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?
I don't know where you are looking, but Canada is #2 on Mises.org . I'm Dutch fyi.
Mises.org traffic details http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/25418.aspx
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.
Likely a combination of the following (in order of importance):
1. The USA is by far the largest native English-speaking nation.
2. The USA has the most significant classical liberal/libertarian/free market tradition.
3. The Mises Institute is in the USA and therefore focuses a lot on domestic issues on its blog etc This could be how many find the site, through links.
1. 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).
2. 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.
3. 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...
1. Still, 330 million people fluent in English in the USA is more than in Europe. But as you say, this is only one factor.
2. 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.
3. 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.
Praetyre: 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.
The problem with Europeans is twofold.
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.
Praetyre:1. 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).
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?
2. 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.
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.
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.
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'.
I've actually long though the Mises Institute needs a whole new area devoted to European and Asian issues.
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.
Mises Global
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.
Europe was a birthplace for libertarian ideas.
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.
Clayton -
My theory:
1) Language
2) Mises Institute is in America USA™
3) Ron Paul
Also, what numbers are you using?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
To put it simply, there is no demand for the message of Mises Institute in Europe. Some random Scandinavians are a funny expection.
What about Spain?
Again, a look at all the countires that have Mises Institutes might be relevant.
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).
@Praetyre,
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
Be responsible, ease suffering; spay or neuter your pets.
We must get them to understand that government solutions are the problem!
There seems to be quite a few Austrian scholars in Spain, but Spain in general is not a country really open to libertarian ideas.
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 .
Pretty much all of the mainstream US media, with the exception of Fox and other Murdoch empire assets, is left as well. Newspapers are a bit more evenly divided, since, like blogs, they are much cheaper to set up than massive news networks, (and thus swing and red states get a higher chance of representation than they do in the coastal, limousine liberal areas like the Mid-Atlantic and Southern California that dominate big money media) but the really big ones, like the NYT, are center left. Overall, I'd place most US media between the dot in this image next to USMSM and the middle of the last "M", with NPR/MSNBC/PBS most left and CNN most right:
"There seems to be quite a few Austrian scholars in Spain, but Spain in general is not a country really open to libertarian ideas."
Now, I don't live in Spain or anything, but I'm assuming by libertarian you mean Austrians and not libertarian broadly defined.
Lol, should Fox nnot be in like the very center of that box? There are liberals like Geraldo Rivera and co on the network. "Traditionalist" like O Reilly on the network as well. And above all else libertarians like John Stossel and Judge Andrew Nepalatano ( or how ever its spelled). Neocons like Hannity and a bunch of other people whom don't seem to have any affiliation at all. It's a pretty mixed up network.
Liberals on Fox seem chiefly to be there as token opposition, so to speak. It's to the American Right what the New York Times is to the American Left, or what Le Monde and The Guardian (and BBC) are respectively to the French and British Left. O'Reilly is probably closest to where I place Pat Buchanan here, though obviously a few squares more authoritarian. And the purple side of the chart is pretty much nonexistant for anybody but the Cosmotarians and this guy. Ron Paul is slightly above the centre and two squares away from full right, so Napolitano would probably be about the same, though maybe a bit lower due to his focus on civil liberties. Stossel would be pretty similar.
Yes I'd like to know where that chart comes from and how it was created. I'd love to know what it means that Reason is farther right than Fox.
I created it using this tool, based on my own observations and experience with various news outlets. Largely, it was just for fun, but I did try and put some serious analysis to it. The reason (hah!) Reason is to the right (which, keep in mind, is defined in purely economic terms in the Political Compass) of Fox is sort of a gut feeling based on what I've read from it and Cato, as well as the fact it tends to focus more on fiscal issues when it's not hawking cosmo stuff like marijuana. It's pretty close to Chicago-school style reformism in this regard. I might be wrong though, not being a regular reader, and I've certainly read some appallingly statements from senior Cato staff that make me regret this ranking.
Well first of all, I obviously don't have to bring up the unscientific nature of the way that chart came about, but I also feel the chart is misleading. I'm not exactly sure how someone could be on the very bottom or very top and still have room to be far right or far left. I mean, what would be the difference between someone in the bottom right corner and the bottom left corner?
I think the Nolan Chart is a much better orientation.
I've tried to embed this a few times, but haven't had any luck:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/nolan_chart.png
IMAGE
Well, I don't see how The Economist (or WSJ) can be more libertarian than Takimag. The Economist is pro-Empire and for killing people in foreign countries. Takimag has a peace and freedom foreign policy outlook. And they are paleocons - for low taxes, gun freedom, no anti-smoking laws, an end to the Patriot act etc.
O'Reilly is probably closest to where I place Pat Buchanan here, though obviously a few squares more authoritarian.
Why is FDR so much more libertarian than Mussolini and Pinochet? Why is Putin more authoritharian than any contemporary Western leader? Why are Clinton and Carter so libertarian? Seriously, Jimmy Carter more libertarian than Milton Friedman??
The Nolan Chart is good for what it does, but it's based on 6 questions, not 60 (admittedly, the Compass has some silly ones about abstract art and astrology). It doesn't really show the nuances of politics, nor does it account for political models outside of the US model (for instance, where would Ralph Nader sit? Or Nicolas Sarkozy? Or Tony Blair?) with a token "bottom" category for the budding Stalinists among us. The bottom left of the PC would be anarcho-communism. Kevin Carson and the Mutualists would probably fall there. The purple area seems to exist solely to fill out the chart. I can't find anybody, of any persuasion, who seems to fit deep in it. The wording suggests anarcho-capitalists, but even Ron Paul fits just above the middle line and far to the right. There's certainly significant philosophical, historical and structural differences between, say, Mikhail Bakunin and Murray Rothbard, for instance.
FDR: How was he more authoritarian (keep in mind that in the political compass, left and right are solely economic questions) than them? Mussolini had his henchmen force feed people castor oil, and Pinochet massacred by the hundreds in soccer stadiums. The worst FDR did in the non-economic field was Japanese internment and court-packing, unless there's something I'm missing. He certainly wasn't obsessed with smoking bans, social engineering and multiculturalism like the modern left.
Putin: You're from Russia, so you undoubtedly know more about this than I do, but isn't Putin basically an oligarch who regularily whacks his opponents with the polonium stick? On the chart I have depicting US political figures, Lincoln comes far higher than Putin, and on this chart (depicting my perception of the approximate political "center" in various countries), several Western countries equal or even exceed Putin's authoritarianism.
Clinton/Carter: Both seem a bit more liberal and easygoing than the modern left, which is more obsessed with the aforementioned social engineering than they seemed to be. Carter was, frankly, too ineffectual to enact much authoritarian measures, and apart from Janet Reno, nothing jumps to mind that Clinton did on the national level that wasn't just continuing the policies of his predecessors. Also, the authoritarian/libertarian spectrum isn't so straightforward as it seems. People on the lower side of the chart may actually be more authoritarian in "real" terms than people on the upper or middle sides, such as Ron Paul with Reason. It generally suggests a sort of easygoing cosmopolitanism as well as political policy, and while Obama and Blair's authoritarianism are sufficient to crowd out their cosmo cred, Clinton and Carter's (IMHO) aren't.
Friedman: I'm actually convinced I've put him a bit too far to the right, and he should instead be a square or two right of Thatcher. His differences with Ron Paul, for instance, are much more pronounced than current charts would indicate. He seemed more the "efficiency technician", as Rothbard called him, while Carter was just, as above, ineffectual.
I see now, the description says Social Libertarian / Social Authoritarian. That is different. I see where they are coming from. Albeit realistically today Social Liberals are just as preachy and thirsty for control and influence as Social Conservatives are, only their material is different.
Is the left right axis economic freedom ? If so it is pretty telling that The Economist is more left than Fox.
Yes it is. Keep in mind it's only my own, personal assessment, and I have no formal training in political science nor media studies. That said, the Economist is ranked where it is...
On the social scale: Because, although it is only occasional, you are still more likely to find arguments against the drug war than you are in most mainstream media outside of borderline far-leftist outlets like the Guardian or Die Tageszeitung, which, ironically, condemn the Economist as a tool of international banking, which they mistakenly believe is the agent and executor of the free market.
On the economic scale: As LeeO describes in this thread (and I can vouch for him given my admittedly limited reading of the Economist and the cultural/sociopolitical "tone" it and it's staff and affiliaties give off), the Economist chiefly reflects a form of centrist Keynesian (or more properly, Modern Keynesian-Neoclassical synthesis) internationalism more bound to a utilitarian "efficiency technician" role than the quasireligious Pietism of social democracy reflected in most establishment non-Eastern European media. Fox, and the rest of the Murdoch empire in general, is more bound to a rightist form of cultural conservatism combined with promotion of American exceptionalism as conducive to Western interests, and effectively acts as the mouthpiece of the US Republican Party, which holds similar principles. Keynesian internationalism is far less popular in the US than it is in Europe, given America still retains a strong nationalistic temperament and has not yet been subjugated to an international domineering entity like the UN, EU or the hypothetical North American Union, though Progressive Rooseveltian thought is undoubtedly it's ideological progenitor. I suspect the Economist also reflects a Fox like role towards the London School of Economics.
I mean broad libertarianism: pro-market, small government.
Speaking as someone from the UK, that had a tradition of free markets but that has been quite heavilly eroded, I can say that libertarian/free market ideas are so far outside of the general mind set as to seem completely looney and extreme by the vast majority of people here. Holding these beliefs myself it can often be quite difficult and infuriating trying to explain my point of view to others.
I only became exposed to it through the internet and stumbling upon sites like these and getting involved in conversations on line. There's virtually zero likelyhood of encountering advocates of these ideas from the people you meet.
I guess time may tell and I think that the current financial crisis has re-awoken some interest in alternative economic schools of thought such as Austrian. Indeed, there is a radio programme to be broadcast shortly re-examining the old Keynes vs. Hayek debate and asking which of these would have been best able to sort out the current mess. It's a small start but hopefully you will eventually see more British (and other non-US) people appearing on these boards...
Allright guys. I lived in Europe and attended as a guest, not a student a few law classes in Trier. Germany has a Civil Law system. No Juries, and you must have law school to become a judge, and then be selected by a panel to sit the bench.
From those two that I did attend, I gleaned the following. Liberty is taught extensively as a failed experiment, so is Communism. Social Democracy is the Utopia In fact the courts are not even considered part of the government. They are what a Roman would call a Tribune.
My guess is that by the time anyone finds Mises, Rothbard, etc... They already know it is a failed experiment, and are just waiting for it to fail so Liberty advocates will come around to the enlightened ideas of social democracy.
Positive rights are the keystone to their political philsophies.
Criminals, there ought to be a law.
Criminals there ought to be a whole lot more. Bon Scott.
I thought so, because from my understanding there is quite an Anarchist movement in Spain.
Praetyre:The Nolan Chart is good for what it does, but it's based on 6 questions, not 60...
Seriously? You can create as many questions as you want. I'm just talking about the orientation of the chart itself. Again, if you want to use your chart, what is the difference between someone who is in the bottom left corner and the bottom right corner?
The purple area seems to exist solely to fill out the chart. I can't find anybody, of any persuasion, who seems to fit deep in it.
I don't know what this is supposed to mean. There is no purple anywhere on the chart I posted, and you put two organizations in the purple that appears on your chart.
It's an anarcho-syndicalist movement that is based on the same biases as the communist movement. It's a rejection of capitalism, not only because they equate capitalism with corporate welfare, but also because they see the capitalist system (profit) as unjust. I think these anarcho-syndicalists would rather prefer a communist government than an anarchy characterized by unfettered capitalism.
"I think these anarcho-syndicalists would rather prefer a communist government than an anarchy characterized by unfettered capitalism."
Well, once again, I don't live in Spain so I can't speak too accurately to the thoughts of the movement there, but judging from the Anarchist movements I am quite familiar with I'm not sure that assessement is true. And activist circles today tend to be highly communicative. Greek Anarchists, for example, are seeking to overthrow a very socialist government, and they have certainly earned the support of Spanish Anarchists.
Regardless, I still understand why the libertarians in Spain aren't exactly drawn to this forum.