Bought his Revolution: A Manifesto book. He recommended reading “What has government done to our Money?” on some “mises” website, so I read it and became hooked.
Last year at my old college I finally met him. Brought my End the Fed book for him to sign and was so pumped to talk to him. Not to mention it was the same night that the “Boom and Bust” rap of Keynes and Hayek came out. What a good night haha.
my original user name indicates that Dr. Paul turned me on to Austrian Economics.
That’s definitely the road less often traveled.
I was reading up on economic theory and ran across Ludwig von Mises. That naturally led me to LvMI.
Some Noam Chomsky minion was ranting on an off topic thread on a sports message board, and I wanted to educate myself a little better on economics than the main stream drivel. I’d heard about the Chicago school, but as I read about Austrian Economics and theories espoused by Mises and Rothbard I became more convinced. Coming from a mathematics and statistics background, I just wasn’t impressed with the main stream argument.
Ron Paul’s exposure wasn’t really that great by the time I even gave a damn about the presidential candidates. All I knew was that I didn’t like any of them. I thought Ron Paul was a libertarian trying to win the Republican nomination, and really didn’t think he had a chance given the way the parties operate. A guy I used to work with tried to do the same thing as a congressional candidate, and he was pretty much hung out to dry by his party (no money, no support). I didn’t see any of the debates with Ron Paul. It also didn’t help that his local supporters were doing a better job of making asses out of themselves than getting his message across. I knew he was anti-war and anti-fed, but not much else was revealed.
I had read Ayn Rand a little over 15 years ago, but her followers were even more obnoxious than the local Ron Paul crowd. I definitely identified with the libertarian positions that actually are in Ayn Rand’s books. The Libertarian Party, however, seemed to be confused with no real hope of winning anything.
Now I am of the opinion that even Ayn Rand was too statist for my liking. Anarcho-Capitalism seems the way to go. I mean if so many nations are willing to turn to the intellectually bankrupt ideas of communism and socialism, why not just a few give Anarcho-Capitalism a shot?
–Overall apoliticism > Age 0-15
–2008 campaign rolled around, somehow (I don’t quite remember the exact events) I became interested in Ron Paul’s campaign (I think it was because he was a “mainstream” candidate in that he was Republican by party affiliation, but radically different from other republicans) > Age 15-16
–An acquaintance from a computer game turned me to libertarianism and LRC (oddly enough, this friend then became a Stalinist shortly after he left the game. I don’t think he got past reading LRC articles and Atlas Shrugged. He now resides on revleft as a global moderator, I believe.) > Age 16
–Read LRC at school whenever I was at a computer (Junior year in high school) > Age 16-17
–Eventually migrated to here after I wanted to actually learn economics and libertarian philosophy. > Age 17-18. The rest is history.
Put into the proper format…
Appalachian Heritage (ancestor was actually a neighbor of Thomas Jefferson) → Ronald Reagan (libertarian portion of his message) → Ayn Rand → Objectivism Zealots → Road Blocks of Stupidity → NFL Team Message Board → Some Obnoxious Anonymous Poster → Noam Chomsky (can’t really stand the guy) → Google (economics) → Ludwig von Mises et al (after a lot of detours) → Ludwig von Mises Institute → Austrian Economics
That’s the way.
I’m aware. I’m a living example of the dictum: ‘liberals are libertarians who don’t understand economics’. But it really makes sense; I didn’t know anything, but it became clear that in order to talk sense about the world, you need to understand a multiplicity of social sciences. So I tried to learn economics from a mainstream perspective - perfect competition and all - but, as a philosopher, it just didn’t make sense. It’s utter bullshit to study economics like that; so I looked for other ways that did make sense - that made sense in a world with acting human beings and all.
So I found ‘economics for real people’. The rest is history.
Bought his Revolution: A Manifesto book. He recommended reading “What has government done to our Money?” on some “mises” website, so I read it and became hooked.
-Black Numero
Same here.
I was a conservative…or at least thought I was. Ron Paul woke me up to real freedom.
The prisoner wishes to speak…
Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Ron Paul → Peter Schiff → LvMI
My AP micro/macro econ teacher saying “i’m gonna teach this” > me wanting to know more > looking into all the various books on most recent crash > End the Fed > references in back of the book (The Failure of the New Economics) > references in that book (Human Action) > here > finally finished Human Action
Ron Paul lead me to Murray Rothbard and then Ludwig Von Mises.
I went the other way, actually.
I hated Ron Paul in my neocon days. I was very interested in economics and one day stumbled upon an article that mentioned someone named Hayek. I did some more research, and that lead me here. Not long after that there were a few videos of Ron Paul put up, and I checked them out. I thought, “Well, he’s got good economic sense, but his foreign policy is terrible.”
But I never turned away, and it wasn’t long after that when I changed my opinion of him, of Republicans, of foreign policy, and of freedom.
P. J. O’Rourke → libertarianism → wikipedia → Murray Rothbard / anarcho-capitalism → LvMI. I actually came here just looking for a copy of Man, Economy and State.
Well my path isn’t necessarily impressive but probably different. To start, I probably “created” AE in my head prior to hearing about it but without any particular grasp of what it was I was thinking. For me it’s probably something like:
[Self-realization of the affect of state intervention] → Bureaucrash → CATO/ Reason → The Economist → Bullshit (P&T) → Ron Paul → LvMI
Prior to all that I was fairly apolotical and probably identified myself as a minarchist prior to the jump to Mises (although mostly for feasibility reasons, not utility). Ron Paul didn’t really open my eyes to anything, but I do appreciate what he has done insofar as getting the word out.
YouTube videos about financial crisis → Tom Woods → Mises.org
Prior to finding Mises.org, I read a lot of Reason. Even after a year of reading Reason, I hadn’t developed any principled ideas about liberty. Just ad hoc augments about the inefficiency of this or that government program. Within two months of reading Mises.org (Rothbard in particular) and LewRockwell.com, I have shifted dramatically and I feel I have an incredible understanding of economics and politics that’s grounded in principle.
Similar to Pathos, although I never hated Paul; I just thought him a bit crazy in the head. The first time I heard of his name was when a friend showed me a dollar bill stamped “Who is Ron Paul?”. After that I encountered some Paulians who joined a nation simulator I was playing at the time. This is when I became confident that he was not all there. I grew to symphatize with him when I saw him on the Daily Show announcing that he wanted to get rid of x,y, and z. What won me over was him raising his hand even higher when UNICEF was brought up on the things he would cut if he could.
I wouldn’t take Paul seriously until I began studying economics in my free time. I actually discovered Mises and the rest of the Austrians when looking over coat of arms and thinking to myself that Mises’ was especially nice. You can imagine how silly I felt when I became an AnCap and realized that Paul had not only been sane the whole time, but actually affiliated with the LvMI.
In short: I’ve come to study Austrian Economics not because of Paul, but in spite of him.
Michelangelo: After that I encountered some Paulians who joined a nation simulator I was playing at the time.
Mind if I ask which nation simulator?
I guess I ought to do my flow chart thing
Economics Class with best friend —> Best Friend was outspoken libertarian/debated every person and teacher —> suggested Revolution —> read it and decided to read End The Fed —> Looked in the back of End the Fed suggestions —> mises