Here is my brief introduction. I’m Torsten and I’m an industrial community organizer in South Africa. At the moment I’m working on a project concerning building and construction. www.building-construction.co.za
My interests are philosophy, political economy and technology. I started this thread so everybody can give a brief introduction.
P.S. I see that the forum rules are objecting to links in the signature. Personally I only would like to give people an idea on what I’m doing. Could a moderator please advise me on this, whether it is OK to use this in the signature or not.
My name is Anthony Comegna and this is my first engagement with the Austrian community based at the Mises Institute, and therefore I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved with the Institute for all that they do. My stumbling upon the Mises Institute (doing research trying to find out who the heck this “Murray Rothbard” anarchist nut was!) was the most important event in my intellectual life. There’s no turning back now!
I’m a sophomore at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, a Histroy (B.A.) major attempting to gain minors in philosophy, economics, and German studies. I founded and serve as president for the Shippensburg branch of Socrates Cafe, a philosophy club, and am now an avid reader of libertarian literature, especially history by Thomas Woods and (when I get my copy of “The Real Lincoln” in a couple days through the pathetic US postal system) Thomas DiLorenzo. My studies via the Mises Institute have mainly consisted of devouring the audio/visual media and slowly but surely making my way through the reading.
I’m a devoted anarcho-capitalist and argue my positions with practically all of my peers. I have finally begun to make some progress with them!
I would like to thank David Veksler for his tremendous vision in putting this together, and all to all who have contributed to so far. It will surely take a while to get going but there is great potential here. It would be nice if everyone can help in promoting this forum far and wide, particularly to other students.
My hope is that i can be involved in some way, and i must say that it really helps to have the topics fed to the front page, so that the forum is never far from people’s minds.
Thanks Torsten for starting this thread, and thanks David for your work in getting this site started. Especially in a society so resilient to the ideas of liberty and freedom, it is a godsend to have a community of likeminded individuals to communicate with!
I’m Cris, a 23 year old college student. I’m currently in Chicago attending school, but I’m originally from Seattle and will return there in December–for good, at least until grad school. I’ve been an “Austrian” since 2004 when my wonderful economics teacher passively mentioned Mises in relation to Hayek and his somewhat anomolous Nobel Prize. Once I did some reading of Mises and Rothbard (and, to a lesser degree, Hayek), I was hooked.
I’m especially interested in the gold standard–which lead, perhaps unwisely, to me turning in a 14 page critique of the monetarist view on fiat currencies to my super-monetarist professor who had studied under more than one prominent monetarist at U Chicago. I’m also interested in the philosophy of freedom and liberty and those in direct opposition of said forces.
Looking forward to getting more involved in the community!
Not my first post, more like the third, but I suppose an introduction is in order.
I’m currently majoring in Economics right now, after discovering it through Murray Rothbard. I read a few of his books as well as listening to much of the media available to me from the mises institute, I was hooked.
After choosing my major, I have become amazed at the bias colleges have in teaching Econ. But I wont stop throwing in the Austrian prespective whenever I can.
I hope to learn a lot through good conversation through this site, and look forward to our future interactions.
My name is Devin and I’m a freshman economics major at Loyola University New Orleans. The sole reason I came to Loyola University was because of Walter Block. Going to pretty much any other university and majoring in economics is like majoring in mathematics and the professors tell you that you can divide by zero. The economics establishment is just plain nonsense. I’ve been a libertarian/anarchist for about two years now, with much thanks to Hoppe.
Greetings. I am Anthony, a 21 year old South African market anarchist, currently studying Economics (2nd year) in the UK. I post quite a bit on the Austrian Forum (and on the Mises blog), so anyone from there who posts here should know me.
I used to be an avowed monarchist but after reading Dr Hoppe’s “Democracy - the God that Failed” (in conjunction with Rand’s “The Virtue of Selfishness”) I quickly became a fully-fledged “Austrian”. I’m still an initiate in Austrian economics, but what I have read on it has made a great impression on me. I am particularly interested in its methodological leanings (which, for some unknown reason most people cannot comprehend and conflate with a complete rejection of empirical facts.) After coming into contact with Austrian economics, mainstream economics seems positively vacuous. I am currently divided between Objectivism and Rothbardian ethics (though I think Hoppe’s Argumentation ethics might render both superfluous.)
I’m glad this site exists as it is nearly impossible to find any committed libertarians where I am studying (aside from my Hayekian economics professor), and even less likely that I should find anyone with which I am able to discuss Austrian econ and political economy. Look forward to future discussions with you guys.
I’m a student in Adelaide, Australia. I’m months away from completing a degree in physics and debating whether to pursue a career in science or do a masters degree in economics. I’ve always been interested in economics and a fan of the free market. A few years ago I discovered LewRockwell.com and realised I was a libertarian. Soon after I found Mises.org and have since been reading and listening to as much material as I can download from this incredible site. I hope to attend some Mises Institute events next year. Until then, I look forward to some insightful discussions of economics, libertarianism or any other subject on this great forum.
If you desire to become an Economist, a Masters would be an excellent idea. It’ll give you an understanding of what the Austrian School is up against, and where there are possibilities for “bridging” (e.g. Public Choice & Austrian econ.) As long as you’re willing to educate yourself on Austrian economics, it should work well. The fact that you have a degree in Physics might also help you appreciate methodological issues better.
Since introductions are in order, I am Mark, and my day job is managing Unix systems. I am a long-time classical liberal with interests in philosophy (specifically epistimology), theology, and obviously politics and economics. I am primariliy an auto-didact on these topics, with much thanks being owed to the usual suspects for their time spent in writing down the information I have consumed.
I’d like to echo the thanks of others in this thread for putting this together. I am also involved in our local efforts in support of the Ron Paul campaign, and one of the things I and my little cell of Classical Liberals have realized is that there are a lot more liberty-minded individuals than we realized - we just never managed to reach out to each other. (Our cynicism probably worked against us here.)
Setting up such an obvious central location for discussion and contact is potentially a huge boost to making sure we keep perspective and in contact.
Hello, discovering this alternate website during my daily perusal was definitely a happy accident. Well, to begin my introduction, I am a 23 yr. old currently finishing me degree at the Berklee College of Music (that’s not a typo). Having burned out on western contemporary music a year ago, my time is spent studying Austrian Economics, Greek Philosophy (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle just about do it for me), Catholic mysticism and Chinese culture (kung fu, music, history, etc.). I am hoping to finish with music school ASAP so that I can go on to get masters degrees in both Eastern Classics and Economics. In fact, if anyone has any advice on where I might be able to find a program that has both good economics, as well as access to Eastern studies or a focus on eastern markets, please let me know.
Oh, and feel free to check out my brother’s blog (ideaporn.blogspot.com). He introduced me to the Austrian school and I hope to be contributing to his site soon.
Hello everyone. My name is Justin and I’ve been visiting Mises.org for some time now. I’m a 20 year old student at UMBC and was first introduced to Austrian economics at the community college I used to attend. I guess I’m an agnostic and enjoy all kinds of history. This site is awesome and I want to thank everyone who made it possible.
I am a 22 yr old business economics major at Boise State University in Boise Idaho, USA. I used to be an ad hoc theo-con, but after a deployment to Afghanistan with the Army left me looking for answers, I found that the Austro-libertarians had the consistency I was looking for. I am in the process of organizing a libertarian student group at Boise State, and an active supporter of Ron Paul.
If you want to know my philosophical perspective, I am a Christian Anarcho-Capitalist.
I’m a Christian anarcho-capitalist. My politics, my economics, and my faith all converged last year when I came to believe that the reason the free market and lack of government interference always seemed to work out so well was because God ordained the free market when He commanded “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” I don’t believe in governing or judging other people at all, and I’m working to persuade people to discontinue their support of government interference in everything, believing that in all cases the free market is capable of better providing for human needs and wants. I’m slowly educating myself in economics and am amazed at how principles of human action are so universally applicable.
I’m married with four children, the youngest two being twins. My wife was homeschooled and is just as much of a Christian anarcho-capitalist as I am. Our children will also be homeschooled, of course. I work as a programmer in North Texas. My lingua franca is Perl.
Hi, I am also a Christian libertarian and aspiring amateur Austrian! Actually, I’m an graduate student in engineering… It’s great to see Mises.org expand into this sort of online community. I’m looking forward to seeing things take off!
Re: the idea of getting a Masters degree in Economics.
There are some universities where the scope of discourse in economics is a bit wider than is typical. The best example is probably George Mason, which has some explicitly Austrian people, and some people who take Mises’ methodology with a grain of salt but would agree with him on most actual economics, as well as a bunch of (very good) public choicers and experimentalists who are in their own ways at odds with the standard puzzle-solving paradigm of equilibrium models and linear regressions. Read for instance Bryan Caplan’s Why I am not an Austrian economist carefully (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/whyaust.htm) and you’ll find that Dr Caplan is intimately familiar with Mises and Rothbard, understands them, and criticizes them on particular points. If you want your “school” to be perceived as a real scientific enterprise, and not as a Human Action-thumping cult, you should love to engage people like Dr Caplan. Or for that matter, James Buchanan, a nobel-prize winning economist whose theories about government and bureaucracy, even if the upshot is contractarian, can be read as deeply subversive.
I’m an evangelical christian and free market anarchist (though I favour the term agorarchy which literally translates as market rule). I am heading into my final year of “economics” at Cardiff University, Wales. My main interests are philosophy mainly rationalist epistemology and political, theology and economics; I am greatly interested in natural law hence my forum name. Other less scholastic interests include music (classical and modern), classic cinema and literature, football (soccer) and Doctor Who.
I work as a programmer in North Texas. My lingua franca is Perl.