Thanks. I was putting the embed snippet in HTML and I got the “[View:” code but it didn’t show up in preview. This is easier anyhow.
Andrew,
You asked for qualification of my claims of success for certain Austrian economics, I believe I provided them. Of course, success is not an unambiguous word, but I think that with Leeson in particular, a JPE, a book with PUP and visiting at Chicago are huge achievements for any economist of 30, much less one from a supposedly “heterodox” school of thought. My claim was never that these achievements make him correct, or even a good economist, although I do believe that, but that economists who do interact with the mainstream and put out a sizeable amount of high quality work will be recognized and rewarded.
I’m a bit puzzled by your other comment, you write “I am guessing that is it is because you think they have something to offer in the study of economics, by chance if that is the case then what is it that they have to offer? Nobel prizes? Comfortable positions? Publications?”. No, what I mean is that mainstream economists have tools that will allow self described Austrians a more complete understanding of the economy, translating into better work and better publications. Just as work in other disciplines may enrich economics as a whole. I’m not going to name any in specific because I recognise the limits of my own knowledge. But are you really denying that the mainstream have no econometric tools that may allow Austrians to do better empirical work? Or that none of the work done in experimental and behavioural economics has any relevance to the theory that Austrians do? I suppose you could answer yes to these questions, but the fact of the matter is that self described Austrians already have, and continue to, use these tools to develop their understanding of the economy and of society.
I’m not sure what character virtues have to do with any of this, we should try to divorce the personal from the intellectual as much as possible. I consider good economics to be economics that is original, logically rigorous and relevant. Some Austrian economics falls short on all three counts, others passes on three accounts.
Believe me, I’ve read all of your comments and tried to think out my responses. As I recall you simply cited Hayek’s rejection of the gold standard and views on coercion as reasons for finding him wanting as an economist. Like I said, none of us are experts here, but with all due respect I really think that you’d better read at least The Constitution of Liberty so you can offer a serious reason for rejection Hayek’s extremely nuanced view of society. When I asked you to explain your reasons for rejecting Hayek’s thought I was hoping that you’d elaborate on the reasons you’ve gave. Clearly, your readin is limited to zero pieces on his monetary economics and one, short, popular piece on social theory, so I was asking too much. I’d like to keep this civil, so I’d be much obliged if you’d stop with the accusations you’re making about my literacy skills and intellectual honesty.
EDIT: You also cited Hayek’s views on intellectuals, ultimately this was such a small part of his thought that I’m not sure it’s a good reason to reject him as a thinker. Also, anybody who claims that Hayek romanticizes intellectuals has obviously failed to understand Hayek’s point.
Truth is a hard reality to grasp.
Here I disagree with you. Math is 180 degrees from Eco. Econometrics is an aberration. I took all those classes and they are nonsense. Economics is only about deductive reasoning, qualitative analysis and critical thinking. All three are “species in danger of extinction”
Hayek’s rejection comes from his thought about the gold standard. Maybe Milton Friedman also fits this category. Count me with them.
But econometrics is just a tool for doing emprirical work, and depending on the nature of the work, it may or may not be appropriate. There wouldn’t be much gained, for example, from using econometrics in work such as Peter Leeson’s. But that doesn’t mean that it’s never appropriate and we can never tell a proiri when it will be.
Likewise, math is just a tool for doing theory. You may argue that it’s a poor tool and provide a number of arguments in support of this (although, you’d have to actually do so) but I don’t think we can reject it completely out of hand.
You force me to agree with you. In economics I personally dont reject anything completely, that would only reveal my close mind approach.
I do keep my words such as: aberration. Econometrics is about 95% quantitative and 5% qualitative. And economics is qualitative oriented…more than anything else.
I asked you what made good economics also. If simplistic success or wide stream acceptance makes success, which is what you seem to be implying by stating that you do believe he is a good economist because of his achievements, then I think it is a shallow observation. It is like being a kite in a wind storm and deciding whoever is good by whoever gets the most medals.
And that is supposedly something to offer. What are these tools? What does one need beyond apriori reasoning? I would love to discover this.
Well firstly, just because someone calls his/herself an Austrian doesn’t make them an Austrian. People can call themselves anything they wish but that doesn’t make it so unless they are inline with the intrinsic structure of the thing they claim to be apart of in the first place. It’s like modern progressives calling themselves liberals. There is no historical backing of this claim, there is no agreement on the actual structure of what is traditional defined as liberalism. Therefore they call themselves liberals but they are not liberals. Now I know you aren’t stupid which is why I think you wrote ‘self described’ Austrians rather then just Austrians because you understand this point as well. Now getting on with the intrinsic structuring of Austrian economics. It is of course an apriori discipline that uses conceptual truths to analyze human action. Now you can blather on about the value of behavioral economics, positivist economics, historicism, whatever you think has value but it is not Austrian economics if it doesn’t follow the Misesan tradition.
What is and what isn’t original, logical and relevant about Austrian economics?
Apparently you didn’t read my responses because I cited Hayek’s concessions as my reject of Hayekian thought, not as how he shapes up as a economist
If your whole fundamental structure for what constitutes aggression is flawed and the whole theory of libertarianism is based on what constitutes just and unjust aggression then anything built upon that structure will be insignificant compared to the glaring incorrectness at the base.
I’ve told you what I’ve read and what I’ve heard about him and thus formulated an opinion on him. Cry all you want about me disliking your idol but spare me the displeasure of actually viewing it.
Great argument. It’s not ‘You’re wrong because of X,Y,Z’ but ‘You’re wrong because your not reading him correctly’
Like the many students here that are snuffed out by their professors.
Yes, Austrian sociologists, who focus on social institutions instead of actual economic theory, are accepted by the mainstream. But once you question their price, value, and capital theories, or their methods, you become just another loon.
For all the good work Friedman did in bringing libertarianism and monetary policy to public attention, he favoured positivism, a methodology Austrians reject; his “neighbourhood effect” could be used to justify any kind of state intervention; and he favoured a steadily increasing supply of fiat money.
Rothbard on Friedman
Well I reject positivism as well.
I am not familiar with the neighbourhood effect…but your assertion about it is questionable.
I dont favor his monetary supply increase but I also dont favor AE approach on money supply.
Here’s Friedman’s explanation of his theory in Capitalism and Freedom:
A second general class of cases in which strictly voluntary exchange is impossible arises when actions of individuals have effects on other individuals for which it is not feasible to charge or recompense them. This is the problem of “neighborhood effects”. An obvious example is the pollution of a stream. The man who pollutes a stream is in effect forcing others to exchange good water for bad. These others might be willing to make the exchange at a price. But it is not feasible for them, acting individually, to avoid the exchange or to enforce appropriate compensation.
Friedman goes on to use the concept to justify state involvement in city streets, parks, education, and so on. Even if you don’t use these things, you benefit from them indirectly. But how far do we carry this argument? To use an example from Rothbard, if I read Socrates and become a wiser man, enriching the lives of everyone I interact with, should they be made to pay for me to read Socrates? Should men pay for girls to wear miniskirts because they enjoy the sight of girls wearing miniskirts? Friedman himself never took it this far, but why not? If someone wants to do something that you cannot avoid benefiting from, you can be taxed to support it. That is the essence of neighbourhood effects.
He made a good point…do not add to his words.
I made my criteria for good economics explicit, and later in your post you acknowledged them. I don’t think that good economics is determined by the amount of “medals” received, rather, I think that when a large number of awards, or whatever form, are awarded, that’s usually indicative of good economics. Look, I was making a relatively simple point in answer to the OP, plenty of “Austrians” have been successful in the mainstream and have done so in numerous fields: micro (Kirzner), monetary theory (Selgin) and political economy (Leeson).
Well, by definition a priori reasoning is of no use in empirical work, so any empirical techniques whether they be econometric, experimental, field studies or whatever can be of use to Austrian economists. Now, of course, you could say that econometrics is unable to capture any of the insights that Austrian economics tends to emphasize, and perhaps you could make a convincing case for this. But, in order to make such a case one would have to acquaint themselves with the literature at the very least.
In order to go further into this point I think I’d need to go into a deeper discussion of methodology, which I don’t feel like doing. Not in this topic at least. But if you really don’t think that there are any mainstream, theoretical contributions that would make Austrian economics richer (and more importantly, that you, somebody who has no training in economics) then I think that’s a little closed minded.
History of thought is a tricky subject, I’m not sure you could define Austrian economics in such a way as to include economists that be identified, by themselves and others, as Austrians. Personally I think it’s more helpful to focus on what is special about “Austrian economics” and to include those economists who emphasise such aspects as being “Austrian”, but even this is tricky sometimes. At the end of the day, labels are just labels and often divide people unnecessarily.
There’s been a whole lot of works in the Austrian tradition, and as an economics student I’ve been taught to always think about the margin. So I can tell you particular works in the “Austrian” tradition that I think meet all three conditions and other works that meet none of them. Think Hoppe for the latter category, Hayek for the former.
But without reading his book and his arguments in favour of such a way of thinking, how can you presume competence in judging this?
Well, one might have presumed that the former was the result of the latter. But perhaps you don’t need to read a thinker to know if he’s correct, just Rothbard’s opinion of him.
wrong
I thought this article of his was actually pretty funny:
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 2, 2009
Now, of course, you could say that econometrics is unable to capture any of the insights that Austrian economics tends to emphasize, and perhaps you could make a convincing case for this. But, in order to make such a case one would have to acquaint themselves with the literature at the very least.
Do I have to acquaint my self with the Bible to know whether it can help me build a bridge that doesn’t collapse?
The problem with one word answer is that even for the most competent speakers of English, they leave little room for any elaboration. Now, of course, you’re quite a verbose writer anyway, so I’m not sure what you hope to achieve with a one word answer when you have trouble getting your point across in short essays.
Now, this is my roundabout way of asking you to elaborate because I’m not really sure what you mean. Perhaps you’re making the trivial point that the facts don’t speak for themselves and we can never interpret history “objectively” without the use of some sort of theory. If you are, well then I agree, but then so would just about every economic scientist.
But other than that I’m not really sure what you mean, Austrian economists have always emphasized, to one degree or another, the distinction between theory and history. Perhaps your interpretation of a priorism is a good way of doing theory, I don’t think so. But presumably we should be able to agree that there is a distinct field of economic history and other sorts of empirical work for which certain tools are necessary.
Loose analogies and sloganeering don’t make for productive discussion. If that’s what you really want to do then be my guest, but I won’t be getting involved. The fact of the matter is that the analogy doesn’t hold, the Bible doesn’t purport to explain bridge construction, and few (no?) Biblical scholars would ever say such a thing. However, many (all?) of statisticians and econometricians believe that there are various econometric tools that can help us understand the real world and do empirical work. I’m not saying that this makes them correct, just that it’s a good reason to actually do the research and stop the knee jerk reaction against econometrics.
Many private firms demand employees with training in econometrics, by the way.
Seriously, it’s a good thing that Austrians are open minded and don’t disparage important fields of research as mere “sociology” that doesn’t quite qualify as “actual economic theory”, because then they’d look just like just like the mainstream that they criticise for just that reason!
You become a loon when you start challenging the mainstream of over 20 years ago and pretending that you’re relevant, like GE and Keynesian theory.
Never happened to me, turns out a little politeness goes a long way. Who’d have thought?
No. The problem is that this has been addressed to you many times before. I don’t even know if you know what an axiom is yet.
great. then we agree in name only, because I don’t know if we’re giving the same meanings to the same words in these sentences here of yours. And where mainstream economists (ones that end up getting jobs at the Fed. or Bank of England for instance) go wrong is their assumptions being math based. There are no constants in human action that can be quantified.
Yet that is basically a tangent because it doesn’t address your not knowing what aprior means. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of links introduced to you before on it’s definition so why should I bother?