Of course I understand the argument for being familiar with the other side (aka “what else is out there”), as this is not a new argument by any stretch. But as I said elsewhere, I liken the suggestion of learning the kind of modern macro taught in most classrooms to studying how to cut and splice physical celluloid film, or reading science books from the 1920s…so that you can “fully appreciate” how far we’ve come and “understand the foundations” or some other nonsense like that.
Yes, it is helpful to understand a lot of mainstream macro, if for no other reason than that’s what so much of the world’s policy is rationalized by (despite the nonsense that it is), and of course most micro is essential…but those are generally concepts that will be included in any Austrian analysis (e.g. law of supply and demand, law of unintended consequences, etc.) But to try to claim that someone should waste a considerable amount of time learning that the universe revolves around the Earth, just because that’s what a lot of other people believe…or that you should dedicate scores of hours schlepping through The General Theory and other incomprehensible tomes so that you might better learn the foundations behind the mathematization of government regulation and useless concepts like GDP and CPI, just because that’s the way economics is currently done by the mainstream, is rediculous.
There is something to be said with being at least somewhat familiar with the opposing side’s view…but I’m not about to dedicate any time reading The Flat Earth Society handbook.