Well thank god that doesn’t happen under fiat currency.
How can a commodity be ‘primitive in nature’? You make it sound like gold only works in specific time periods or should be regulated to specific time periods. A pretty inane viewpoint.
Ahem,
‘How can you tie the health of the world economy to the [printing] industry??’
Agree with my comment or Hayek’s? If it’s with me, that’s super. If it is with Hayek then that would be the second time you contradict yourself in a single post.
Are you saying that, a school of thought in which the mainstream are consistently anti-statist, they are not a part of the general mainstream only because they neglect to engage them at frequent enough intervals?
Thanks for the chat…
See you around.
Yes. read
Does no state means no govt…no laws…no order…ANARCHY??
No. That is the conventional wisdom but it is wrong. You can have law without a monopoly on law (the state). I’m sure you know what is bad with monopolies.
See, the problem is that you betray a real lack of understanding here, Keynes is irrelevant to mainstream economics. What I mean is that if Austrians try to publish in mainstream journals, they’ll be rewarded according to the originality, importance and quality of their work. There are plenty of Austrians who are interacting with the mainstream and being rewarded accordingly. Kirzner, Selgin, Leeson would be three fine example, all of them identify (except possibly Selgin) to some extent or another as Austrian, and they’re all doing well professionally. Kirzner stands a good chance at a Nobel prize (and certainly deserves one), Selgin is a very well respected monetary theorist and Leeson is visiting at Chicago, with a publication in JPE and book with PUP.
A lot of Austrian economics isn’t taught in universities simply because it isn’t good economics. And a lot of the good economics from the Austrian school has been adopted by the mainstream or is at least accepted by some parts of it. Hayek anticipated or contributed in some way to New Institutional Economics, Public Choice economics, experimental economics, complexity theory, information economics and few others I’m missing. If I’m not mistaken, Mises monetary theory is the foundation for modern monetary theory. Other very prominent economists have cited Austrians in their work, Phelps, Lucas (although he later recanted I believe), Buchanan, Hurwicz.
Now, if your point was simply that there may be some arrogance on behalf of the mainstream vis a vis the Austrian school, as well as some narrow mindedness when it comes to methodology, then sure, I’d agree. Otherwise you’re way off.
Hayek romanticizes intellectuals? I do hope this is some sort of a joke, have you not read his piece on intellectuals? Hayek certainly had a, tendency to attribute nothing but intellectual confusion to those with whom he disagreed, but that’s just good practise.
Sure, because the exact same thing could be said about a school of thought that is consistently pro-state. Post-Keynesians, Marxists, Institutional economists and other left heterodox schools are very pro-state, and yet they’re still marginalized. This may have something to do with the aforementioned methodological arrogance, but I’d say it has more to do with their intellectual strategy. These economists are very self contained and most of their interaction is between themselves, as opposed to with the mainstream. In fact, there are a lot of similarities between these groups and Austrian economics. Interestingly, a lot of them like to blame their rejection of the market fundamentalism of the mainstream.
Have you ever read Hayek? I’m really curious here. You seem to presume to be some sort of authority on him and his intellectual success. More than once I’ve heard you say that Hayek is only accepted because he made concessions or because he was weak willed. The fact of the matter is that Hayek was a fantastic economist and all round social theorist. He made numerous contributions and laid the groundwork for much further research. Simply saying that Hayek didn’t “believe in a gold standard” fails to capture the nuances of his views on the free market provision of money. And most people would say that Rothbard’s view on coercion was incorrect, I certainly would.
So why is non-good economics being taught in universities anyway?
So are you saying that economics based on human action is bad economics?
OK…
I really don’t see the point in trying to publish in mainstream journals. Why would you want to convince mainstream intellectuals who already locked into their paradigm? It seems like more of an attempt to capture the intelligentsia and use their influence to sustain their traditional role in society which is to dominate or influence decision making on the populace.
How quaint. Any other windows you want to break while you stay at what could be consider the premiere center for Austrian economics?
Yes yes, socialists are just confused people who produce benign results and once told they immediately disspell said confusion.
It’s quite a day when my writing style alone portrays me as an expert. I thank you for your comment and yes I have read Hayek. I have his Constitution of Liberty right here in my hand and it is on my list to read throughly. I have already read Road to Serfdom, you can actually see it in the picture that I took of my bookcase a few months ago if you don’t believe me. Am I a Hayekian scholar? No but that doesn’t mean I can’t have opinions concerning what I have read on the man from primary or secondary sources.
And if you remember from the last time I had this discussion with Lilburne I also said ‘I’m not calling Hayek an idiot.’ I think Mises is yards ahead of Hayek and if being recognized by the mainstream is simply about how much you contribute the advancement of academia then like the whole point of this topic, why is it Hayek instead of Mises?
Nice way to top off the ending of an argument. A nice juicy fallacy.
Yes. Leave it to striving central planner to make hubris declarations on behalf of “most people”. Who would have thought…[:P]
Open your eyes. Ask Mises.
That doesn’t quite answer the question though, the question wasn’t one of whether or not Austrians should publish in mainstream journals or not, but whether or not that leads to academic success. I provided a few data points that would suggest that interacting with the mainstream does lead to academic success, if you would like to provide evidence to the contrary, please be my guest. As for whether Austrians should interact with the mainstream, well, there’s been a lot of debate on this subject I don’t quite think that we’ll answer this question. But just as you might say they’re “locked into their paradigm”, I think the same could be said for a lot of self described Austrians. Austrian economics is just a label that denotes a particular approach to doing economic science, I don’t think it’s the only valid approach, and I think that there’s a lot to be gained from trade. If you believe that some of the greatest minds in economic science have nothing to offer the Austrian approach, that’s fair enough. I think it’s a very arrogant and close minded view though.
Who are these socialists you’re talking about? The average economist is definitely not a socialist. The average economist is well aware of the virtues of the market and liberalism in general. Before you mention Krugman, he’s the laughing stock of academia, most economists consider his Nobel prize to be a joke. Many people rightly consider him to be a partisan hack who stopped doing real economics a long time ago.
People disagree on values and beliefs, there’s very little we can do about the former. But the latter can and have been changed, to attribute all disagreement to intellectual dishonest reeks of dogmatism.
Let’s be clear here, nobody here has any right to consider themselves as an expect on any subject (occasional posters such as Selgin being the exception), I’m still an undergraduate economics student and from what I gather you’re not too far ahead of me in terms of age and formal studies. Nonetheless, we can try to be a bit more explicit here for the sake of discussion, you’re a reasonable guy so let’s try to keep this civil. If you wouldn’t mind I’d like you to elaborate your opinions on Hayek’s social thought and your justification for these opinions. This would mean listing the works of Hayek you’ve read (in depth), the secondary sources you’ve learned from, the criteria for being a good, or even great, economist and most importantly your reasons for rejecting Hayek’s social thought.
I say this because the visions of Rothbard and Hayek are strongly opposed to one another, and Rothbard was known for his rhetorical excess, so I’m not sure he’s the best person to learn from when it comes to Hayek. And if all you’ve read is TRS then that’s a huge shame.
So I skipped through most of the comments but I believe you can place a great amount of blame on Alfred Marshal. His textbook (which is simply a readable General Theory of MUI) dominated the economics departments for generations. Nothing Austrian was accessible to the students of our subject without large expenses of effort. This would explain the common ignorance of the Austrian school of thought and why a surge in demand has increased as costs of information exchange have decreased. Couple this with the theory that age brings about sticky-ideology (in which older people who have invested much effort into ideas are solidified in them) and you see why no one speaks about the school of thought.
Many economists it could be said at the very least are monetary socialists. But to answer that question it all depends on what your definition of socialism is. I admit my definition is more liberally used and is often more tied to coercion then anything else.
Many of my most favorite social lessons are from Hayek’s although I think he is incredibly way too verbose. On a side note, I am not sure Hayek ever grasped the enormous significance of praxeology. At least it never stood out to me in his writings.
Just my 2c! [:D]
And why wasn’t this addressed? Or did Austrian School economists point the textbook’s shortcoming out to no avail?
I don’t know what world you live in, but Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Joseph Stiglitz and other socialists are taken very seriously (Cambridge, Harvard, MIT are dominated by socialist thought). Paul Krugman is nothing compared to the big-time leftists. Their thoughts/theories directly influence government policy (see the Dodd Regulation bill). Either way, and I mentioned this the last time we discussed this nonsense, the government is the major (practically sole) consumer of economics.
Conservative New Keynesian (would include Samuelson in this tradition) thought is actually pretty good, but again, the logical inconsistencies, and the failure to incorporate Austrian value/price/capital theories leads to faulty and self-contradictory conclusions.
QFT.
People should read this piece by Salerno if they haven’t: Economics: Vocation or Profession?
Also, I just put ‘Keynes forum’ into google to gauge his appeal and I didn’t see even a result for Ol’ Maynard. I think they say that mises.org is the #2 popular economics website after The Economist magazine.
You didn’t read my ‘locked into their own paradigm’ statement. Honestly, I wonder how much of what I write you actually read.
What success was that again? You merely stated that Kirzner and Leeson ‘interact’ with the mainstream. Is that the definition of success for you??
Incorrectness is only useful as an example or guide to what is correct.
You stated that Hayek believed that intellectuals supporting a peculiar doctrine can really only be guilty of intellectual confusion.
‘Hayek certainly had a, tendency to attribute nothing but intellectual confusion to those with whom he disagreed, but that’s just good practise.’
Surely socialists fall under this sphere.
Well I have already explain my rejections of Hayekian thought in the section on concessions. What does it take to be a good economist? Intellectual honesty, consistency, rationalism, a passion for truth, much like what I think makes a good political theorist. I would respect someone more who I disagree with if they were consistent then someone who I agree with who is inconsistent. I have read Hayek’s Intellectuals and Socialism, Road to Serfdom, I have Constitution of Liberty and Counter-Revolution of Science on the way [ which I hear is an agreeable book ] and I’m going to be getting Capitalism and the Historian which I have heard is actually edited essays of T.S. Ashton by Hayek. Concerning secondary sources I have listened to all of Ralph Raico’s comments on Hayek, Raico being the doctoral student of Hayek, I have read Block’s article on Hayek’s monetary platforms and there is also the section of Rothbard’s review of Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty which I have mentioned.
I think there are people here who are ‘experts’ or at least almost as good as the faculty at the institute. They have their insightful moments, they just don’t have the famous aura.
No, I go to multiple sources.
I’ve never met a Keynesian that did not express such an appreciation. As any shill worth his salt would.