I’m 17 and I have been writing my junior paper on Austrian economics, I have to give a speech to my classmates tomorrow about my topic.
I kinda get where I can begin but some help or points I could make would be very helpful, I’m pretty nervous.
Thank you.
What all resources have you gone through? How long is your speech supposed to be? Is there any theme you are supposed to follow?
I’ve been through quite a bit, I think I pretty much understand Mises’s Praexeology and the a priori reasoning and what not. I have read some Menger and Bohm Bawerk, but I dont really know where I need to begin and where I need to end up. The speech can be as long as I need it to be, and there isn’t much of a theme needed.
Well, generally depending on your audience and the context of the meeting, you want it as short as possible. And with high schoolers it can’t be that long, one, for attention spans, but two, you have class time constraints.
My best recommendation would be to check out these links at the bottom of the Austrian School article. Go through as many of those as you can and see how those sources go about introducing the school and its main tenents. The primer by Jonathan M. Finegold Catalan does a good job giving a brief overview of the main aspects that set the Austrians apart from other schools. (Mind you, the article is not very brief, but that section toward the middle where he outlines the main points is a pretty concise treatment.)
You might also check out these lectures, as they were actually geared toward high school students, and get right at the matter you’re dealing with. They do take a more general approach and don’t exclusively focus on the Austrian School, but you can surely pick up some good points that will help educate your audience and keep them interested…
Random thoughts:
You might start off with a fallacy Obama and/or the media constantly plays up. For example, that the govt can create jobs, or stimulate the economy, or that minimum wage protects the poor people from being broke, or that a central bank should never tighten the money supply in a recession, or that a central bank is a good thing to have, or that 2% inflation a year is a good thing, or that the current increase in prices at the pump is caused by price gougers and speculators, or that a gold standard is a primitive relic, or that the FDIC protects depositors from losing their money, or whatever other misconception you are enthusiastic about exposing. Or even all of the above, point by point.
Maybe you could print out a list of topics, like the one above, hand it out, then say “I can prove all those things are false. Someone yell out something on that list that he wants to know about”. Or you could ensure you have a better grade by saying, “Oh mighty teacher, any one of those you want me to start with?” If he is such a dufus he has no idea, you then ask the audience in general, or someone in the group who is the alpha male, or the smartest or the dumbest or the prettiest. When a point is done, you ask someone else.
You lay the out the opposition’s case briefly in a way that will not be a straw man.
You then show the points where AE thinks they are wrong, and why AE has it right. You go as deep into the basics as needed.
I have found that a great rule of speaking is “Tell them what you are going to say, say it, then tell them what you said”. For example: “I will now prove that a minimum wage, far from helping the poor, only hurts them.” Then you prove it. Then you say, “So there it is. We have shown that a minimum wage hurts the poor, not helps them.” The more you do of this, the more they will get what you are saying.
An ancient but valid idea: Make sure you look at everyone. Keep your eyes moving from person to person.
Jokes are fine. The less subtle the better. Remember, people in a group lose most of their IQ.
No insults. No personal attacks on Obama etc. You are not there to raise emotions, but to pass on information and prove a point.
Use the easy word whenever possible, not the hard word.