain or predict real world events. Economist Bryan Caplan noted that, "what prevents Austrian economists from getting more publications in mainstream journals is that their papers rarely use mathematics or econometrics."
A related criticism[5][108] is applied to Austrian School leaders; these leaders have advocated a rejection of methods which involve directly using empirical data in the development of (falsifiable) theories; application of empirical data is fundamental to the scientific method.[109] In particular, Austrian School leader, Ludwig von Mises, has been described as the mid-20th century's "archetypal 'unscientific' economist."[110] Mises wrote of his economic methodology that "its statements and propositions are not derived from experience... They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts."[111] Murray Rothbard was also an adherent of Mises's methodology, and though Rothbard assigned a quasi-empirical description to it, he comments that "it should be obvious that this type of 'empiricism' is so out of step with modern empiricism that I may just as well continue to call it a priori for present purposes".[112] Additionally, the prominent Austrian economist, F. A. Hayek, stated his belief that social science theories can "never be verified or falsified by reference to facts."[113] Such rejections of empirical evidence in economics by Austrian School leaders have led to the school being dismissed within the mainstream.[5]
Another general criticism of the School is that although it claims to highlight shortcomings in traditional methodology, it fails to provide viable alternatives for making positive contributions to economic theory.[114] In his critique of Austrian economics, Caplan stated that Austrian economists have often misunderstood modern economics, causing them to overstate their differences with it. He argued that several of the most important Austrian claims are false or overstated. For example, Austrian economists object to the use of cardinal utility in microeconomic theory; however, microeconomic theorists go to great pains to show that their results hold for all monotonic transformations of utility, and so are true for purely ordinal preferences.[10][23] Caplan has also criticized the school for rejecting on principle the use of mathematics or econometrics.
There are also criticisms of specific Austrian theories. For example, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, after examining the history of business cycles in the US, concluded that "The Hayek-Mises explanation of the business cycle is contradicted by the evidence. It is, I believe, false."[6][103][115] In addition to Milton Friedman's criticism, Nobel laureate and neo-Keynesian economist Paul Krugman argued that Austrian business cycle theory implies that consumption would increase during downturns, and cannot explain the empirical observation that spending in all sectors of the economy fall during a recession.[7]
Economist Jeffrey Sachs has pointed out that when comparing developed free-market economies, those that have high rates of taxation and high social welfare spending perform better on most measures of economic performance compared to countries with low rates of taxation and low social outlays. He asserts that poverty rates are lower, median income is higher, the budget has larger surpluses, and the trade balance is stronger (although unemployment tends to be higher). He concludes that Friedrich Hayek was wrong when he said that high taxation would be a threat to freedom; but rather, a generous social-welfare state leads to fairness, economic equality, international competitiveness, and strong vibrant democracies.[116] In response to Sachs' article, William Easterly states that Hayek, writing in 1944, correctly recognized the dangers of large-scale state economic planning. He also questions the validity of comparing poverty levels in the Nordic countries and the United States, when the former have been moving away from social planning toward a more market-based economy, and the latter has historically taken in impoverished immigrants. Easterly also argues that laissez-faire countries were the leaders of "the ongoing global industrial revolution" which is responsible for abolishing much of the world's poverty.[117]