This is, of course, not a formal statistic, just my observations on active posters over the last couple of years, though I’ve seen scientific tracking software that correlates them.
I’ve noticed that out of the active posters here, about 90% are from the US, 5% from Eastern Europe and the rest of the world, excluding the digital nonentity of Africa, is pretty evenly split into little 1% slivers. Even accounting for the disproportionate (I believe about 50%) presence onf Americans on the Western internet, this seems a little odd, especially given that Austrian economics and libertarianism are, and have for much of their history been, European movements. It can’t just be a language barrier issue, since I’ve seen maybe 6 people from the UK and 2 from Ireland, tops, but at least twice as many Eastern Europeans, who I’d be willing to bet are far less likely to have good Internet access or speak English than the inhabitants of the British Isles.
There’s almost no Canadians, either. So it’s not just a matter of time zones (which aren’t too much of a factor anyways, and if they were they would make it so that more Western than Eastern Europeans posted). I’ve never seen a single Swiss, German, Dutch or (ironically) Austrian, though I have spotted a couple of Scandinavians, which gives a good kick in the pants to the Myth of Scandinavian Socialism. And I’ve seen more people from the South American countries than from their colonial forefathers. So, is being a colony or emerging nation some kind of advantage to the vibrancy of economics (which would be baffling given the Austrian School and it’s forefather in the School of Salamanca originated in the hearts of massive colonial European empires) or is there something I’m missing here?
That’s odd… maybe we’re looking at a discrepancy between overall readership and active forum members? Then again, I’m probably not smart enough to discern Yanks from Canucks anyhow.
Yes, but most people in most Western countries, particularily those with Internet access, have at least secondary-level English skills (indeed, I dare say I’ve met more non-native speakers with good spelling and grammar than I have natives online).
Really? Like I noted above, Austrianism and libertarianism have, for the great majority of their history, been European movements. John Locke, Richard Cobden, Gustave de Molinari, Frederic Bastiat, Thomas Paine and Lord Acton are just as well known and respected, if not more so, than Henry David Thoreau, Lysander Spooner, Harry Browne or Murray Rothbard. There’s also Carl Menger, the very founder of Austrianism, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek (though I understand he became more neoclassical in his later years) and more recently, Hans Hermann Hoppe.
Won’t dispute that. I’ve actually long though the Mises Institute needs a whole new area devoted to European and Asian issues. Gottfried would be great on cultural analysis of Europe, while Bevin Chu could make a good commentator on Chinese foreign policy. It’d be interesting to see how the country of Bastiat and Molinari is doing these days, despite all the recent civil disorder…
Still, 330 million people fluent in English in the USA is more than in Europe. But as you say, this is only one factor.
I’d say that Jefferson and the other classical liberal founders, as well as Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand (whom we can count as American) are much more widely known in the USA than any of the figures you listed are in Europe. If you walk around in the USA you find that almost everything is called ‘Jefferson’. The ideals of small government are much more greatly entrenched in the States than in Europe.
Yeah, I come from an insignificant island nation but I would still like to see some more things closer to home.
Is the US more open to the idea of limited government? I don’t think streets named after Jefferson are really solid proof: there’s many leftist academics working to revise his views and thoughts for a new, politically correct age, and the reverence surrounding the Founding Fathers extends to virtually all of the mainstream political spectrum in the US. After all, it’s the Europeans who are out protesting against their governments in the streets even with no First Amendment to protect them, and it’s the Americans who are racking up multi-trillion dollar debts in unfunded liabilities (I’d be amazed if every welfare program put together in the EU had even half the debt of the US in the big three liabilities alone). The Prime Minister of Italy has expressed sympathy for those who avoid burdensome taxation, and while Cameron may be a social-democrat Greenie in Tory clothing, he’s at least putting on a show to please those who want the government shrunk. The New Right has been going long before the Tea Party was a twinkle in Obama’s eye (or Fred Koch or Ron Paul’s, depending on who you believe), as has the UKIP.
First of all you have to understand there are no media figures even remotely similar to Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan (I know… I know…). At best you get the usual hypocritical politician paying lip service to “low taxes” and voting for a tax hike just days later.
Second of all as much as Europe gave birth to Bastiat, Hayek, Mises etc it has more or less forgotten them. It’s much easier to find a work by Bastiat on sale in the US than anywhere in Europe. An American may have accidentaly heard of Mises by listening to Ron Paul but here he’s confined to the few who read his works or heard references to him by a few scholars like Jesus Huerta de Soto. When I mention Mises or Bastiat to someone who has never heard of them the answer is usually the same “I’ve never heard of him… but this man has a point”. But, as much as I mention many works are available for free on the LvMI website, there are few if any takers. Part of the issue is many (most, actually) have little knowledge of the English language beyond what’s taught at school, which often barely enough to read basic texts. Of course as friend of mine said “I’ve learned French by reading books with a dictionary and a grammar at hand” but if the will’s lacking…
Europe was a birthplace for libertarian ideas. Mises and Hayek are most fresh examples of European liberty movement, and they are both gone long ago. US has Ron Paul, LvMI, Cato, Friedmans etc. Europe is nowadays intellectually socialistic and talking about free markets/capitalism is considered profanity.
And? You’re suggesting that there are enough of them who spend enough time on English sites as opposed to sites in their native language to outnumber Americans?
Yes, and every one of that first group (that you claim is possibly more respected) has been dead for at least a century, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more Americans than Frenchmen have even heard of Bastiat. If you could name a single scholar or institution of note that is currently producing or furthering these ideas, it might help your case. Or hell, I’d even be happy to see any evidence that the teachings of any of those people are seriously taught and studied in any significant fashion anywhere in Europe.
All of which (with the exception of Menger) spent their most productive years in the U.S. as American academics at American institutions. I don’t see how this helps your point. In fact, I think it helps Aristippus’.
There’s only so much a single institute can do. And if it spends a bunch of time and resources focusing on foreign issues, the domestic ones would suffer. The goal of the institute is to further the Austrian tradition and the ideas of Mises, but obviously the main focus is an American audience. There are other institutes that do the same for other countries. Have a look.
Well mises.org is primarily an economics website. Perhaps in the US economic science is treated slightly better than in Europe? It has somewhat more prestige and appeal than in Europe? It is very hard to find a European who could name one economist.
Exactly - Europe should be a lesson to Americans. The forces of darkness are patient and unrelenting. In time, they will submit any country, however proud its tradition of freedom may be. America was subdued almost 100 years ago. We long ago stopped being a society of liberal values.
Daniel: It’s just my own observations of active forum users. Like I noted, it could be there’s a discrepancy between the overall readership of Mises.org and the people who post here, but it’s the people who post here who are most likely to be most interested in the nitty-gritty of Austro-libertarianism, and they are the ones under discussion.
As for Ron Paul/Pat Buchanan… point taken, but they are the exceptions in the US as well. My knowledge of European politics is admittedly more limited than those of US politics, but I can think of several analogies to these figures. Daniel Hannan, Nigel Farage and Sean Gabb (UK), Geert Wilders, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the late Pim Fortuyn (Netherlands) and Jorg Haider of Austria is so similar to Buchanan in both views and MSM reaction it’s downright spooky. Whether or not you agree with these people’s views on immigration or foreign policy, they are all similar to Ron Paul in being anti-establishment mavericks of a European (which means classical) liberal/libertarian bent, and even if you think they’re all a bunch of neocon righties, they’re still ten times closer to Ron Paul on the “political compass” than just about any EU leader in the last 30-40 years.
And on the front of free markets being a dirty word… I don’t see that much positive reporting on them from just about any mainstream US news outlet save those owned by Murdoch rather than Soros. I just see a lot of chest beating about how the eeeevul Reagan was an unreconstructed anarcho-capitalist who abolished the New Deal, sold orphans to workhouses and sent granny to the gas chambers, and how the Shrubs played the Bormann and Goering to his Hitler, and how we all need much more government control of our lives and the economy to achieve Social Justice. If this is considered more open to small government, I don’t even want to know what EU media is like (though I do know about equally hysterically leftist outlets like the BBC, Guardian, Le Monde and Die Tageszeitung).
my thought when you said that Europeans were at least out protesting government was that they were protesting to keep their benefits. is this wrong? is there really a movement of people supporting cut backs??
also my belief has been that the US is about a generation behind Europe as far as acceptace of socialism. we did not have the revelutions of the 19th century or the predominetly german communist/socialist influence
The closest thing the European continent has to a Ron Paul is UKIP’s Nigel Farage of the European parliament and amazing man. I would also hypothesize that most Austrian Economics are in the U.S for several reasons. One because of a American gurantee of defending Europe, the Europeans did not have to waste such vast amounts of resources on building a military which means a larger socialist welfare state in it’s place. And also because Europe has no American style 1st Amendment which protects freedom of press. In Europe every media outlet leans to the progressive side of the political spectrum ad there are o such thigs as conservative or libertarian anywhere in Europe. And the anti-capitalist sentiment in Europe is extremely endemic much more so then in the U.S. But im sure there are some austrians around, you just have to look much more closely .
