Disliked Person of the Year: David Kramer

Miscellaneous Current Events
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Over the past several months or so I’ve had the “Disliked Person of the Week” award in my signature. Some of the more observant of you may have noticed that I have never once changed it from the original recipient, no, not even for much maligned Karen De Coster. This person, of a name which can be read below, has been a much more deserving canidate than even she. So who is this David Kramer fellow? Let us know him by his work:

http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Search&cof=LW%3A500%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2Flewroc1a.gif%3BLH%3A93%3BAH%3Acenter%3BAWFID%3A65dad07a461e3427%3B&domains=lewrockwell.com&q=david+kramer&sitesearch=lewrockwell.com

The first piece on the list is a tribute to a friend of his, so we can expect only kind words. It is the rest of his scribble that can be enjoyed with greater ease.

If you would prefer not to sift through all the content and make your own judgement, I would kindly direct you to his latest hit piece:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/64559.html

The first thing that comes to mind is Kramer’s outright dismissal of Freidrech Hayek, the most well known of Ludwig Mises’ students. How dare he not conform completely to the irrefutable Murray Rothbard!

Secondly, David Kramer lashes out at the suggestion that the Mises Institute, and non-economist Lew Rockwell has done less for “Austrian Economics” than Peter Boettke, the hated subject, in the last decade. Considering that the Mises Institute and is adjutants have concentrated almost solely on archiving and distributing existing works rather than advancing new theories and amending old fallacies. I am very fond of the content the Institute provides, but I hardly see any ground breaking work coming from it. (Feel free to correct me, I am completely prone to be fallible) Yes the Institute has done MORE for educating on EXISTING Austrian Economics than Peter Boettke, but academically, has any new thought come out of Austriandom since Rothbard’s death? Hoppe would be an easy mention, but his ideas are highly derivative of people like Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn and other neo-liberals of the late 20th century. True, I am just a layman who does fully grasp the internal politics of libertarianism, but supposing the Wall Street Journal is wrong in asserting that Kramer’s prey is worthy of honor, wouldn’t a little bit of courtesy go a long way?

I’ll have to cut this short because I need to get to work, but notice that Kramer cannot go a day without some mention of the dreaded “One World Government”.

Anywho, I was just spilling my rant on everyone. Feel free to harass and heckle! =]

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A rant about a rant. Interesting.

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Now if someone just rants about the original post, this forum’s server may implode.

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I’ve never had a thing for Kramer’s style. He seems paranoid and overly-snide. Lew Rockwell can get the same way (snide, not paranoid), but he can bring up a decent point or two.

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Yes, Kramer is pretty much insufferable, with his rant about the WSJ piece one of his more annoying. But a comment in the WSJ thread probably would have sufficed.

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Telpurion, I seriously doubt that your definition of “doing for Austrian economics” (why the scarequotes in your OP?) is the same as Mr. Kramer’s. So you’re comparing apples to oranges, methinks.

You ask whether any new thought has come out of “Austriandom” since Rothbard’s death. It depends on what you define as “new thought”. After all, one could say that Mises’ ideas are highly derivative of Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk and Karl Menger, if not also of others. We’re all standing on the shoulders of other thinkers.

In actuality, it seems to me that you just don’t like Mr. Kramer’s “tone”. Why not simply say that instead?

Regarding Peter Boettke: any economist who doesn’t think the Federal Reserve should be abolished is not an Austrian-School economist, IMHO.

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Autolykos, Peter Boettke wants the FRB abolished. You’re confusing his quote (which David Kramer strawmanned) with his actual position on the issue. He is saying that if the Fed is going to exist (he doesn’t think it should since he’s an Austrian) then it should make money as neutral as possible.

Also, the response to the article at LRC is pretty predictable. Oh well, now that they’ve “showed up” Peter Boettke they can go back to disproving that AIDS is caused by HIV, linking to articles showing how in reality smoking is good for you, and that running in Keds is better for your feet than running shoes.

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I don’t see anywhere in the article that Peter Boettke stated his alleged position of favoring the end of the Fed, as opposed to simply changing its “economic mission”. If he really doesn’t think the Fed should exist, why didn’t he add that qualification in the WSJ interview? Do you have anything you can cite that asserts your allegation as being true?

Although I do suspect Mr. Kramer of taking a cue from Alex Jones in terms of strawmanning, I don’t yet see how the evidence bears this out in his treatment of Mr. Boettke.

Fallacy of composition, much?

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Have you ever read anything by Peter Boettke? Here, listen to this interview. He’s just as ‘Austrian’ as Mises or Hayek.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/01/boettke_on_the.html

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Autolykos,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

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Admittedly, no. But then there’s this thing called the burden of proof.

In any case, thanks for the link – I’ll be sure to read it.

Heh, if I had a handy link on how hard it can be to distinguish sarcasm from actual attacks on the internet, I’d post it right now.

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The way I see it, Mr Kramer is only one of LRC’s problems, which I would identify as:

A recent trend to put any random nutcase with a vaguely anti government agenda on the soapbox, be somebody from the Tantric Quantum Yoga Drug Sex Therapy Community explaining how The Man is crampin down on their hobby, or creationist drivel that drives anyone with an IQ over 90 and a scientific education beyond Chick Tracts and Dr Dino to burying their head in their hands like Autolykos avatar.

This is kind of related to the above, but shilling for the latest alternative medical treatment. I get that it’s tangentially related to libertarianism by virtue of typically going against the grain (ha, ha) of government subsidised agricultural and pharmaceutical companies, but even the monotonously identical foreign policy articles (and I’m an amateur foreign policy buff myself) beating the spectral equine of American militarism seem like the brilliant, rabbinical writings of Dr Block.

The rather Freudian array of “The Man’s Guide To X” articles, which make LRC look less like a serious political website and more like some Cracked.com “Duuude” type hipster hangout. What possible relevance does what to pack in a blizzard or how to shave without cream have with political philosophy? Who actually goes to political websites looking for advice on stuff like this? It’s the modern equivalent of Henry Kissinger running a sex advice column.

Mr Kramer, meanwhile, is comparatively benign. To me, he’s the non-violent Rorschach to Fred Reed and Richard Daughty’s Statler and Waldorf. His strange obsession with two industrial and financial families is incomphrehensible to me, but this recent hissy fit against Peter Boettke is unusual for him. He tends to stick to the blogs and just launch occasional rants like a wannabee V about how the Stonecutters are probing us with death rays from Mars. I’m more disappointed in Dr DiLorenzo for not washing his hands of this whole affair, to be honest.

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Praetyre, I personally think that the vaguely or non-political articles on LRC are just meant to provide either 1) different points of view that readers may find interesting, or 2) pure entertainment. As a longtime LRC reader, I’m not offended by the wide array of articles that are presented from day to day. I may not read them all, or agree with what they all say, but why should I have to? Basically, what’s the big deal here?

Also, why do you think Dr. DiLorenzo should have washed his hands of the whole Peter Boettke affair?

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It doesn’t bother me exactly, but I’ve been a fairly long time reader of LRC, and have noticed a marked decrease in the quality of writing over time (and not just in terms of nonpolitical writers), which seemed to coincide with the introduction of such material. It’s also the fact that instead of adding to LRC’s content, such content has grown to replace some of it, and a 6th of the site’s main content is a pretty big chunk to take out with the size of LRC’s old articles, and even more so with the change in writers and quality of articles.

Essentially, it strikes me as a misguided attempt to court the Daily Mail/alternative medicine crowd in many regards, which can put off more intellectual types and may not interest LRC’s core audience of liberal political aficiandos.

As for why I believe Dr DiLorenzo should have washed his hands.. to me, the whole thing is a storm in a teacup. I’ve noticed a nasty tendency towards factionalism and “holy wars” within libertarian communities, and it saddens me to see a respectable historian like DiLorenzo participating in what I’d ordinarily put down to male testostereone on Internet message boards. It’s the whole “You aren’t as Pure and Sacredly Rothbardian/etc as me because you are a minarchist/free banker/utilitarian/Misesian/Catoite/LP member/politically active person/media personality” and that the best approach to promoting libertarian and Austrian policy is by shunning everyone who doesn’t conform to your agenda and isn’t themselves a scientific or academic iconoclast mentality that gets to me. I think libertarians and Austrians would get a lot more done (and I’m not saying they don’t already get some things done) if they stopped bickering between the choir and started reaching out to academic circles (like Boettke has) and the general public (I like the recent approach Mises is taking with the Academy and the viral video of the Hayek/Keynes rap, and would consider those good examples of how to promote complex economics to Boobus Americanus).

What gets me the most, though, is the attack on Hayek. If anybody tried that kind of disgraceful posthumous mudslinging here, they’d be run out of town tied to the same train as Juan and mr1001nights. Yet somehow, attacking one of Austrian economics giants is acceptable when a sanctioned blogger does it.

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Autolykos,

“I don’t see anywhere in the article that Peter Boettke stated his alleged position of favoring the end of the Fed, as opposed to simply changing its “economic mission”. If he really doesn’t think the Fed should exist, why didn’t he add that qualification in the WSJ interview? Do you have anything you can cite that asserts your allegation as being true?”

<= As someone who has met prof. Boettke and talked to him on central banking, I can assure you that he wants to demolish the Federal Reserve as fast and smoothly as any genuine Austrian would. Bear in mind that the article was in the WSJ and that the lady writing it was under some pressure too.

Boettke is, however, not a macro-economist and thus has no academic writings, as far as I know, on (central) banking. What is also true is that Boettke (and his collegues) often talk about what should happen in an imperfect world as what would be a marginal improvement. One could argue wether or not this is a good strategy or not; but I can assure you: the FED button is one that he would push.

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What I find funny is that David Kramer only endorses people who are familiated with the Mises Institute.

(“By the way, please don’t bother to write me any emails praising Peter Boetkke. I’m sure Peter’s done some fine work—but he is NO Hans Hoppe, Walter Block, David Gordon, Joseph Salerno, Guido Hülsmann, Robert Murphy, Stephan Kinsella, Roger Garrison, et al.”)

Obviously, this is a coincidence and Kramer knows everyone who has written in the Austrian tradition and he happens to mention only the Mises-institute associated scholars…

I really don’t get why there is something wrong with praising someone else his work, even though he gets the sort of credit you want. Rather from being glad the word gets out more, some are frustrated because they don’t get the credit they want. Would Kramer rather have that the Mises Institute was mentioned in the WSJ? Would he think that would be a compliment?

By the way; blogging on lewrockwell.org asking wether or not you have heard of lew rockwell over Boettke, wel yeah…

Sentences like these: "Now why in the world would the WSJ print such a barefaced lie when Boettke could not even shine the shoes of the greatest living Austrian economists in the world today—Hans Hoppe, Walter Block, David Gordon, Joseph Salerno, Guido Hülsmann (I could go on)? " are absolutely retard. (And they would be retarded if the names were reverse, for that matter.) Thàt’s not the way the Austrian school will improve - not in quantity, not in quality. The mutual viciousness between some people from ‘the gmu crowd’ and ‘the mises institute’ (and vice versa) is harming the whole school. Frecking grow up and move on. Seriously.

Mario Rizzo had a good point a while ago. He called it ‘Peace’: http://blog.mises.org/11153/peace/

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There is a post that links to the WSJ article on the official Ludwig von Mises Institute Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/posted.php?id=36496893934&share_id=130011190378121&comments=1#s130011190378121

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Daniel,

I certainly wasn’t trying to say that it was a fight of everyone versus everyone. I would even argue that the majority of both ‘places’ have no personal quarrel with one another. If that was the impression, I apologize. I shouldn’t have written ‘the mises institute’ (nor ‘gmu’) but maybe something like ‘some people who are more associated with the mises institute have some serious (personal) problems with some people who are associated (but not necessarily located) with the gmu crowd and vice versa’. Or something like this. I’m sure you know what I mean; why did Rizzo write the peace post…?

Again; I would like to stress that it’s just particular people, concerning particular issues. Not the whole versus the whole.

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the part of the sentence ‘some people’ is relevant for both ‘gmu crowd’ and ‘mises insitute’. If you know what I’m saying? It was just short for 'some people from gmu AND some people from Mises; not some people from gmu and mises institute (as a whole).