It struck me the other day, that unlike other schools of economic thought, the Austrian school is extremely different. It’s not merely a set of principles or theories but a whole way of looking at the world.
I have got to the stage now where I simply can’t think of economics without the praxeological structure of man.
It seems to make perfect sense and, I think, makes economics rather “neat”. But I can’t help feel that, objectively speaking, it might make me a kind of quasi-fundamentalist … trapped in a way.
Btw, please don’t take this as an insult … I am just wondering if other people get to this stage and how they feel.
There’s nothing wrong with thinking you’re right. You might say that someone like Paul Krugman is an interventionist fundamentalist. It’s sort of relative and ultimately kind of meaningless and non-constructive to label someone a fundamentalist.
Understandable. Believing in one tenant seems to be like the first domino for many forum goers. It starts a chain reaction of study that results in transformation. It is fundamentalist in the sense that it is all-absorbing, and it is seen as the “best way” by most who are involved, but because fundamentalism is usually used to describe ideologies that accompany aggressive or coercive institutions, I wouldn’t call Austrolibertarianism “fundamentalist.” We don’t want to enforce our views on any, but we spread them through education and other voluntary peaceful means.
I suppose it depends on your take on the word “fundamentalist.”
And by the way, I don’t mean to imply that everyone agrees on everything. There are left and right libertarians, etc.
“fundamentalism is usually used to describe ideologies that accompany aggressive or coercive institutions”
Right, but that’s not really what fundamentalism means.
Fundamental-serving as, or being an essential part of, a foundation or basis
Everyone is a fundamentalist vis-a-vis whatever their beliefs are.
However if you say “Fundamentalism” you could be referring to something specific-“a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming.”
or something less specific “strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles”
“It seems to make perfect sense and, I think, makes economics rather “neat”. But I can’t help feel that, objectively speaking, it might make me a kind of quasi-fundamentalist … trapped in a way.” - Liam Anthony
I think this is more of a social thing. Generally speaking people who are ‘fundamentalists’ and either wrong or not verifiably right, say as in religious matters, annoy the living crap out of the rest of the world and have gotten themselves a bad rep. However, there’s nothing wrong with being a fundamentalist if you’re right. Just don’t claim The Truth is yours and yours alone on everything and you’re doing good. The more and more you get into this subject on the Austrian side of things, the more and more you realize modern economics is just a unnecessarily massively complex slap dash approach to what is, at base, fundamentally simple. You start getting what I like to call Rothbard’s Laser, which I define as an approach that cuts easily through the BS and gets to the heart of things and asks the key, necessary questions. And that tends to piss people off.
Just a quick point - neither “fundamentalism” nor any other word “really means” anything. I’m sorry to sound pedantic, but I believe this is extremely important across all discourse.
xahrx, do you think people get pissed off by that because either 1) you reveal yourself as “not playing their game”, or 2) it means you were able to get to such things before they could, and therefore they think you’re smarter than them?
The reason the term “market fundamentalist” has arisen in recent years is that the intellectual battle has moved so far to the liberal side that the only position that’s even further towards the liberal side is the utter extreme. The last century has been a history of the mainstream gradually accepting the liberal position. As late as the 30’s and 40’s most people knew that central planning is more efficient than the private enterprise system, and being for free markets essentially meant you didn’t believe that we need price controls to deter monopolies. Today pretty much everyone who deals with the real world has to admit that central planning is less efficient than private enterprise and that a free market is the best system for consumer goods. Today the intellectual battle is pretty much about whether we can have unregulated financial markets or not, plus some newly invented caveats like environmentalism. Meaning that the generally accepted position has moved so far towards market liberalism that the only people to the liberal side of it are the fundamentalists.
“Just a quick point - neither “fundamentalism” nor any other word “really means” anything. I’m sorry to sound pedantic, but I believe this is extremely important across all discourse.”
Ugh yes it does. You can have a fantasy set of meanings in your head if you want but in order to communicate we have to agree on meanings of particular arrangements of letters.
No, it doesn’t. Logically speaking, a given definition is no more “a reality” or “a fantasy” than any other. Your point about mutual agreement in order for communication to occur, while completely valid, is irrelevant to my point about the nature of definitions.
