You plan to make a contribution to economic science, yes? Didn’t RP bring you in?
That’s a bit of a strawman. I do find it interesting, that is why I continue to learn about it. But when you get out on your own, and have to pay your own way, the application of AE and related schools of thought go beyond mental stimulation, and become part of how we order our lives and the choices we make. It goes from being interesting theories, to interesting application.
The Economics profession at large has no use for AE. That change will not come when there are 500 Austrian PhDs on the public teat or soaking up resources hiding out in privately funded think tanks. It will come when the average guy gets basic free market economics, and those ideals are demanded economically, politically and publicly from the institutional gatekeepers.
Truth be told, I don’t know what I intend on doing. There’s time at which academia is very appealing to me, times at which it is not so appealing. Good thing is, I’ve still got three years of my undergraduate to go.
In any case though, you still regard is a means to an end. Whereas I’m more inclined to view economic science as an end in itself.
Here’s the thing, I think there is a huge difference between a scientist (an economist) and libertarian (a political opportunist) quite often, people are both. However, I think libertarians have made a huge mistake in confusing the two. If you wish to be a scientist, and if you wish to advance Austrian economics, your only chance is to confront the mainstream, that means getting into the best grad school you can, trying your best to write articles of the highest possible quality etc. Granted, it’s an uphill battle, but we’re seeing more and more Austrian grad students every day, and we’re seeing Austrians at bigger colleges all the time.(I’ll address this point in more detail in response to Physiocrat)
On the other hand, one can be a libertarian, and attempt to further liberty to the best of ones ability. This requires one to be able to write convincing articles that the popular audience can read (notice, they needn’t be true). The type of article that will incline the average reader to agree with you, but that may be rejected by the scientific community. It also means that one must be willing to do whatever one can to attain their ends, whether that be lying, cheating, stealing or using violence.
See, I disagree. Currently Austrians are a huge minority, very closely associated with libertarianism. Now, I suggest that once Austrians are less of a minority people will not only take more of an interest in their ideas but be forced to deal with them. Agree with the strategy or not, only can see many Austrians teaching at good universities and publishing in the top journals (Leeson for example is going to U of Chicago, Hayek tought at LSE, Rizzo teaches at NYU, Herbener is at GCC).
I definately think AE journals (QJAE, RAE) are worth publishing in and are necessary for Austrianism to progress, I certainly would not advocate ignoring them, if one wishes to present an idea to their fellow Austrians QJAE will be more conducive towards discussing the merits of that idea than QJE will be. On the other hand, and I tend to agree with Selgin on this, it is necessary to present Austrian ideas to outsiders, which means not solely concentrating on AE journals and looking to get into the top economic journals they can. I think that whilst the odds may be stacked against Austrians, if the work is of a high enough quality it will be recognised.
I also happen to agree with Salerno, don’t go for Austrian grad schools, go to the best graduate school that you can get into, at the end of the day this will pay off more than getting your PhD at GMU (or wherever else) will.
I anticipate that his answer will either be that Mises only advocated praxeology on pragmatic grounds and realised its limitations (I think Lavoie argued this, but I’m not sure). Or, he may say that praxeology is a departure from the tradition of Menger because it is insufficiently subjective, and that one would be better off looking to Lachmann, Hayek etc. for advancing Austrian ideas (as Palermo argued).
Well, political economy seems to be a ‘science’ created mostly by libertarians. For instance, you might want to call a guy like Bastiat a ‘political opportunist’ but the fact remains - he was one of the most brilliant economists ever - and whereas all the clowns working for the economic establishment today will be forgotten in 30 years, people would still read Bastiat in the future and the ideas he championed will be as true as ever. Can’t say the same thing about other ‘scientists’ tho…
Yeah, but if I do that it’s backwards. So I’m still going to have to ask you to clarify your point.
What’s your point? That Bastiat was a great economist? I wouldn’t disagree with that.
Or is your point that political economy is not value free? Because if so that’s just false. If you’d like to clarify your response I can give a better answer, although in the meantime I’ll point out that I think it’s a little harsh to refer to economists as “clowns”. For the most part they’re just doing work in the way they’ve been told.
Well, you seem to be saying that ‘political opportunists’, which I’m rather certain is a derogative term, are below ‘scientists’. I’m pointing out that the science you are dealing with was created by the political opportunists you seem to be looking down on.
As to economics being value-free, that’s not necessarily true. As a matter of fact a good deal of what is considered today economics/science is just government propaganda - a fact you’re familiar with, no ?
Oddly enough if you want value free economics you need to listen to libertarians, that is people who are not afraid of denouncing the economic flaws in the current political system.
I’ve never suggested that political opportunitsts are below scientists. They’re both very different and require different (and sometimes opposite) qualities, think of it this way: even after the glorious anarchist revolution it won’t be Rod Long people have on their T-Shirts. As for your point concerning Bastiat, on the one hand I really hope you’re not suggesting economics began with Bastiat. On the other hand, where economic science began is quite besides the point. The fact of the matter is that Austrianism is part of science, whereas libertarianism isn’t. If you want liberty you’d best be willing to lie, cheat and use violence. You’d also best be willing to give up science and focus on what’s convincing instead of what’s true. On the other hand, all of these methods are off-limits to the scientist.
First things first, go to any university in the world and ask them which faculty has the most “right wing” (meaning, least statist) views, they’ll tell you the economic department. Fact is, I see a lot of bad economics in my textbooks, but it’s all value neutral. To the extent that mainstream economists are guilty of smuggling in norms, so are Austrians.
That’s simply not true, a lot of them are smart guys and good economists. They just could care less about epistemology (which is true of many Austrians). In reality, all these economists care about is doing economics and doing it well, they’ve simply been taught that the way to do that is empiricism etc. and so that’s what they do. If you want economic science and Austrian economics in particular to progress you’ve got to do a number of things a) stop calling those you disagree with “clowns” (which comes across as very similar to the Randians denouncing those they disagree with as “immoral”) b) learn mainstream economists (that means picking up a textbook and giving it a fair reading) c) be willing to admit that Austrian economics is incomplete and possibly, in places, wrong.
If you do that there is a much higher probability of meaningful, constructive dialogue between Austrians and the mainstream. Don’t do that and you’ll ignore them as “clowns” and they’ll ignore you a “cranks”.
Your opinion. But maybe it’s not value neutral - maybe it’s all propaganda. You want to deny, contrary to fact, the existence of incentives for ‘scientists’ to lie ? Oh that’s not possible. On one hand we have ‘opportunists’ and on the other hand pure scientists…
You know, if all this is just a ‘scientific’ misunderstanding, it should be easily cleared up. It’s odd it’s not been already cleared up…
At this point I’m not particularly interested in the promotion of the ‘Austrian’ school per se - if anything I’m interested in the promotion of sound political economy - I’m a libertarian not an Austrian economist.
But their ‘scientific’ economics has way more flaws than libertarian economics. Should I worry about people who are willfully ignorant ?
Gee Juan. It seems to me your problem with Giles is that he recognizes people who are his natural elites, and you aren’t so enamoured by men in suits with fancy papers framed on their wall.
Do you really plan to go your whole life judging men by the quality of their arguments and deeds, instead of all the superficial attributes that dazzle and amaze the rest of us?
Only today? I don’t really know how to answer that then to say “you’re wrong”…
It is value neutral, a great deal of it is anyway. I’m curious, what mainstream textbooks have you read and found to be replete with value judgements? At least, filled with value judgements to a greater extent than most Austrian works.
Yes, some scientists do have an incentive to lie. I don’t think many do though, if you look at the Austrians who have “converted”, so to speak, from neoclassicism to Austrianism, they’ll tell you that they never cared much for epistemology, they just did what their professors did (who presumably did what their professors did and so on) and what their peers were doing. They believed that empiricism, econometrics, mathematics were conducive to good economics and so used those techniques. I don’t think it’s fair to attribute “evil” to mainstream economics when “ignorance” can be attributed to them (ignorance of Austrian economics and correct epistemology, that is) with the latter providing just as sound an explanation as the first.
What makes you think that?
Ok then, in which case this simply isn’t applicable to you.
I don’t think you can really make such statements until you’ve put Austrian economics out there to receive as much criticism as mainstream economics does (right now it doesn’t, most criticism comes from fellow travelers and other Austrians). Even if you can, the fact of the matter is that I don’t think a lot of people are willfully ignorant, look at Mankiw for one, he openly admits that he doesn’t know anything about Austrian economics because he assumes all the “good” parts will have been absorbed by the mainstream. Now, that’s a silly thing to think, but it certainly would be a stretch to call Mankiw “evil” or “bad” because of it.
This is just a strawman. Look, if you want to rationalize the failure of Austrians to communicate their ideas, that’s OK, keep telling yourself that the game is so entirely rigged as to make it impossible to pursue Austrian economics. On the other hand, there will continue to be people who wish to push Austrianism to the top, which means publishing in top journals and teaching at top universities.
I don’t doubt that the layman can have important insights, I just think there is a very, very strong correlation between those who advance economic science and those who hold PhDs in economics.
