Since I didn’t want a discussion on fair argumentation to be woven into another debate, I simply want to present this quote from Steven Horwitz:
The next time you’re engaged in a political discussion with someone who has very strong views different from your own, ask them if they can name two famous thinkers or politicians whose politics are opposed to theirs who they also think are very smart and genuinely concerned with making the world a better place. If they can’t, it’s not clear they are able to grant the good faith such discussions should have.
From what I’ve noticed, the standardfare here in debate is, “You just don’t know Austrian economics well enough to have grasped its infallible logic.” But, what has been lacking is a systematic exposition of that logic that truly engages alternative viewpoints. For example, if you believe “time” is a missing component from neoclassical models, then prove it. Or, if you believe the von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theorem doesn’t actually support cardinal utility, then prove it. Or, if you believe that rational expectations, as a hypothesis, is illegitimate, then support your claim without caricaturing the opposition.
But, perhaps, we should simply start with Horwitz’s challenge: “[N]name two famous thinkers or politicians whose politics are opposed to theirs who they also think are very smart and genuinely concerned with making the world a better place.”
P.S. More or less, I’d prefer thinkers from a non-Austrian perspective, but Milton Friedman might be too easy.
I think pre-20th century, just about any serious thinker on economics was a friend of truth-seekers. It’s harder to say after the global emergence of central banks which really have sucked up most of the oxygen in the field of economics. Call it a conspiracy theory all you like, but the biggest single employer of economists in the United States is the Federal Reserve. I think that matters. A lot.
I’m not diehard Austrian since I think AE totters on the modernist precipice of holding that there is One, Right Method for discovering Truth™. While method is important, and criticizing bad methods is perfectly valid, it seems to me that some of the discussion on methodology in the Austrian camp takes method as the be-all end-all of science. If you have a criticism of a competing methodology, state it, and move on. Use what you believe to be a better method and develop your results.
</methodenstreit bashing>
I don’t think Leonard Read was Austrian but he’s clearly one of the good guys. Yes, Milton Friedman was a good guy but his failure to criticize central banking qua central banking as a price-fixing cartel on the price of borrowed funds was a pretty big blemish on an otherwise stellar career. Of course, I agree with a lot more of what David Friedman says, though Rothbard was right that David would benefit from putting some more fire in his anti-statism. I’ve only watched one or two of his lectures, but there’s a lot of what Steven Horwitz says that I don’t agree with. Gore Vidal is not an economist, but he’s kind of “lefty” in the things he says about economics… yet, I have tremendous respect for the man. He is a deep thinker in the true sense - like Aristotle or Leibniz - not the gaudy, personality-cult sense like Chomsky.
I can’t think of a Keynesian economist who I believe to be both brilliant and yet simply honestly misguided. If you’re Keynesian (neo- or otherwise), you either haven’t thought your ideas all the way through (an honest mistake but I expect a brilliant person to eventually surmount this obstacle) or you are, at some level, an ideologue or apologist. There’s really just no way around it. Keynesianism is just mercantilism with mathematical formulas.
@Esuric: Oh yeah, Thomas Sowell!!! He’s the one who is really responsible for getting me on the ‘path to liberty’ if you will. I read his book Basic Economics and I was hooked. I went online and quickly came across David Friedman’s materials, which I read voraciously and, between the two of them (Sowell and Friedman), I concluded we didn’t need a State at all. Then, I stumbled on Austrian economics and started reading Hoppe, Rothbard, Mises, Hulsmann, et. al. and I quickly went from “we don’t need a State” to “we need no State”.
“The State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large” - Murray Rothbard
Hmm, so now even this thread is insulting to you people?
Economics is prone to fanaticism; I think it’s fair to gauge where our intellectual horizons reach.
If engaging in a debate with an alternative viewpoint (e.g., someone that endorses the use of indifference curves, etc.), then it’s most fair to grapple with that question using a pluralistic foundation (i.e., understand how certain models and concepts are used and understood within the neoclassical framework before you recite oft-quoted criticisms from Rothbard, et al.).
Hmm, so now even this thread is insulting to you people?
C’mon, Neoclassical, be consistent!
From what I’ve noticed, the standardfare here in debate is, “You just don’t know Austrian economics well enough to have grasped its infallible logic.”
Did you not say that? Is that not an attack on the “standardfare” argumentative abilities of the people on this forum? Are you so surprised we’d defend ourselves against your blatantly untrue accusation?
Well, in your case, it is true. You have an enormous knowledge deficit when it comes to discussing AE. It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t take an adversarial or cocksure approach, but you invite being challenged on your ignorance when you try to provoke arguments from a position of fundamental ignorance.
So we should engage alternative viewpoints (which you seem to Google on the fly) while you are not required to do the same? Last I checked, it was you who were challenging Austrian premises, on an Austrian website.
Prove that it is.
Prove something. Anything. Make a substantive argument. Just once.
I was really just hoping for thoughtful contributions of new thinkers to look up or familiar thinkers to discuss, something spawning fun discussions.
Of course, what I got was more of the same: “You just don’t get Austrian economics!”
I’m no von Mises, that’s for sure, but I am definitely not an illogical, economically illiterate buffoon, either. Make arguments; I might be convinced or I might not be–that’s all there is to it.
Of course, what I got was more of the same: “You just don’t get Austrian economics!”
I’m no von Mises, that’s for sure, but I am definitely not an illogical, economically illiterate buffoon, either. Make arguments; I might be convinced or I might not be–that’s all there is to it.
You continue to spout the same thing. Nobody on this forum is Ludwig von Mises (yet, at least), and not everyone on this forum is highly economically literate. But, we’re not rating you based on your economic literacy. We are not rating you at all. We are rightly claiming that your criticisms of us are unfounded based on a faulty understanding of what you’re critisizing.
Whether you are convinced of our position or not is irrelevant right now. What we’re discussing is your inability to correctly portray the theory you are refuting.
I can say, “I refute neoclassical economics by disproving their labor theory of value”, but this would be false, because labor theory of value is not necessarily a neoclassical concept.
How many times am I going to have to repeat this before you stop unfairly victimizing yourself?
Your contributions are woefully inadequate for the level of discussion you claim to be seeking.
The responses you have received here have been due to the boredom of the respondents, not due to your authority, character or intelligence. No one is interested in your commands to make arguments when you continually fail to articulate a sincere or interesting argument of your own.