Thanks for your considered responses. Always appreciated.
I find this to be a stretch. I do get where you’re coming from, as I have encountered some (even in here..I won’t link threads, but you may very well have seen at least some) who quite obviously have very little to almost zero knowledge of actual Austrian theory or libertarian theory, and yet speak with this aire of certainty as if they have studied for years (which, ironically, those who have done so never quite sound like). You can tell by the juvenile sound of their words, and the sort of jingoist attitude they present…as if being better is more important than being reasoned. But those are few I feel.
And then there are some who may be more reserved, more considered, and more intelligent and understanding, but yet also feel content to simply conclude they’ve found the right philosophy and don’t do much to study it further. But for the most part, I can understand this tendency…as, again, if you’re a remotely intelligent person, with an active mind, I can certainly understand “hearing the good word” not only of Mises, but of liberty in general, and feeling like you’ve found the holy grail. I think almost all of us can relate to that. In fact I bet most of us can recall their first major spark…the passage they read, or the lecture they heard, or the film they saw, that started them on their journey. I can. (And you’ll even hear similar stories from Mises scholars talking about some of their first experiences with a specific text or author…like Riggenbach recounts here, or Doug French does here.)
And as a critical, thinking, questioning, person, it’s a big deal when you finally hear some sense after years (and possibly decades) of nonsense. I know there are plenty who say “where was all this when I was (half they age they are now)” or “man I wish I had heard some of this a long time ago.” In fact, there’s a story floating around here on the forum somewhere from one guy who had a friend or acquaintance that was an economics PhD student who had just gotten his degree and the guy gave him a copy of Prices & Production I think it was, and graduate was like “wow…I wish they taught us some of this stuff.”
My point is, I can’t completely fault someone who gets a little comfortable after discovering these ideas, and the fact that there is an entire community dedicated to furthering them from an economic/academic perspective as well as a politcal/intellectual one. I know for a fact so many will tell you how they felt so many of these ideas, and on some level just kind of “knew” them…but had never actually heard them articulated, so they couldn’t identify or focus them. And when you finally hear things vocalized that before you had only carried inside as a faint feeling, it’s a bit easy to feel vindicated. Like “I always knew there was something not right about copyright…I never felt like I was doing anything wrong by downloading a movie.” And when you finally hear Hoppe and Kinsella, it all comes together. Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Block…you hear what these guys have to say on so many different topics and the world starts to make sense. You’re finally able to connect the dots between reality…because you’ve finally come across a comprehensive theory to make sense of everything you’ve felt, observed, and gleaned from conversation.
And I think you have to admit it’s pretty damn good theory. I obviously don’t think anyone is wrong for being confident in it. And I’m not foolish enough to think everyone will read Human Action or be able to explain capital-based macro using Hayekian triangles. And they don’t have to. Not everyone is cut out to be an economist, or even devote a significant portion of their time to studying such things. And I think we’ll all be a lot better off if they don’t try to. It’s like mathematics…not everyone has to be a mathematician…or even know what differential equations are. But everyone’s gotta be familiar with the subject to a fairly decent degree, and be proficient in a decent range of basic principles…or the group is pretty screwed.
I have to disagree here. I really don’t see a lot of libertarians converting to socialist philosophies. In fact I’m not sure I’ve even heard of it. To be honest I have a hard time seeing how that’s possible. But I could find plenty examples of the opposite. Thomas Sowell is a famous one. While I do agree most hardcore communists, at least these days, don’t start off that way, I do believe they don’t have to go very far to get there…meaning I don’t think there’s much of a “conversion” taking place…but more of a refining. And while the same may be said for a lot of libertarians (as in, people who are raised generally “conservative” and end up moving farther and farther away from state acceptance), there are also plenty who have come from the complete other side of the fence. I don’t really think the same can be said for socialists. I would dare say virtually all of them were raised with some considerable degree of lean in that direction and have virtually never had any significant and considered exposure to liberty oriented ideas. I think that’s really the only way they can get to that level of statism. That’s also why they’re so dogmatic. It’s the only way you can be so statist.
Again I don’t know if it’s really possible to be an ancap and end up a statist. It’s like being an astronaut, traveling through space, and walking on the moon, and then joining the Flat Earth Society.
This I don’t disagree with. I have no problem with challenging your philosophy and constantly being open to the possibility of superior ways of looking at things. I think that’s a large part of what Rand was talking about. But as she also pointed out, this doesn’t necessarily mean constantly reading and reanalyzing and reassessing the same old flawed conjectures that have been debunked time and again. Personally I think that’s a waste of time and I see almost no point in it. Constantly testing your theory against reality however, is rarely a waste of time, and I don’t think you’ll find many austro-libertarians who have a problem with that (as Murphy shows here and here, for example).
As I said before, I don’t think libertarians aren’t interested in hearing statist points of view because the libertarians are just dogmatic. I actually think a large part of the fuel for dogmatism is a fear of being proven wrong. And I don’t think libertarians generally have to worry much about that (which is why you don’t tend to see them getting frustrated and emotional and resorting to insults and logical fallacies and then running away (unlike virtually every leftist I’ve ever seen in a debate.)) On the contrary, I think libertarians don’t have a lot of interest in analyzing Marxist theory for the same reason few people find it useful to read science books from the 1840s. Sure it can be interesting to see what uninformed assumptions people are operating under, and it can give you a greater appreciation for your own understanding, but outside of a purely historical or anthropological interest, I see little value in it. Again I think time would be better spent testing your theory against reality, and spreading the ideas of liberty.
While I don’t disagree that for many, much of what they know is not much more than the refutation of popular Keynesian and statist arguments…but I do disagree that these arguments are only really supported by “the masses” and not so much by “intelligent people.” If most “intelligent people” didn’t buy into those things, public opinion would be much more easily changed. In fact it would have happened by now. It is from intellectuals that “the masses” get these ideas.
“There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them.”
-George Orwell
The man knew what he was talking about. If the masses ever took a second to stop and think, and weren’t so preoccupied with other things (like the politcal kabuki theatre) then they wouldn’t be buying into and going along with it. (Of course the shitty education and indoctrination doesn’t help much for critical thinking either.) People tend to be kind of lazy, and the more difficult they find it to do something the less likely they are to do it…so the harder it is for someone to reason and think critically, the less they are going to even pay attention to anything that requires it. (Which, as I pointed out, explains the success of Michael Bay films.) So for people who want to feel informed, it’s much easier to just go along with whatever the “experts” say. I really don’t see some big divide between public opinion and intellectual opinion, as I think one is essentially derived from the other. (Of course the Tea Party Movement is an exception.)
But I also don’t really see what it really matters if most of what people know about economic or political theory is just how one proves the other bunk. In fact, if we’re talking about the most minimal amount of education, as in the one bit that should be learned if nothing else, I would argue that may be it. Of course deeper understanding is always better, but if you could only be educated to a certain degree, I think understanding how one theory is right and others are wrong is possibly most important. For one thing it makes you at least somewhat educated on multiple theories…so you are at least acquainted with differing points of view. This is more than can be said for Leftist dogma. But for another, understanding where these mainstream explanations and recommendations go wrong and why, is of the utmost importance…if for no other reason than people won’t be fooled into backing them.
I could see that. But I would still argue the fact that they’re libertarian and they’re here is proof in itself that they at least have a better grasp on reality than their statist peers.
I do concede she and her followers were quite dogmatic (and certainly wrong on IP), but how do you mean?
But again the main point is once you’re acquainted with these opposing views and “every challenge you examine strengthens your convictions” and “helps you to clarify and amplify the true ones” because your ideological enemies “provide countless demonstrations of their own impotence”, “you will not have to keep your mind eternally open to the task of examining every new variant of the same old falsehoods.”
Again, as I said, being acquinted with opposing views is important and I have no problem with constantly testing one’s theories against reality, but there is opportunity cost in everything…and I really don’t think it’s worth it to start reading anti-Tom literature because “there’s a chance we got it wrong” about slavery, and “it’s important to look into over viewpoints.”