I’ve had this idea for a little while so I thought I’d share it on this forum. I think it would be really cool, and definitely there would be a lot of demand for it if Austrian economists were involved in public debates with leading left leaning economists and intellectuals. Indeed, I think there would be a large unexploited opportunity for profit in such an area as the mainstream media is bound to ignore such an avenue for the moment for political reasons.
Hence perhaps a smart entrepreneur could seize this opportunity. What do you think? In my own head, I’ve already thought of possible ones like:
Paul Krugman vs Thomas Woods (especially relevant for the current crisis)
on a more philosophical level, there could be:
Hans Hoppe vs Noam Chomsky etc…
What do you guys think? To me it seems a lot of money could be made just from ticket proceeds from attending the debates as well as from advertsing proceeds from hosting videos of it on a website. Also, what kind of debates dlo you think would be really good to see? Indeed it would be really cool if this thread leads to the creation of my idea[:D](maybe I’m being a little optimistic…)
Rothbard (50’s to 70’s) vs. Rothbard (70’s to 90’s).
Maybe then everyone can stop idolizing the “certain time periods” of when he was more important to their personal conceptions of libertarianism, & move on to more important things.
I hate to be negative as I do believe this is a great idea, but I don’t think you would find a lot of left-leaning economists willing to debate our leading austrians.
I believe someone like Paul Krugman would merely scoff at the invitation of such a debate.
One would think so… but I don’t think its the case. Austrians present such a threat to mainstream economists that the defensive action has been to shrug us off completely. Loads of economists (including Krugman) say things like “Austrian Economics should be given about the same seriousness as witchcraft or astrology blah blah blah”. They have made it so that they do not have to refute our claims, instead they simply say they don’t have time to becuase our ideas are so ridicoulas. Truth is the ideas are old and hardly radical.
Are you kidding me? The state-society is one full of self-reinforcing anti-intellectualism, which rewards confidence over being correct, & ignorant shouting & ridicule over intelligence.
Krugman would skate over objections with like icing over cake, & ridicule intellectuals like a snake in the grass.
You mean ‘libertarian pandering to stupid leftists’ vs. Real libertarianism. Because ‘60s Rothbards’ Che eulogy was some real serious libertarian thought.
It would also help if people realized that Rothbard was extremely opportunistic in his political alliances. He may have swung back center or left, given time and political circumstance.
I’ve found most debates tend to end the same way: both sides leave feeling their guy clearly “won”, and the other guy was on another planet, incomprehensible. Perhaps better than a “debate” format would be a good-faith discussion: “Mr. Krugman, you seem to be a decently intelligent person, yet your ideas seem obviously ludicrous to me. Perhaps you could speak to my objections and explain to me what I’m missing.”
Such a discussion would require lots of humility and patience to be fruitful; both commodities are rare enough that the idea may well be impossible.