Which Austrians came from Keynesianism? from Friedman/Chicago? from Other? always Austrian?
I take it Mises was one of the few that was always Austrian.
IIRC, Hoppe came from Friedman/Chicago, but via the free market philosophy of Friedman.
Curious to see if anyone came from Keynesianism.
Hoppe was a Marxist and then read Mises.
Murray Rothbard and Walter Block were hardcore socialists. Thomas Woods was a neocon.
L. Albert Hahn anticipated Keynesian economics, then persuaded by his critics turned to classical economics not only becoming an Austrian but also anticipating much of the monetarist economic theory which would come about during the counter-Keynesian revolution.
Not so. IIRC, Rothbard said that Mises was an Historicist before discovering Austrian Economics.
Did Mises have a direct influence from the Mengerian line?
Also, were their any Austrians that were always Austrian?
From what I understand was that Mises was a Statist, and reading Menger set him on the right path.
Hayek was a socialist before he joined the Mises circle.
I almost fell off my chair. No he wasn’t. He grew up in a neighbourhood where everyone was. But he and his old man were the exception.
I believe Rothbard started out as a conservative, and then moved to the left when he became disillusioned with the right. I think that he then went back to the right, and finally settled on libertarianism.
Guido Hulsmann talks about Mises here:
I could be wrong. Do you have a source? Btw, are you also saying that Rothbard was never a socialist? I could have sworn he was at some time.
I thought Rothbard went from conservative to libertarian, and flirted with the New Left for allies in the libertarian movement?
According to Wikipedia:
“As a young man, Rothbard considered himself part of the Old Right, an anti-statist and anti-interventionist branch of the U.S. Republican party. When interventionist cold warriors of the*National Review*, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., gained influence in the Republican party in the 1950s, Rothbard quit the party. After Rothbard died, Buckley wrote a bitter obituary in the National Review criticizing Rothbard’s “defective judgement” and views on the Cold War”
Problem with this is, the source is a broken link: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n2_v47/ai_16448375
Block was an egalitarian: http://mises.org/journals/aen/aen19_2_1.asp
He was a pinko. Two different things.
No. Not at all. He never shifted, everyone else did. That is key. He then allied against the status quo, with the other side at the time… get published in places (remember, no lewrockwell, no mises.org, no internet) & tried to show them the consistency of libertarianism.
In Defense of Rothbard - Lew Rockwell
"Liberty from the Beginning
Raimondo produces letters and articles from Rothbard’s earliest writings showing that he had mapped out most of his life’s work. That goes for his attachment to Austro-free-market theory, his anarcho-capitalism, his devotion to natural rights, his love of the Old Right political paradigm, his optimistic outlook for liberty, his hatred of war, his essential Americanism, and even his reactionary cultural outlook. The ideas were all developed throughout the course of his life, but the seeds seemed to be there from the beginning. The attacks were too. Ralph Lord Roy’s 1953 book Apostles of Discord blasted some early Rothbard articles as dangerously supporting “unregulated laissez-faire capitalism.” Exactly. He learned, he developed, he elaborated, but he never made a fundamental shift."
Everyone needs to read that. Betrayal of the American right p73.
“While I had always enjoyed economics, I had never been able to find a comfortable home in economictheory: I tended to agree with institutionalist critiques ofKeynesians and mathematicians, but also with the latters’ critiquesof the institutionalists. No positive system seemed to make senseor to hang together. But in Mises’s Human Action I found economicsas a superb architectonic, a mighty edifice with each buildingblock related to and integrated with every other. Upon reading it,I became a dedicated “Austrian” and Misesian, and I read as much Austrian economics as I could find.”
… Betrayal of the American right p78
"My conversion to anarchism was a simple exercise in logic. I had engaged continually in friendly arguments about laissez-faire with liberal friends from graduate school. While condemning taxation, I had still felt that taxation was required for the provision of police and judicial protection and for that only. One night two friends and I had one of our usual lengthy discussions, seemingly unprofitable; but this time when they’d left, I felt that for once something vital had actually been said. As I thought back on the discussion, I realized that my friends, as liberals, had posed the following challenge to my laissez-faire position:
They: What is the legitimate basis for your laissez-faire government, for this political entity confined solely to defending person and property?
I: Well, the people get together and decide to establish such a government.
They: But if “the people” can do that, why can’t they do exactly the same thing and get together to choose a government that will build steel plants, dams, etc.?
I realized in a flash that their logic was impeccable, that laissez-faire was logically untenable, and that either I had to become a liberal, or move onward into anarchism. I became an anarchist."
[:)]
Reading some of the some responses.. I admit to being amazed at the many misconceptions, but find it understandable.
This may be helpful for others;
Still the State’s Greatest Enemy - LRC
- He wasn’t consistent.
- He was just an ideologue.
- He had no lasting influence.
- He should have stuck to high theory.
- He abandoned radical libertarianism after the early 1970s.
He didn’t do any serious scholarly work after the late 1970s.
He allowed Libertarian activities to distract him from scholarship.
- He left libertarianism to become a leftist in the 1960s.
- In later years, he sucked up to the Right.
- He was a great theorist but a terrible strategist.
- He broke with former friends.
- He became a Buchananite.
- He worshiped Mises.
He departed from Mises.
He changed his view of immigration.
- He refused to learn from others.
Rothbards beliefs never changed from the time he was a kid- he went from “right” to “left” and back again only because that is where his pro- free market anti-war beliefs were to be found
why the hell do people who don’t know make statements like they do??? Rothbard was never a socialist.