Lack of Specialization.

Economics Economics Questions
1

It seems to me that many Austrians over extend themselves and devote their talents to fields that may, perhaps, be better covered by others.

Take Hoppe for example: he’s written on money and banking, ethics, social and political philosophy, epistemology, political economy, the socialist calculation debate, sociology and history.

Or for another more extreme example, Rothbard wrote on money and banking, history, economic history, ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, sociology, the socialist calculation debate, political economy, capital theory. This is in addition to writing a major treatise on economics and huge amounts of popular writings.

Whilst Mises and Hayek also did this (indeed, the latter wrote on an even great number of subjects), they were both system builders confronted with little other choice. Mises built a system of praxeology and had to confront the epistemological issues concerned with economics whilst developing the actual system of economics. In spite of this Mises devoted relatively little time to issues of political philosophy (Liberalism) and even less time to ethics.

Now, to put things in perspective, I’m a big believer that Austrians should confront the mainstream and do their best to put their ideas forward to the mainstream. Whilst it might be an uphill battle, it’s one well worth fighting. If Austrians are wrong then they’ll be shown that an economic science will progress, if they are correct their ideas will win out in the long run. And if the situation is somewhere in between (which it is) then Austrians will learn from neoclassicals and vice versa. Recently I’ve been critical of Boettke, however, now I see that he is indeed correct. Austrians take their correctness on faith, the only way to adequately test the Austrian system is to prevent it to the profession and defend it against their critiques.

This isn’t to say that Austrians shouldn’t attempt other strategies (agorism, for example), but that such strategies are merely political opportunism and nothing else. I find a lot of people on these boards have something of an anti-intellectual streak (as seen in the Sterba Libertarian Critique topic).

As such, if Austrians truly do wish to progress then specialization will, no doubt, be important, and overstretching (for lack of a better word) will only hinder the development of Austrian economics.

2

“Renaissance Man”

3

The greatest factor of the Mises Institute, is in my mind its ability to encompass any and all discussion. Take the individual who I am following right now, Thomas E. Woods Jr. He is a historian who has basically covered almost all of American history and just wrote a book on basic economics. The Institute is not so vast that it can so easily engage in specialization. Anyways, I agree with Baawa (if he is implying what I think he is) that Renaissance men are really the apex of intellectual academia.

4

I think the reasons Austrians cover so many topics is that AE is a comprehensive, consistent worldview. It’s a total system for explaining the world. Moreover, understanding AE requires an understanding of many different disciplines. As Long put it:

For Rothbard, as for his mentor Ludwig von Mises, one could not hope to understand current political problems without a grasp of history, one could not understand history without knowing economic theory, one could not understand economic theory without investigating such philosophical matters as epistemological apriorism and the nature of agency, and so on.

Also, academics spend their entire lives working with ideas; they’re bound to cover a lot of ground.

5

I think that the treason why they study multiple subjects is because they are integrated subjects. You cannot construct economic theory without correct epistemology. Economics and sociology heavily overlap. You need theory to interpret history. History can develop an intuitive basis for political economy. Studies in the natural sciences helps to establish intellectual rigor relative to the social sciences because the incentives are relatively different between the two fields and an argument considered brilliant in the social sciences is considered a ridiculous mistake in the natural sciences.

In fact, the mainstream has many more problems in my opinion because they are isolated. Many economists make amateur mistakes precisely because they don’t understand epistemology. What criteria would you use to decide whether or not someone is over-generalized or over-specialized? And what kind of strategy would you recomend?

6

economics is not the study of money. economics is the study of why people do what they do and the cosequnces of those actions. money is just one motivation that economicsts study. As such economic inquiry is important in all fields.

7

I disagree. Although it may appear that Austrians are all generalists, that is only because praxeology is generalist in nature. But in their application, practitioners are highly specialized. Hoppe spends his time translating Rothbard’s anarchist philosophy into European-traditionalist perspectives, for example. Block writes about roads and undefendable behaviors. Woods and DiLorenzo rewrite history. Kinsella won’t stop writing about intellectual property.

8

And I think that is by far his best work, Democracy: The God That Failed is an absolutely superb piece of work, on the other hand, whilst his other works are good, they’re not of the same standard. Fortunately, his next work will be along the lines of DTGTF.

9

Of course, and yet, that by no means implies that Austrians need to work on all areas. One thing is having an understanding of the epistemological issues of economics, it’s quite another to expect to be able to write about it. Leave the epistemology to the philosophers, same applies for political philosophical and ethics.

Of course, and yet, this doesn’t imply that one needs to write papers/ books on the subject as Rothbard and Hoppe have done, all it implies is that one should study epistemology to the extent that it allows one to do better economics.

As I said, it’s fine that Austrians should want to study all areas, and its conducive to their work on economics. However, there’s no need to specialize in more than one area.

10

I thought A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism was amazing. Made everything so crystal clear. I admit I haven’t read DTGTF yet because I didn’t want to buy it, and I wanted to find a copy in the library. No hope except in a reference library :frowning:

11

Personally, I like his epistemological work best, and then his political/economic theory.

12

And yet, you don’t think too highly of his argumentation ethics, nor do many people really, which just means that it was a waste of his time that would have been better spent elsewhere.

13

I do think highly of it, I just think it needs to be reworked, but I didn’t mean that anyway.

14

Not that I am too certain you are interested in my opinion on the matter…

The others here in so far are correct, specialization is not only a poor option in presentation, but illogical to the ultimate end…

I am not as well read on these authors as others here, I can admit, but in that respect, one must understand that specialization in a system that has no positive current results, that is to say there is no Austrian based economy civilization on a major scale currently. So there are always the questions that arise, how does it solve this issue or that issue, what if blank, and these men had to develop these answers as they came up, they did so independently as none are an exact match for each other.

As for presentation, not only is there the issue of answering all the questions that will arise, but the fact that I am sure a discussion of refer to this guy on that subject is really not very professional, with the added burden of the minor disagreements, which if you understand the general public, minor disagreements are more important to them than anything else.

You mention an uphill battle, I think you are aware of the fact that government in and of itself is the opponent in that battle ultimately, as most governments are more agreeable to Mr. Goebbel’s comment on public opinion rather than having it dictated to them by free exchange of goods on the market…

“It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.”
Joseph Goebbels

Besides that, us quaint old country folks have a saying,

“A Man has to be a protector, provider, father, landscaper, carpenter, electrician, plumber, barbeque chef and teacher. Specialization is for insects.”

I think these people would, in specialization, fracture thinkers in separate schools of thought, and eventually they would have a negative effect on these ends…

15

You’re missing my point, if every Austrian burdens themself with questions of political philosophy, ethics, epistemology, history, economic history, sociology, political theory, social theory, business cycle theory, money and banking, economic calculation and so on, none of them will get much quality work done in any of those areas. On the other hand, if one were to concentrate on more specific issue, they’d get more quality work done, albeit in fewer areas. For example, whilst I owe a great debt to Rothbard, his work on political philosophy and ethics isn’t too great, MES is a wonderful treatise, but it’s basically just Human Action translated into a language more friendly to neoclassical economists.

That’s not to say that hyperspecialization is not an issue, just, it’s not one many Austrians deal with.

Not really, I disagree with the whole Austrian view of academia being one big conspiracy. Sure, a lot of economists have bad ideas and stick to them dogmatically, I don’t think it has much to do with the fact that most universities are owned by the state.

16

Specialization is the cause of the ridiculousness of mainstream economics. They think that macroeconomics and microeconomics and separate, and they think that economics is removed from government and social issues. The scope of economics, for the mainstream, is radically smaller. Most mainstream economists have never even thought about the epistemology of their science, because they do not consider such philosophy to be economics.

"Why do you Austrians delve so much into philosophical and social and ethical issues? We’re economists, not philosophers!’
-some mainstream economist

17

Fair enough…

I was not talking about some conspiracy, I was tlaking about the natural order of things, governments will not like the conclusions of most of LvMI thinkers, suppression of power threats is as natural to government as breathing is to you or me…

18

Right. I remember in one of the Misescreants podcasts, Dan D’Amico said something along the lines of “the Austrian movement needs to have a more intensive division of labor. Rothbard and Mises wrote their treatises fifty years ago, and now we need to digest everything they said.”

19

Exactly, Mises and Hayek, and to a lesser extent Rothbard, had no choice but to work out a comprehensive system, now that system has been worked out, it’s up to the present generations to work it out.

That can’t be done without a degree of specialization, I’m not talking about forgetting epistemology, since that is essential for doing good economics, rather, not writing a book on epistemology then a few years later writing one on the socialist calculation debate.

20

Academia is not one big conspiracy, but it is no coincidence that the more radical an Austrian is, regardless of the quality and merit of his work, the harder it is for him to be established in academe. Hoppe and Block’s conflicts are a good example of the cultural marxism that is institutionalized in the public and educational sector, an ideology that would whither and die in the market if exposed to any genuine sort of competitive force.