Hi people. I am doing my Masters degree in Economic History at the London School of Economics. I have a full-unit dissertation thesis of 10,000 words that has to be submitted at the fag end of this academic year; and I am supposed to start discussing potential research topics (with my academic advisor) in economic history starting now. The advisor is pretty open with the range of topics, and is quite welcoming.
As an Austrian myself, I would like to hear serious suggestions from you people about some interesting topics in economic history, from the austrian perspective.
Thank you!
That's quite a prestigeous title you're going for there, I'd love to help!
I assume the thesis has to be not on debates in/the history of economic thought but instead economic event in history?
Something on economic cycles before central banking might not be a bad idea. According to Thomas Woods, there remains a lot of work to be done by Austrians in this area, at least insofar as US history is concerned.
You might also do a short history of modern trade from a free market point of view, to counter Ha Joon-Chang, Noam Chomsky, Pat Buchanan, et al, who say that developed nations grew properous only because they rigorously protected their industries.
What about the origins of money? David Graeber's book argues that systems of trust-based credit, not barter, preceeded commodity money as a medium of exchange, which itself was used prominently in times of state violence. An Austrian counter or reinterpretation might be useful.
I would personally really like to see a libertarian take on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. All the literature I've seen on it has a strong statist bias (as does most history, in fact). In my history class, this was the big stick with which laissez-faire was beaten; we can't have a free market, just look at how many people died before labour laws! Someone on these forums was speculating that the only reason the owners moved to a loft was because regulations increased the costs of working in factories. If you could look up old newspapers and read the court documents and provide a scholarly undergirding for this view, that would be a great achievement for our side.
Also, why not submit your work to the Review of AE or the Quarterly Journal of AE when you're done?
What areas of history are you most familiar with? It seems to me that where Austrians have written on history, it has mostly been on American history. I think something on early modern/'industrial' Europe (or Britain) would be very welcome. At note 13 on p. 613 of the Scholar's Edition of Human Action, Mises talks about how the process towards the methods of production that characterise the free market developed over centuries, rather than some epoch-making 'Industrial Revolution'. Perhaps you could focus on this development. I know this is not a new issue, but you could give an Austrian perspective that focuses on the capital structure and the price system as a means of rational calculation - as well as looking further back in time than many accounts of the so-called 'Industrial Revolution'.
I would take a look at David Graeber's recent book and refute it line by line. You could do this by doing an economic history of the Mediterannean and especially of Tyre and Carthage.
The Triangle shirtwaist idea is pretty good.
I in general would like to see work showing that the Gilded Age was not really laissez-faire, with a lot of government aid to businesses.
I am guessing Standard Oil or some of the big railroads would be good targets. Dig up documents and show the subsidies and privileges they received.
It's quite laughable that a masters student at the London School of Economics is asking for thesis ideas on a message board only a couple of steps above Yahoo answers.
Dude, get your shit together and do your own research.
Have you considered taking an austrian apporach to the economic history of the Ottoman Empire/Turkey? I've personally always been interested in charity institutions within the Ottoman Empire such as the Waqf (sp?).
@Claudis
We certainly have some novinces on the forum, myself included. However last I checked we have an abundant number of individuals here with economic degrees. This is hardly a place just barely above yahoo answers.
Rothbards book about the depression ends in 1932, maybe you could continue from there.
or about did ww2 "end" the great depression.
And what interests me a lot, did nazi germany's dictatorship improve the economy there?
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
I would like to see a full explaination of the industrial revolution in England. Nobody has yet produced a satisfying answer and its the most important event in history. Hoppe and Clark have both shown that a number of factors were necessary, but none of them, by themselves, sufficient. That would be my first choice.
My second choice would be explaining China's industrial revolution which only really started in the 1970s.
The fertility decline in the West is another possibility.
I personally think taking on the so-called "economic anthropologists" would be more interesting and is much more important.
Neodoxy, thanks. Topics that link the history of economic thought with economic history are acceptable.
Tunk & Porco Rosso, can you guys tell me more on literature I could refer to in the attempt to rebut Graeber? Carl Menger's original work, and references to the same in works of Mises and others is what I've come across. Is the scope of the topic any wider? Also tell me about literature related to the Triangle shirtwaist.
Aristippus, the issue of what caused the Industrial revolution is something very closely related to the research interests of the professors here as well. Should be a cool thing to add to it. Guide me with the literature as much as you can. Looking forward.
Wheylous, Tom di Lorenzo's should be my first step towards research on the Gilded age, I suppose?
Claudius, I don't find anything laughable about this. LvMI has contributed a lot to my intellectual development. That includes this very message-board.
Michelangelo, I don't have much interest with the middle-east really. Thanks for your suggestion still.
Stephen, please guide me on works related to research on the Industrial revolution. Which works of Hoppe and Clark in particular deal with the topic?
Well The Phoenicians and the West is a fairly interesting book. The author of that books shows that markets and the kinds of things that Graeber talks about have coeisted throughout history while Graeber says there has NEVER been a society based on barter. I mean that claim is ludicrous to begin with and that's what needs to be refuted really.
Here's one place to start
http://www.libertarianstandard.com/2011/09/14/on-the-austrian-theory-of-money-a-reply-to-david-graeber/
Or you could write about how economic socialism necessitates totalitarianism, and draw from the experiences of several countries. George Reisman has a good talk on this as a starting point.
The big areas of interest these days seem to be development economics and globalization. There are a lot of topics out there. Like someone said, you could counter Ha Joon Chang. George Reisman also has a great article on this http://mises.org/daily/2361 It would be up to you to dig up the specific historical facts.The recent steps toward deregulation in India are topical.
I don't know what can safely be studied at the London School of Economics. If economics is anything like philosophy, my field, then certain topics are just not going to get approved. And sometimes they'll approve something they hate, but they'll tear it apart (in their own misguided way). You're probably always safe with public choice theory, but that's boring.
Rothbard studied cycles in US and Huerta de Soto in Spain. If you want to be unique, study some British cycles.
Lorenzo has done some work on monopolies, including
The Myth of Natural Monopoly (how government created utility monopolies)
The Myth of Predatory Pricing (how illogical an untenable predatory pricing is)
The Ghost of John D. Rockefeller
Some more good info on monopolies:
AT&T (government-created monopoly)
Oil, Gas, and government (haven't read, but have seen referenced)
Standard Oil: A Centennial Evaluation (countering common critiques of Standard Oil, 4 part series, this is part III)
Pioneering in Big Business (review of Standard Oil, thick book, reading it now)
On the Gilded Age:
No Laissez Faire There
The Gilded Age: A Modest Revision
For more authors, this Freeman article says
... decades of research by Chicago school scholars such as the late Yale Brozen and Harold Demsetz, and Austrian school scholars such as Dominick Armentano, who have compiled thousands of pages of published, documented evidence of how antitrust regulation has been harmful to consumers and has impaired economic efficiency and reduced productivity.
The most influential works attempting to explain the industrial revolution published in recent times are:
Douglass North & Robert Thomas 1973, The Rise of the Western World - this focuses on institutions and transaction costs (also see other publications by North such as his 1981 work, Structure and Change in Economic History)
Gregory Clark 2007, A Farewell to Alms - this focuses on sociobiological factors
You should find a lot of the other important works you need to look at referred to in these two. Did you look at Mises' discussion of the Industrial Revolution and his argument that the idea of it as a 'revolution' is based on a Marxian/historicist view of history?
As mentioned earlier, Tom Woods (and others) have noted economic history is an area that is quite lacking. You might contact him, as well as Pete Boettke, Pete Leeson, Tom DiLorenzo, Joe Salerno, Bob Higgs, and Richard Ebeling.
Also just for fun,
A Reading List for Wannabe Economic Historians
Cornell U has a whole bunch of primary documents on the Triangle fire. Google has archived old newspapers. I've only done a superficial survey of the secondary literature so I can't really help with that.
Prashanth, if you do decide to write about the gilded age you've got to read Triumph of Conservatism and Railroads and Regulations by Gabriel Kolko. Triumph of conservatism is on the cusp of Gilded/Progressive but still offers great insight into the economic consensus of the time. Also how much of a bonehead Roosevelt was. Railroads and regulations I imagine will be more useful, but they're both well sourced and comprehensive works.
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
Today on the Mises Daily:
You're right. The radical idea that people who frequent a small Austrian economics forum might have legitimate research questions, laughable! He should be using only certain sources. All original research comes from one place and it's not the internet. You shouldn't open up a discussion to the public they are all ignorant masses.