Thank you Conza, but a better way to show you don’t care would have been to not post at all.
And when no one indicated they cared, you decided to crank up the noise by creating a thread about it?
Folks who spend their time criticizing LRC and David Kramer or Karen DeCoster are just as misguided as the LRC crowd obsessed with the Catoites, War Street Journal and Kochtopus. Where is the profit in being an internecine critic?
Isn’t all of this stuff just more publicity for, and lending more credence and authority to positions people fundamentally oppose?
If you don’t think these folks have credibility, why would you promote their lack of credibility? There is nothing (in your mind) to undermine.
What an amazing movement libertarianism would be if people promoted good ideas instead of spending so much time arguing over what they think are bad ideas.
There is a lot to undermine; someone must think Kramer has some credibility or else he wouldn’t be posting every other entry on the “best read libertarian website in the world”. You seem to infer, forgive me if I am wrong on this, that I posted this to bring attention to myself. This is certainly not the case, I simply enjoy starting a dialogue.
As for your point about good ideas, how can one hope to inspire others to take your thoughts seriously when you are made guilty by association with the Illuminati-Are-Out-To-Get-Us crowd?
“Thank you Conza”
No worries. You in fact asked for it.
"On Griping from the Sidelines.
It is easier, I suppose, to sit around and pick holes in the 85th word of the eighteenth paragraph of the fourth press release by Roger MacBride or of someone else who actually writes or does something to advance the cause of liberty, than actually to work for liberty yourself. That way, you have the luxury of hugging the mantle of “purity” tightly around your shoulders without having to do anything to move toward a libertarian society. But how about a year of concentrating on one’s own constructive action? Again, it would be interesting to see whether a year of abstinence from griping would really clear the decks for constructive work (And, come to think of it, the gripers and the psychobabblers are often one and the same.)" ~ My New Years Wish for the Movement, From the Old Curmudgeon, Dec 1975, Libertarian Forum
Thanks Murray. I guess some people just have no constructive action too speak of, let alone actually critique. Hence, threads like this consisting of nothing more than mindless vitriol, stemming from some random unknowns personal feelings of dislike. What a waste of good server space. Hopefully in the future, stuff like this ends up where it belongs - on some free personal blog no-one reads.
That is perhaps the most pompous thing I have ever seen posted here. Art thou’ist decreeing that I hath done nought for liberalism? Let’s not get into a cock fight, I’ll let your accusation fly.
Oh that’s nice. Did you include your own writings in your survey? Because there is surely nothing at all pompous about someone making a thread, about their very own signature - that no-one at all noticed, nor in fact cared about, so they could then rant about their personal feelings of dislike about someone else. No, definitely nothing pompous at all about that… right?
“Anywho, I was just spilling my rant on everyone. Feel free to harass and heckle!”
“Let’s not get into a cock fight, I’ll let your accusation fly.”
Oh, funny… why the sudden change of heart?
There are 2 things I personally want to criticize if they come from the ‘libertarian community’. First of all: people who personally attack other libertarians (or even others) for that matter. That, by the way, goes both ways. I think the reason why is sort of obvious; allowing these smears (from all sides) to go back and forth isn’t really all that productive. And I’m always careful not to add to the smears. I know I really don’t matter like at all but somewhere deep inside me there is the hope that if the people who engage in such activity see that a lot of people are just fed of, they’ll at least tone it down a bit. That’s why I hope that everytime someone seems something like that; they respond in similar ways, in stead try to defend the open attack of one another. When I don’t like someone for personal reasons, I don’t write it on blogs.
The second kind of internal criticism I don’t mind giving, is when libertarianism gets grouped up with conspiracy theorists, frustrated right wing middle class kind of comments (‘hating Obama, celebrating Bush’), and all that. The reason is that this basically is not libertarianism. I’m more of a big tent guy; but I do think there is a distinction between libertarianism as a sound philosophy and nutjob theories regarding the state.
If ‘libertarianism’ gets confused with these nutjobs theories, this will honestly hurt the movement. So yeah; I do think calling out things like this isn’t all that bad. This is the stuff that should be on blogs - of course, without losing your fundamental respect for the other person, so no indulging in name calling!
Do you really want to say everytime you call yourself a libertarian ‘no, I don’t think there is NWO coming to take us, and even if I did, it doesn’t follow that libertarianism isn’t a good idea anyway’?
So I do think there is some virtue in internal criticism. But there is no virtue in name calling.
Talking about the smears going back and forth: there are 2 things I personally want to criticize if they come from the ‘libertarian community’. First of all: people who personally attack other libertarians (or even others) for that matter. That, by the way, goes both ways. I think the reason why is sort of obvious; allowing these smears (from all sides) to go back and forth isn’t really all that productive. And I’m always careful not to add to the smears. I know I really don’t matter like at all but somewhere deep inside me there is the hope that if the people who engage in such activity see that a lot of people are just fed of, they’ll at least tone it down a bit.
The second kind of internal criticism I don’t mind giving, is when libertarianism gets grouped up with conspiracy theorists, frustrated right wing middle class kind of comments (‘hating Obama, celebrating Bush’), and all that. The reason is that this basically is not libertarianism. I’m more of a big tent guy; but I do think there is a distinction between libertarianism as a sound philosophy and nutjob theories regarding the state.
Talking about the smears going back and forth: there are 2 things I personally want to criticize if they come from the ‘libertarian community’. First of all: people who personally attack other libertarians (or even others) for that matter. That, by the way, goes both ways. I think the reason why is sort of obvious; allowing these smears (from all sides) to go back and forth isn’t really all that productive. And I’m always careful not to add to the smears. I know I really don’t matter like at all but somewhere deep inside me there is the hope that if the people who engage in such activity see that a lot of people are just fed of, they’ll at least tone it down a bit.
The second kind of internal criticism I don’t mind giving, is when libertarianism gets grouped up with conspiracy theorists, frustrated right wing middle class kind of comments (‘hating Obama, celebrating Bush’), and all that. The reason is that this basically is not libertarianism. I’m more of a big tent guy; but I do think there is a distinction between libertarianism as a sound philosophy and nutjob theories regarding the state.
I noticed it, and I even looked him up after seeing it.
I think Mr. Rockwell and the others who run LRC realize that “all politics, all the time” can wear a person down. And couldn’t you say that the non-political articles on LRC are also an attempt to reach out to (more of) the general public? Presumably it’s working – I seem to recall recent Alexa statistics that show LRC as having more traffic than any other libertarian website.
It seems to me that Dr. DiLorenzo was responding to the nasty (and apparently false) accusation of some Austrian economists heckling Ronald Coase at his 99th birthday party. Personally, I don’t think things like that should be ignored when one feels confident that they’re false and unwarranted.
When you have people like Glenn Beck calling themselves “libertarians”, how can you not be suspicious that the very term itself has been co-opted? Is the point to merely peddle a label, or to promote certain ideas?
Didn’t Mises himself attack Hayek in the well-tread “you’re all socialists” tale?
Thanks for the assurance. I’ll factor that into my pending judgement. I still need to look for other independent sources that point to him taking a strong anti-Fed stance.
What kind of “pressure” do you think the lady was under?
Finally, why do you think Mr. Boettke would feel obligated to disavow himself of the “Austrian School” label?
Believe me, he is anti-Fed. It looks like he was just advocating a “third best” option in the face of the fact that the FRB isn’t going to be abolished anytime soon. Mises did this all the time when he worked for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce (for example he advocated certain tax structures to influence behavior, indexation of wages to help ease the effects of inflation, etc.)
In designing a new fiscal order for Austria, Mises proposed eliminating all income taxes and many – but not all – corporate and business taxes. But how, then, do you finance the costs of government? He presents an agenda for implementing indirect taxes on a wide variety of consumption items, and especially what today would be called “sin taxes” and “luxury taxes.” And government welfare state expenditures were not going to just “disappear.” So, employers would be taxed to cover existing social insurance expenditures. This was all meant to foster capital formation through predominately consumption taxation to cover fiscal costs.
Autolykos,
“Thanks for the assurance. I’ll factor that into my pending judgement. I still need to look for other independent sources that point to him taking a strong anti-Fed stance.”
<= Well; you could always mail him?
“What kind of “pressure” do you think the lady was under?”
<= Given the fact that it’s still the WSJ? Well; I’m not sure if she could (or wanted) to write the article I would write on Boettke (or Salerno or any other Austrian.)
“Finally, why do you think Mr. Boettke would feel obligated to disavow himself of the “Austrian School” label?”
<= He didn’t. He still calls himself an Austrian Economist. The only thing he did was to change the name of his blog. That is all. Again; one could argue certain strategic differences - and those are interesting. But just because someone chooses another strategy, doesn’t mean he is on the ‘wrong’ size. Just because he changed the name of his blog, doesn’t mean that Mises is shite. I heard him say repeatedly that Mises was the greatest economist of the last century, who should be studied completely and carefully. Doesn’t sound like someone who has renounced the Austrian school, right? In any case; the whole ‘should we call ourselves Austrians’, ‘should we always and everywhere advocate the immediate abolition of the fed, or can we make suggestions who are a step in the right direction’, etc. are strategic differences, not differences on the end. There are differences; and we should be happy for it, I believe.
The reason why they changed the name of the blog, is in a blogpost. Because the austrian school gets associated more with policy conclusions, more than a analytical framework. And since he is first a foremost an economist, and not a policy maker or libertarian, he didn’t like this evolution. I can understand his reasoning. (Whilst I do think it’s a shame that they changed it.)
You can criticize him for his decisions; but the bottomline is that he’s an Austrian, producing good stuff, educating students on a graduate level into good (austrian) economics and is a radical libertarian. He’s not a soft beltway libertarian who wants to dance with policy makers in Washington, defending positivism and all.
He has chosen a different strategy than most people associated with the Mises Institute did. And I think there is nothing wrong with that, as there is nothing wrong with the Mises Institute strategy. I’m glad we have both.
I would also add that one can read in one of Rothbard’s confidential writings, that he endorsed the strategy of trying to have an academic institution where people aren’t limited to the ‘introduction’ to Austrian economics, but can also advance and expand the body of Austrian Economics. Mises Institute is a place to do that, but GMU definitely is a place too where this can happen.
Read his ‘Calculation and coordination: essays on socialism’ and than we can talk about his academic writings. 
I think you did it for the attention, and you did it to undermine Kramer. The thing is, Lew Rockwell doesn’t take his marching orders from the Mises Community. He likes David Kramer, he represents a radical constituency of the LRC readership which increase its reach and he’s a genuinely nice (and funny) guy I have corresponded with by email.
You must be pretty young. When you’re older, you won’t give a crap what people say about you. As soon as you admit that people have power over you with guilt by association, you have surrendered any capacity to be radical for any cause. You’re making the claim that you can and will be manipulated by smears, lies, personal attacks etc, and will allow that behavior to shape you.
Again, what a movement we would have if people stopped worrying about who was saying what in what way, and worried more about spreading good ideas themselves, in a manner they feel is responsible.
That sig space of yours has much better uses in my opinion.
I highly doubt Mises was including Hayek when (if?) he said that. Progressive income taxation was being discussed at the time, and I believe Hayek is against that. Moreover, Hayek was the chief leader of the old-style liberal faction that was resisting the pressure of the more compromising “modern” liberals in the Mont Pelerin Society.
I can’t find the original Kramer article does anybody know where I can?
According to both Milton Friedman and Guido Hülsmann, he did make the remark. Presumably Hayek was there at that meeting, as he was the one who apparently (according to Friedman) organized them. But I can be charitable and assume that Mises was exaggerating out of anger and/or frustration. My point was only to say that others who have attacked Hayek may be in good company.
I’m not denying that he said it. I’m saying that he probably didn’t mean to include Hayek as a target of the epithet. Since the topic was progressive taxation, he was probably specifically calling the people who were arguing for it socialists. And Hayek was probably arguing against it. Why would Mises be induced by the fact that someone is arguing against progressive taxation to call the person a socialist? It makes no sense.
“You’re all a bunch of Socialists” seems like a pretty wide call-out to me. And what if Hayek wasn’t arguing against it, but in favor of it? Would you say he was a Socialist then? His much-lauded book “The road to serfdom” advocated one-world government and other coercive interventions.
Come on.
I mean… come on.
What is a non-economist? Was Adam Smith a non-economist? Was Bastiat a non-economist?
He doesn’t like Boetkke and you don’t like Kramer. So what.
Bob Murphy? Guido Hulsmann? Grayson Lilburne? Jeffrey Tucker? Jonathan Catalan? Stephan Kinsella? Peter Klein? Geoffrey Allan-Plauche?
Need I go on?
Ignoring Walter Block and his work on roads? He has an extensive publication history.