Hello,
Here is my brief introduction. I'm Torsten and I'm an industrial community organizer in South Africa. At the moment I'm working on a project concerning building and construction. www.building-construction.co.za
My interests are philosophy, political economy and technology. I started this thread so everybody can give a brief introduction.
P.S. I see that the forum rules are objecting to links in the signature. Personally I only would like to give people an idea on what I'm doing. Could a moderator please advise me on this, whether it is OK to use this in the signature or not.
First post:
Hi, I'm Niels. I'm an atheist, buddhist, anarchist, determinist, thinker.
My name is Anthony Comegna and this is my first engagement with the Austrian community based at the Mises Institute, and therefore I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved with the Institute for all that they do. My stumbling upon the Mises Institute (doing research trying to find out who the heck this "Murray Rothbard" anarchist nut was!) was the most important event in my intellectual life. There's no turning back now!
I'm a sophomore at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, a Histroy (B.A.) major attempting to gain minors in philosophy, economics, and German studies. I founded and serve as president for the Shippensburg branch of Socrates Cafe, a philosophy club, and am now an avid reader of libertarian literature, especially history by Thomas Woods and (when I get my copy of "The Real Lincoln" in a couple days through the pathetic US postal system) Thomas DiLorenzo. My studies via the Mises Institute have mainly consisted of devouring the audio/visual media and slowly but surely making my way through the reading.
I'm a devoted anarcho-capitalist and argue my positions with practically all of my peers. I have finally begun to make some progress with them!
I would like to thank David Veksler for his tremendous vision in putting this together, and all to all who have contributed to so far. It will surely take a while to get going but there is great potential here. It would be nice if everyone can help in promoting this forum far and wide, particularly to other students.
My hope is that i can be involved in some way, and i must say that it really helps to have the topics fed to the front page, so that the forum is never far from people's minds.
A toast to a great future here!
Publisher, Laissez-Faire Books
Thanks Torsten for starting this thread, and thanks David for your work in getting this site started. Especially in a society so resilient to the ideas of liberty and freedom, it is a godsend to have a community of likeminded individuals to communicate with!
I'm Cris, a 23 year old college student. I'm currently in Chicago attending school, but I'm originally from Seattle and will return there in December--for good, at least until grad school. I've been an "Austrian" since 2004 when my wonderful economics teacher passively mentioned Mises in relation to Hayek and his somewhat anomolous Nobel Prize. Once I did some reading of Mises and Rothbard (and, to a lesser degree, Hayek), I was hooked.
I'm especially interested in the gold standard--which lead, perhaps unwisely, to me turning in a 14 page critique of the monetarist view on fiat currencies to my super-monetarist professor who had studied under more than one prominent monetarist at U Chicago. I'm also interested in the philosophy of freedom and liberty and those in direct opposition of said forces.
Looking forward to getting more involved in the community!
Cris
Hello!
Not my first post, more like the third, but I suppose an introduction is in order.
I'm currently majoring in Economics right now, after discovering it through Murray Rothbard. I read a few of his books as well as listening to much of the media available to me from the mises institute, I was hooked.
After choosing my major, I have become amazed at the bias colleges have in teaching Econ. But I wont stop throwing in the Austrian prespective whenever I can.
I hope to learn a lot through good conversation through this site, and look forward to our future interactions.
My name is Devin and I'm a freshman economics major at Loyola University New Orleans. The sole reason I came to Loyola University was because of Walter Block. Going to pretty much any other university and majoring in economics is like majoring in mathematics and the professors tell you that you can divide by zero. The economics establishment is just plain nonsense. I've been a libertarian/anarchist for about two years now, with much thanks to Hoppe.
Greetings. I am Anthony, a 21 year old South African market anarchist, currently studying Economics (2nd year) in the UK. I post quite a bit on the Austrian Forum (and on the Mises blog), so anyone from there who posts here should know me.
I used to be an avowed monarchist but after reading Dr Hoppe's "Democracy - the God that Failed" (in conjunction with Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness") I quickly became a fully-fledged "Austrian". I'm still an initiate in Austrian economics, but what I have read on it has made a great impression on me. I am particularly interested in its methodological leanings (which, for some unknown reason most people cannot comprehend and conflate with a complete rejection of empirical facts.) After coming into contact with Austrian economics, mainstream economics seems positively vacuous. I am currently divided between Objectivism and Rothbardian ethics (though I think Hoppe's Argumentation ethics might render both superfluous.)
I'm glad this site exists as it is nearly impossible to find any committed libertarians where I am studying (aside from my Hayekian economics professor), and even less likely that I should find anyone with which I am able to discuss Austrian econ and political economy. Look forward to future discussions with you guys.
If you desire to become an Economist, a Masters would be an excellent idea. It'll give you an understanding of what the Austrian School is up against, and where there are possibilities for "bridging" (e.g. Public Choice & Austrian econ.) As long as you're willing to educate yourself on Austrian economics, it should work well. The fact that you have a degree in Physics might also help you appreciate methodological issues better.
Since introductions are in order, I am Mark, and my day job is managing Unix systems. I am a long-time classical liberal with interests in philosophy (specifically epistimology), theology, and obviously politics and economics. I am primariliy an auto-didact on these topics, with much thanks being owed to the usual suspects for their time spent in writing down the information I have consumed.
I'd like to echo the thanks of others in this thread for putting this together. I am also involved in our local efforts in support of the Ron Paul campaign, and one of the things I and my little cell of Classical Liberals have realized is that there are a lot more liberty-minded individuals than we realized - we just never managed to reach out to each other. (Our cynicism probably worked against us here.)
Setting up such an obvious central location for discussion and contact is potentially a huge boost to making sure we keep perspective and in contact.
Hello everyone. My name is Justin and I've been visiting Mises.org for some time now. I'm a 20 year old student at UMBC and was first introduced to Austrian economics at the community college I used to attend. I guess I'm an agnostic and enjoy all kinds of history. This site is awesome and I want to thank everyone who made it possible.
I am a 22 yr old business economics major at Boise State University in Boise Idaho, USA. I used to be an ad hoc theo-con, but after a deployment to Afghanistan with the Army left me looking for answers, I found that the Austro-libertarians had the consistency I was looking for. I am in the process of organizing a libertarian student group at Boise State, and an active supporter of Ron Paul.
If you want to know my philosophical perspective, I am a Christian Anarcho-Capitalist.
I'm a Christian anarcho-capitalist. My politics, my economics, and my faith all converged last year when I came to believe that the reason the free market and lack of government interference always seemed to work out so well was because God ordained the free market when He commanded "Thou Shalt Not Steal." I don't believe in governing or judging other people at all, and I'm working to persuade people to discontinue their support of government interference in everything, believing that in all cases the free market is capable of better providing for human needs and wants. I'm slowly educating myself in economics and am amazed at how principles of human action are so universally applicable.
I'm married with four children, the youngest two being twins. My wife was homeschooled and is just as much of a Christian anarcho-capitalist as I am. Our children will also be homeschooled, of course. :) I work as a programmer in North Texas. My lingua franca is Perl. :)
I blog at http://voiceofjohn.blogspot.com/ . In a recent post I listed several newsfeeds I've created from various libertarian or anarcho-capitalist or similar websites: http://voiceofjohn.blogspot.com/2007/09/libertarian-newsfeeds.html
Hi, I am also a Christian libertarian and aspiring amateur Austrian! Actually, I'm an graduate student in engineering... It's great to see Mises.org expand into this sort of online community. I'm looking forward to seeing things take off!
Visit my blog: http://libertarianchristians.com.
Re: the idea of getting a Masters degree in Economics.
There are some universities where the scope of discourse in economics is a bit wider than is typical. The best example is probably George Mason, which has some explicitly Austrian people, and some people who take Mises' methodology with a grain of salt but would agree with him on most actual economics, as well as a bunch of (very good) public choicers and experimentalists who are in their own ways at odds with the standard puzzle-solving paradigm of equilibrium models and linear regressions. Read for instance Bryan Caplan's Why I am not an Austrian economist carefully (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/whyaust.htm) and you'll find that Dr Caplan is intimately familiar with Mises and Rothbard, understands them, and criticizes them on particular points. If you want your "school" to be perceived as a real scientific enterprise, and not as a Human Action-thumping cult, you should love to engage people like Dr Caplan. Or for that matter, James Buchanan, a nobel-prize winning economist whose theories about government and bureaucracy, even if the upshot is contractarian, can be read as deeply subversive.
Caplan and Buchanan have certainly provided Dr Block with ample activity.
Hi everyone,
I'm an evangelical christian and free market anarchist (though I favour the term agorarchy which literally translates as market rule). I am heading into my final year of "economics" at Cardiff University, Wales. My main interests are philosophy mainly rationalist epistemology and political, theology and economics; I am greatly interested in natural law hence my forum name. Other less scholastic interests include music (classical and modern), classic cinema and literature, football (soccer) and Doctor Who.
The atoms tell the atoms so, for I never was or will but atoms forevermore be.
Yours sincerely,
Physiocrat
Hi,
I am a computer software developer living in Devon, England.
I have no formal economics education. I am just someone who has developed a passing interest in economics and in particular the Austrian School.
I simply want to learn all about it!
Might as well introduce myself.
I flew in from austrianforums.com, and boy are my arms tired (ba-dum ching). Either way, I'm a math undergrad at ISU in Iowa, U.S..
Not much else to say.
Latest Projects
"Even when leftists talk about discrimination and sexism, they're damn well talking about the results of the economic system" ~Neodoxy
My name is Marc, I am 27 years old and have a B.S. in business management and currently operating an excavating company. I have been converted from a conservitive to an anrcho-capitalist. I always felt uneasy about being a conservative, it seemed that there were to many holes to hold a philosophy together. I came across the Mises institute 6 months ago, but was reading Mises, Hayek and Rothbard a year prior to this glorious discovery. I discovered Hayek via reading Sowell, and discovered Mises from reading Hayek. It is hard not to discover Rothbard once you begin reading Mises.
Hi All - nice forum! Based on the comments, I'm assuming it's pretty new?
My name is Dave, I own a small business in the manufacturing sector for just about 2 1/2 years now. I graduated with an MBA in '95 and felt like I didn't know anything, so I went on a self directed learning program over the last 12 years, studying management theory via the school of Dr. W. Edwards Deming and his disciples, then moving on into complexity science and self organizing systems.
My long-held stand against bureaucracy and top-down planning, coupled with my studies in systems theory, made me a natural for the Austrian school. I discovered Murray Rothbard first, and have just been enamored with his disdain of everything government. My screen name (EotS) is in honor of Rothbard, Enemy of the State.
I'm against all forms of socialism and everything that threatens individual liberty. I'm very concerned about the slippery slope of socialist thinking here in the US, and am educating myself to fight it. The Founders were prescient when they warned us to be aware of "all enemies, foreign and domestic."
The aspiration toward freedom is the most essentially human of all human manifestations. -Eric Hoffer
EotS:I'm assuming it's pretty new?
My name is already featured.I'm a Catholic and devout to the church, but my spirituality is much more reformed than I'm sure most of the cardinals would care to hear of.
I'm an Anarchist specifically working in the Agorist, left-libertarian framework. I reject all small statists that call themselves libertarians and merely refer to them as paleocons.
I live on site. I do not typically like to stay in one place at any given time, even as a child I would move around living with my mother, my father, my grandparents, or cousins by choice - not by force of law. I'm not looking to put roots down anywhere and I am not looking to conform or run with the status quo in anyway, I'm looking to overthrow it.If you want to contact me - specifically if you live in the Northern Illinois/Chicago area - email me at niccolo_adami@yahoo.com Hope to hear from you about organizing study groups/austrian clubs/agorist chapters.
The Origins of Capitalism
And for more periodic bloggings by moi,
Leftlibertarian.org
heh - I'm a member of the Mises Institute, but did not even realize I was on a .com instead of the .org.
Cool beans.
Howdy - I'm just a tractor saleman approaching the half century mark.
Once apon a time I majored in agricultural economics and thought there was something wrong with my money and banking professor.
I enjoy reading and free thinking. Kind of odd for for an old-time Lutheran....well, not exactly....without the concepts of grace and forgiveness there would be no concept of freedom which is liberty under law.
I'm working on my memoirs - "Village Idiot, Man or Myth" and a nifty new recepie book "Cat From Scratch: Kitty Cuisine or Nine Lives to Sunday Dinner".
I also have some useful inventions made from those free AOL CD's you get in the mail......
"Oh, I wish I could pray the way this dog looks at the meat" - Martin Luther
Hello everyone! I am a professional poker player / amateur author from Ontario, Canada and I am an anarcho-capitalist / libertarian activist.
... just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own - Albert Jay Nock
I'm a mechanical engineer, specializing in rolling stock, in Newcastle, Australia. Our company has close ties to GE in Erie, and we do the "odd jobs" that come up that don't fit into GE's cookie-cutter style production line. So, we are making locos with GE equipment for places like Kazakhstan, Egypt, Tibet (Western China), Thailand etc. Keeps things interesting.
Not an economist, obviously, but have studied all of LVM's books, most of Hayek and many others. Can't abide Rothbard, though.
Good day.
I am an anti-authoritarian. I hate being told what to do, and don't like telling people what to do.
I am 32, and a new student. I am now also a new homeschooler. My gratitude to the resource of this institute can not be quantified. So far, my favorite lesson was at the end of Middle of the Road Policy Leads to Socialism. That is not to be anti-socialist, or anti- communist, but to be pro the only system that has been proven to provide the most peace, prosperity, and individual liberty. I have found that Hermetics lead me to the false methodology of polylogism. I was previously very axiomatic. I am glad to of learned from Hazlitt that causality goes beyond it's immediate and long term effects. Before finding this school I believed that liberty takes responsibility, and when one fails to act responsible one loses liberty. It has given me a great since of hope that I am not the only one crying out to wilfully ignorant ears.
Individualism Rocks
Brett, what don't you like about Rothbard? I've only read some of his works, but what I've read of liked. I prefer his student, Hoppe, though.
"It has given me a great since of hope that I am not the only one crying out to wilfully ignorant ears."
Now, my bread aint riz higher'n anothern's but if truth was yeast they's a bunch out ther eatin' crackers!