What are your views of the Hoover Institute?

[IDigSluts_ky]

Thanks to Rothbard, we know that Hoover was an interventionist, but how do you feel about the Hoover Institute?

My question rises out of curiosity and is built off of tangential thought.

I was watching a clip from John Taylor out of Stanford who is a very much respectable macro economist, but I didn’t realize that the Hoover Institute was out of Standford. During the interview, Professor Taylor essentially said that interest rates were held too low, for too long. His statement is very aligned with what the Austrians have been saying for years.

Crisis Management with John Taylor

However, out of a series of tangents, what is your view of the Hoover Institute?

[Marko]

Dunno anything much about them, so am also interested in the answer. Only noticed them a short while ago when I stumbled upon this insightful piece of theirs: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/72997307.html

[Amanojack]

Don’t know, but here’s another interesting article:

“The Power of Statelessness” (somewhat neocon-ish and terrorism-focused, but useful) http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/41708942.html

A sample:

How much will states have to decentralize in order to withstand potential disruptive attacks from stateless actors, while at the same time maintaining a level of centralization and power necessary to deter and, if necessary, defeat peer competitors? To put it differently, will the state’s perfect defensive measures against stateless actors — pervasive devolution of power, development of small and localized security providers — result in considerable weakening of that state relative to its neighbors? I do not offer an answer to this very important question. But the problem of nonstate actors will not go away. The trends underlying their resurgence are strong and outside of the control of a single nation or even a community of concerned nations. And given the inherent difficulties of implementing both offensive and defensive strategies to cope with these actors, we ought to be prepared for a prolonged period of constant conflict which may lead, as suggested here, to a change in the very nature of the state as we know it.

[Aragon]

If you take a look at the list of Senior Fellows and Research Fellows of the Hoover Institution they seem to be mostly a little bit of Neocon-oriented (although hardcore Neocons are located elsewhere) with a couple of good exceptions, such as Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, Thomas Sowell, Tibor Machan and Robert Conquest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Institution#Honorary_Fellows

[bloomj31]

I love Uncommon Knowledge.

[Marko]

@Aragon

If you take a look at the list of Senior Fellows and Research Fellows of the Hoover Institution they seem to be mostly a little bit of Neocon-oriented (although hardcore Neocons are located elsewhere) with a couple of good exceptions, such as Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, Thomas Sowell, Tibor Machan and Robert Conquest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Institution#Honorary_Fellows

OMG, they’ve got Thatcher, Ferguson, Perry, Rice, Abizaid, Rumsfeld and Christopher freaking Hitchens. I feel tainted.

[bloomj31]

big deal

[Aragon]

Marko… I noticed in your blog (I presume it is yours) a book about German-Bolshevik - alliance written by Silvin and Maidi Eiletz. Are you aware whether it has been translated into English because I couldn’t find any mention about it through Google?

http://crappytown.blogspot.com/2010/01/germans-and-bolsheviks.html

As a sidenote it could be mentioned that one Hoover Institution scholar with libertarian tendencies, Antony C. Sutton, wrote some interesting material about this unholy alliance in his controversial book Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. He apparently finished his work with the foundation in 1973.

One good thing about places like Hoover Institution is that they have huge collections of original documents that scholars can use in their works. For example, the much quoted and extremely valuable collection of documents about pre-revolution activities of bolsheviks collected by Boris Nicolaevsky is located in the archives of Hoover Institution. The collection contains "795 manuscript boxes, 1 cubic foot box, 4 oversize boxes, 16 cardfile boxes, 1 album box ". Just take almost any book about Russian Revolution and it has used this resource as a source material.

[Marko]

It doesn’t exist in English, I am sure of it.

[krazy_kaju]

My thoughts:

1. Poor name choice.
2. Come out with some good pro-free market stuff.
3. John Taylor isn’t free market by any means.

[Caley_McKibbin]

@IDigSluts_ky

During the interview, Professor Taylor essentially said that interest rates were held too low, for too long. His statement is very aligned with what the Austrians have been saying for years.

There is nothing Austrian about that. Plenty of economists think that low interest rates can “overheat” the economy. They would just as soon say something abhorent to go with it.