Maybe if Hoppe praised the economists at GMU, then Giles would admire him.
I meant Becker’s co-written piece arguing in favour of a ban on trans-fats. And what “screed” would you be referring to? What are his “strange” claims regarding their work?
How has White “shown” this?
Hoppe is of the opinion that Hayek’s contributions on the calculation debate were in the negative given that they distracted from Mises’s own ones, and conceded too much to the socialist side I would gather and I doubt he thought much of Hayek’s vacillation both on methodology and in his political positions. A lot of Hayek’s later writing is murkier and more difficult to make sense of than his earlier stuff, which is brilliant.
He is just employing the notion that people do tend to follow other individuals whom they regard as superior in some domain or other, you may call them rolemodels or whatever else you wish. I’m really not sure what’s vague or unsupported about the notion, the idea of a natural aristocracy is pretty much a dominant undercurrent in much of classical western thought and the prevalence of hierarchy in human interrelations is not exactly unsupported by either biology or anthropology.
You may think Hoppe is wrong on some of this but it is hardly enough to paint a negative image of him. His often unscholarly remarks OTOH could be (in fact the majority of them comes from one book, DTGTF), but I’m not really the kind of person who overlooks a thinker because of such things nor am I the kind of person who thinks much of trying to poison the well, so to speak.
You shouldn’t feel obligated to write a detailed refutation every time someone writes something stupid.
“OMFG! Someone on the Internet wrote something stupid! I must correct them!” (xkcd cartoon)
There is a time and a place for everything and this was one of them. I’m glad Jon smacked Giles. His behaviour is becoming intolerable.
His entry in the Skousen collection is the “screed” I was referring to, there is not so much as a single original criticism in the paper, most of which is filled with angry rhetoric. My point is that Gary Becker has spent most of his career defending the market, calling him an intellectual criminal is only going to further marginalize Austrian economics. Keynes is one of the most important economists throughout history, writing an angry entry in a collection about the evil of Keynes filled with condescension and pettiness isn’t going to help with the dialogue.
Because if you view utility as ordinal and subjective any notions of disutility and social utility become senseless. You can’t on one hand say that the state is unable to maximise utility because you can’t add utility only to turn around and say that somehow the free market can. Look, I think you can make an extremely strong case for the desirability of the free market, but I just don’t think that you can’t prove a priori that the free market will maximise “social utility” or whatever else you wish to substitute for such a silly notion.
Jon, I know what Hoppe’s positions are, and I don’t think his criticism makes much sense to be honest. My point was that if you believe Hayek to be wrong, you need only say that. To say that Hayek was confused, is well, silly. Moreover, look at Hoppe’s introduction to The Ethics of Liberty. Not only does he consider Rothbard to be a better philosopher than Nozick (which is a joke) but he claims Hayek lacks rigour and is unsystematic.
I worded that poorly, whether or not natural elites exist(ed) is besides the point. My point was that Hoppe documents no evidence for their existance. Nor, to the best of my memory, do he provide any rigorous logical argumentation that they should do so. I understand that as a result of the division of labour and for various biological reasons there will exist certain “natural elites”, but I don’t think the term is meant for anything besides pandering. Nor do I think they would be nearly as prominent as Hoppe seems to think they will be.
If I’m to look badly upon a scholar it would be because of the way in which they conduct themselves or their work. Hoppe’s work on FRB is laughable and lack any redeeming features, his work on the calculation debate is weak, his political economy is nothing new at all and his philosophy is pretty poor if you ask me. And as you correctly pointed out, Hoppe doesn’t exactly conduct himself with the greatest dignity. He’d do well to how Hayek behaved, in this regard.
Disutility doesn’t in the sense of individual disutility.
Of course you can! Because you’d be talking about maximizing individual utility.
As for how Hoppe conducts himself, I should think you’d best take the log out of your eye.
If utility is purely ordinal, any notion of disutility becomes nonsensical.
OK, so he should be more congenial to other economists. And Keynes should’ve been a better economist, and not regurgitated economic fallacies that had long been refuted and weaved apologia for the state. We can all improve in many ways.
All the worse for advocates of the state, as they need to prove that actively violating consumer preferences somehow will provide superior results than the market, i.e. transactions undertaken when both parties perceive mutual benefit.
Being wrong entails an element of confusion, and the degree to which he vacillates does indicate he was indeed confused… or at the very least uncertain about where he stood.
He does pretty extensively throughout DTGTF especially with regard to medieval monarchies, pointing to sources on the matter for further study.
Probably because he doesn’t intend to prove that they “should” exist, so much as state that they will. Reputation matters greatly in markets, already there are “elites” in all areas of industry, the question is whether they will be Hoppe’s natural elites, and that will depend on a shift in cultural values, i.e. what people regard as “elite” or not. Every community already has acknowledged “leaders” or whatever you want to call them, with the state’s eclipse (esp. the welfare state’s and the monopoly over the provision of law and order) it is no stretch to conjecture that their role will again become more prominent.
Those are your personal opinions on his work, tbh, and my own are diametrically the opposite, even in the case of FRB where I disagree with him, and especially in epistemology. He never even claims to be original. He is great at synthesising knowledge though and extending existing arguments in Austrian theory.
You say it as if this is a minor flaw, Hoppe insinuated that Lavoie was on drugs and called Gary Becker and the Chicago school “intellectual criminals”. Now, perhaps you have a different perspective on this than I do, but I think that this is exactly the sort of behaviour that Austrians, who are already marginalized, should avoid. Of course, Hoppe then goes on to rationalize such behaviour by pointing out that at least he’s not a “compromiser” like Hayek was.
OK, but this is just an instance of shifting the goal posts. The point is that unless you can compare and add utility, you can’t say that the free market provides optimal outcomes a priori. I think that the economist has a number of tools at his disposal which he can use to “prove” the superiority of the free market. But this doesn’t mean that it is simply a closed case, as Hoppe would like us to believe.
Funny, I thought you were against FRB like most here. Look, I respect your opinion more than I do most here, and I’m not claiming that Hoppe is some sort of a moron. My point is just that the author cited by the OP had plenty of ground to call Hoppe a crank or whatever else he wanted to, and yet, he was somehow not able to do it correctly.
Now, I think he work on “class theory” (which is bullshit), his work on FRB, his comments about Lavoie, Friedman, Becker etc., his worship of Rothbard and perhaps some things I’m missing provide plenty of the ground for calling him a crank. Perhaps you disagree, but there we go.
No, I’m not particularly fussed by whether the market adopts FRB or 100% gold reserves, or whatever. And I agree that he should conduct himself in a more scholarly manner so that he does not open himself up to attacks like these again in the future and have his work neglected because of attempts to poison the well. I consider class theory to be nonsense generally speaking, he just turns it on its head (and makes some good points wrt the LTV’s refutation not necessarily leading to the demise of exploitation charges against capitalism.) He’s still a good thinker IMO even if a bit crankish at times, but if you wish to disagree well that’s your prerogative.
On utility I actually recall that Hoppe follows his own approach on the topic, extending/refining Rothbard’s but this is from commentary other Austrians have made, I never paid much attention to it when reading his work, so I’ll defer discussion on that for now.
I’m trying to stay out of this, but it is very difficult.
You are in no position to critique Hoppe’s language or expression. Perhaps the criticism has merit, but you don’t have the credibility based on your past behaviour in this community to make it.
That’s not an attack. But it is a fact, and everyone here knows it. You’ve got a long way to go to move past it. Consistent humility and sincerity are good places to start.
I personally don’t think Hoppe’s class theory is bullshit, I think it is dead on target. As the author in the OP explains, Hoppe is a fantastic analyst. Again, this is a critique you can’t credibly make here, because you refuse to reveal your precise political and ethical disposition despite numerous requests to do so. It’s impossible to take your criticism of values seriously if you won’t reveal and stand behind your own positions publicly.
Your “fact” is not correct, although perhaps I have not seen enough of this past behavior for me to join the drones in condemning him.
Why don’t you just advocate a pledge that is required before you can register, so you can make sure everyone has the correct opinion. Then there will be less name-calling and more self-congratulation.
You need to learn to speak for yourself and yourself only.
Indeed. When you’re ignorant about something, it is usually wise to remain silent or inquire further.
You guys are assuming I am speaking for you. Neither you nor Rooster are in the “everybody” as I used it category. Clearly with well over 15,000 community members, I can’t speak for everybody, so maybe, just maybe I am speaking about everybody relevant to the situation.
Of course, when my fan club comes a trolling my comments, context is the last thing they want to (if they could) infer.
Nevertheless, your fact is incorrect. Something must be wrong with your methodology, better study up on what a fact is.
You’ve already admitted you don’t have the experience to claim that.
I noticed earlier that you wanted to change the definition of “socialism”. And, now, apparently, you want to change the definition of “everyone”/“everybody”.
Good luck.
Wrong again, I’ve read enough from Giles to disagree with your assessment.
Now if “everybody” means “everybody that agrees with you” then yes, your fact is correct, and is an excellent use of logic.