In terms of being an “Economist”, some of us have Ph.D, some of us are self-study in terms of Austrian Economics. For those that are self-study, do you call your self an Economist, Austrian, Austrian Scholar, other, or nothing?
I would only refer to myself as an Economist if I was paid to either teach Economics or to work as an Economist.
I don’t believe self studying a half dozen or dozen books written by Rothbard qualifies one to call them self an economist. You may know something about economics, but that doesn’t make you one. You’re probably only giving other economists a bad name by going out and making false claims. Take for example all these pundits that come on CNBC or Bloomberg or the advisors to the President; they call themselves economists, yet they appear to not know much about real economics.
I’m not an economist.
I’m not an economist. I am an Anarchist who is fascinated by economics.
I’m a layman student of economics,
I have the same reservations as well. I have just used the term austro-libertarian, but perhaps there is something better or more accurate?
Im sure my answer depends very much on context, do you have some particular contexts in mind?
The problem with that is the fact that a key conclusion of Austrian economics is that, beyond the purely academic pursuit of the study, economists are not very useful to the market. So the class of people who have found work as economists will always, for reasons of self interest, skew strongly away from Austrian economics. There will be a few Austrian PhD’s who manage to run the gauntlet, but not very many. If you only grant working economists the title of economist, you are handing the battle over to the non-Austrians. When Menger wrote Principles, he was a journalist with a law degree. Did that make him not an economist? Copernicus’s day job was as a priest: did that make him not an astronomer? The measure of an economist should be how much economic TRUTH one knows. not whether one is paid to spread it. By that measure Peter Schiff, Tom Woods, and quite a few autodidacts in this forum are far more aptly called economists than Bernanke, Geitner, or Krugman (I suppose they can grudgingly still be called economists, in the way that Karl Marx could be, simply by virtue of the fact that they spend a lot of time thinking about it, as vain as that time is).
I am not an economist… yet. I will keep my day job and continue to assiduously self-study. Once I have enough of a command to give extemporaneous and accurate speeches covering every key theory of Austrian economics plus the major fallacies of other schools, I will readily call myself an economist, and challenge any Mainstreamer to a debate to see who is more of one.
Daniel,
I agree with you. After reading what I wrote I felt somewhat confused.
But what would be the proper term for those Keynesian economists that couldn’t predict the market? Schiff calls them “Witch doctors”, not economists. Yet they told everyone to buy high-tech stocks in 2000 just before the burst. They told everyone that there was no housing bubble and the wealth was real. To buy Wall Street bank stocks in 2006 because they were undervalued. These guys are called economists yet they don’t understand the fundamentals. They are confused with the Keynesian riddles that call itself economics.
I consider Rothbard, Schiff, Woods, Rockwell, Hazlitt, Hayek, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber and the other Austrian based Economists that I know of .. real Economists. The others hold the title economist, but I don’t necessarily trust what they say. If you’re a doctor and you kill most of your patients in surgery (due to incompetence) are you still called a doctor? I don’t know what to call them.
I call myself an economist to pick up girls or a “freelance economic researcher” ie..unemployed mises.org or LRC troll.
I would call myself one in truth if I was a professional of sorts or had a Phd. I suppose once you get sought after or even better payed for your information you can your call yourself it. (maybe having the e in upper or lower case means something) Wait till someone else calls you it first.
Otherwise I am simply a student.
Considering my areas of study are not limited to economics, I guess I would prefer to use the term Omnologist.
I like Omnologist especially since I tend to ignore specialization in favor of mixing & connecting different subjects. However, I am also not really a scientist, so Omnologist might not the best label after all.
However, “a man of letters” (ie. Gore Vidal) might also a good phrase to use for myself, since writing is one of my chief interests, although I have not pursued publishing seriously.
Although, I utilize the computer & the Internet more so than letters, so I suppose a “man of texts” would be an updated phrase 
Autodidact is probably the safest term to use, since it represents my own core approach to whatever I learn (with traditional learning being secondary and/or supplemental), while also covering whatever I choose to learn that best interests me.
I think Self-Taught Economist, or Student of Econ would be a better phrase to use, regarding economics, though. There is also the anti-anti-intellectual, or the anti-statist intellectual label to consider, as well.
This isn’t true at all. There’s plenty of work for economists in both the public and private sector. When it comes to policymaking, economists are invaluable.
yes, the good ones are there to say that the government should not have policies. not many of them though.
In my opinion, unless you have an economics degree at the minimum, you cannot call yourself an economist. If you only study Austrian economics online then you can call yourself an Austrian economist.
It used to be that an economist was simply someone who believed that society should be ordered on economic principles. The opposite of an economist was a socialist.
“Economist-still-on-training-wheels” ie. student.
Aam Smith called himself a social philosopher.
We are all students…every day is a school day.
I would disagree. I don’t believe that “a degree” really truly in itself means anything… It depends on a lot of factors. I know for a fact that a lot of people hold degrees for things that they don’t really know anything about, and I also know for a fact that many people know a great deal on a subject that they don’t hold a degree in.
I plan on having a career somewhere in the world of IT, but at the moment I don’t plan on pursuing a degree of any type. I believe that in many specific IT fields the most qualified people are self-taught experts, and they are experienced to a level that you simply cannot attain following a school’s plan for you and your “degree”.
I think that whether or not you “qualify” as an economists rests more on what you actually know, no matter how you know it, rather than what some school says they taught you and you now know. Just my honest opinion.
I am not an economist, and I don’t claim to be based on TWO things actually… One, I don’t believe that I hold the knowledge to qualify as an economist, and I also don’t call myself one because it’s not a main focus or high priority to learn or be involved in the field. I think that priority has something to do with it. For example, I call myself a web designer/developer, even though my knowledge doesn’t extend much past html, css, a little javascript and using Fireworks for basic image editing. There are web designers that know less than me, and more than me, but I am one none-the-less, because I know enough to be successful in the field (for a highschool student, at least) and learn it and pursue it. So I guess I’m saying, you can be an “economist” without being an “expert”. You simply aren’t an expert.
I wouldn’t call myself and economist, partly because I don’t have a formal education in the field and partly because I don’t wish to be lumped in with the likes of Krugman. When asked about my credentials during a debate I say that I’m a “follower of the Austrian school of economic thought”. Most people I’ve spoken with aren’t familiar with Austrian Economics, which has proven beneficial in many cases since they will actually listen to what you say instead of falling back on prejudice against the free-market.
As a general rule of thumb, if you don’t have a PhD, MS, or MA in economics and you don’t work in some kind of economic capacity, you aren’t an “economist.” If you’re not a scholar (which you are not), then don’t call yourself a scholar. At best, you and I are laymen of the Austrian school.
I’m currently getting a BEc and BAppFin and I’ll consider myself a fledgling economist once I’ve done that. Possibly a masters in finance and P.h.D in Austrian economics later if I can somehow do that