Rooster:Since Mises was not an anarchist, isn't he also a crank then?
Where Mises saw the possibility of the market providing, he supported the market. He didn't support a state alternative over a market one.
Anarchism in Austrianism is a relatively new evolution. I don't think bringing up Mises' time working for the Austrian government, or his time in Vienna is particularly relevant post-Rothbard. There are a good number of principled Austrians who do not take government money where they can help it. LvMI, a privately funded institution, seems to be the bastion of these folks.
For sure, others claim to do work under the Austrian banner while receiving state funds procured under threat of violence. As pure scientists, economic scientists, surely they must recognize the contradiction in preferring the state over the market, particularly if they are Austrians. They must accept that their own research is being conducted inefficiently. I don't think Mises would have disagreed with this premise.
I'm guessing you're going to ignore this (although I wish you wouldn't), but for any interest third parties, I'll post my thoughts.
liberty student:Where Mises saw the possibility of the market providing, he supported the market. He didn't support a state alternative over a market one.
But this is no different from many other economists who see the market failing in various regards. The difference is that these economists see market failure as being more widespread than Mises did. Now, I don't see why Mises should get a free pass whereas they other economists are held accountable to the extent of being called "cranks" and "hacks". If you really wish to call them that, that's OK, but you'd probably be better to provide some sort of scientific criteria for doing so.
liberty student: I don't think bringing up Mises' time working for the Austrian government, or his time in Vienna is particularly relevant post-Rothbard. There are a good number of principled Austrians who do not take government money where they can help it. LvMI, a privately funded institution, seems to be the bastion of these folks. For sure, others claim to do work under the Austrian banner while receiving state funds procured under threat of violence. As pure scientists, economic scientists, surely they must recognize the contradiction in preferring the state over the market, particularly if they are Austrians.
I don't think bringing up Mises' time working for the Austrian government, or his time in Vienna is particularly relevant post-Rothbard. There are a good number of principled Austrians who do not take government money where they can help it. LvMI, a privately funded institution, seems to be the bastion of these folks.
For sure, others claim to do work under the Austrian banner while receiving state funds procured under threat of violence. As pure scientists, economic scientists, surely they must recognize the contradiction in preferring the state over the market, particularly if they are Austrians.
Why is it not relevant post Rothbard? Look, by your own standards in order to avoid being called a crank, Mises should have realised that the state is not necessary whatsoever. He didn't, just like many other economists don't. But even by your own standards your argument falls short of the mark, the government of Austria was not the minimal state that Mises proposed when he worked for it. So you're left with the conclusion that one of the most influencial and profound defenders of the free market was unprincipled, I'm sorry, but I have to reject that.
Now, I don't see why Austrians working for the government makes them unprincipled in the slightest. For somebody to call themself an Austrian, I'd say that all they need to demonstrate is some understanding of the teachings of Menger, Bohm Bawerk, Hayek and especially Mises (as well as others such as Kirzner, Rothbard etc.). But none of this entails the value judgement that "government is bad". The belief that government is immoral and illegitimate is one held by libertarians, who often happen to be Austrian economists. But there is no a priori reason that they need be. Roger Koppl and Ludwig Lachmann are clearly Austrians, I don't think either of them would consider themselves to be libertarians.
Austrian economics can show the nature of the market system and government intervention, the desirability of either of them is up to libertarian political philosophy.
liberty student:They must accept that their own research is being conducted inefficiently. I don't think Mises would have disagreed with this premise.
I do, Mises was a strict advocate of value freedom in economic science, following Max Weber in this regard. Mises believed that in economic discourse only means should be discussed, now, what does this mean if not that any appeal to efficiency violates value freedom.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Can we start another thread regarding this topic? I would, but I'm having issues with the web site, and the only submission method that is working for me is the "Quick Reply" function. I tried, but failed, to start a new thread entitled "Does State Sponsorship Corrupt Economic Science?" with the following OP:
I'm starting this thread, because this question has come up frequently in other threads, and I think it very much deserves its own home.
I'm not prepared to offer a full argument here, but I do agree with liberty student that the answer to the question of this thread is "yes".
In lieu of a full argument, I'll just offer the following important, if non-conclusive, historical notes:
While the Austrian "Austrians" did serve as bureaucrats, the Austrian state did not seem to be as involved in the University of Vienna as the German Empire was in the University of Berlin. The former was the cradle of the Austrian School, and the latter was the cradle of the German Historical School, which in turn gave rise to American Institutionalism. I'd be surprised if anyone here has much favorable to say about the last two economic schools. Also the leader of the second generation of Historical School members, Gustav von Schmoller, thought himself as leading the "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern." The modern PhD was born in Berlin, and its rise in America coincided with the rise of the statism of the Progressive Movement and the push for government positions for academics.
I was actually in the middle of splitting the original thread. :p
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
- Edmund Burke
ignore
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
GilesStratton: Austrian economics can show the nature of the market system and government intervention, the desirability of either of them is up to libertarian political philosophy.
What nature of market system and government intervention does Austrian economics abstract?
Lilburne:While the Austrian "Austrians" did serve as bureaucrats, the Austrian state did not seem to be as involved in the University of Vienna as the German Empire was in the University of Berlin. The former was the cradle of the Austrian School, and the latter was the cradle of the German Historical School, which in turn gave rise to American Institutionalism. I'd be surprised if anyone here has much favorable to say about the last two economic schools. Also the leader of the second generation of Historical School members, Gustav von Schmoller, thought himself as leading the "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern."
What came first? Just because the German Historicists were the self-proclaimed "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern" does not mean that they were that because of Prussian - Hegel, and the right Hegelians championed the idea that the end of history was a state very similar to 1830s Prussia, thus influencing the German Historicists' staunch pro-Hohenzollern position. The philosophy that individuals have very much aids in the determination of their behavior, beliefs, and theories; politically, while the Austrians were influenced by the ideas of the Classical liberals, the Germans were influenced by the right Hegelians, thus explaining the differences between the two.
Lilburne: The modern PhD was born in Berlin, and its rise in America coincided with the rise of the statism of the Progressive Movement and the push for government positions for academics.
The rise of the PhD in America. Furthermore, the rise of the PhD has far more history than its German portion, and the fact that it is latin for PhilosophaeDoctor (doctor of philosophy) gives it a rich history in Scholastic thought as well, with the Spanish Scholastics forshadowing much of today's Neoclassical economics including the theory of subjective value, and a strong position against inflation.
In addition, one of the founders of the entire instituionalist school of thought and probably its most famous advocates, Thorstein Veblen, had a difficult staying in academia, which rejected much of his theories in favor of Neoclassical approaches.
Look, if you really wish to make the claim that the state corrupts science, it's not much to ask of you that you document such behaviour on behalf of the state. By which I mean you should be able to prove that the relevant department of government has passed some law or acted in another relevant manner that has caused research universities to skew their science towards statism. But, I don't see this as happening. The top department in the US for political philosophy is at U of Arizona, two of the faculty members there are Gerald Gaus and David Schmidtz. Who are, in case you don't know, classic liberals. Hillsdale is a university completely free from state funding but got rid of a number of Austrians there nonetheless. GMU is a top 50 PhD university, which is nonetheless mostly devoted to Austrian economics.
Also, I don't think the proponents of this theory can explain that fact that the rise of the state in recent years has coincided with macroeconomics that states that government policy can have little impact on the real economy.
GilesStratton:it's not much to ask of you that you document such behaviour on behalf of the state.
is this a joke?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
No, I'm asking him to justify what are essentially empirical claims with empirical evidence.
Juan:market failure. two threads for the very same topic at the same time.
Every intervention leads to a new crisis.
The Science of Monetary Policy:A New Keynesian Perspective
Richard Clarida, Jordi Gali,and Mark Gertler
From the Abstract: Among other things, we show that the optimal policy implicitly incorporates inflation targeting.
GilesStratton:But this is no different from many other economists who see the market failing in various regards. The difference is that these economists see market failure as being more widespread than Mises did. Now, I don't see why Mises should get a free pass whereas they other economists are held accountable to the extent of being called "cranks" and "hacks". If you really wish to call them that, that's OK, but you'd probably be better to provide some sort of scientific criteria for doing so.
You're confused. A monetary crank is not a value judgement, its a specific ideology. The idea that an unlimited, or nearly unlimited, supply of money should be created in order to provide wealth to everyone.
Monetary cranks are only different from mainstream monetarists by degree.
M. Rothbard: It is the fashionable belief that an idea is wrong in proportion to its "extremism" and right in proportion as it is a chaotic muddle of contradictory doctrines. To the professional middle-of-the-roader, a species that is always found in abundance, the demagogue invariably comes as a nasty shock. For it is one of the most admirable qualities of the demagogue that he forces men to think, some for the first time in their lives. Out of the muddle of current ideas, both fashionable and unfashionable, he extracts some and pushes them to their logical conclusions, i.e. "to extremes." He thereby forces people either to reject their loosely held views as unsound, or to find them sound and to pursue them to their logical consequences. Far from being an irrational force, then, the silliest of demagogues is a great servant of Reason, even when he is mostly in the wrong. A typical example is the inflationist demagogue: the "monetary crank." The vast majority of respectable economists have always scoffed at the crank without realizing that they are not really able to answer his arguments. For what the crank has done is to take the inflationism that lies at the core of fashionable economics and push it to its logical conclusion. He asks; "If it is good to have an inflation of money of 10 percent per year, why isn't at still better to double the money supply every year?" Only a few economists have realized that in order to answer the crank reasonably instead of by ridicule, it is necessary to purge fashionable economics of its inflationist foundations.
It is the fashionable belief that an idea is wrong in proportion to its "extremism" and right in proportion as it is a chaotic muddle of contradictory doctrines. To the professional middle-of-the-roader, a species that is always found in abundance, the demagogue invariably comes as a nasty shock. For it is one of the most admirable qualities of the demagogue that he forces men to think, some for the first time in their lives. Out of the muddle of current ideas, both fashionable and unfashionable, he extracts some and pushes them to their logical conclusions, i.e. "to extremes." He thereby forces people either to reject their loosely held views as unsound, or to find them sound and to pursue them to their logical consequences. Far from being an irrational force, then, the silliest of demagogues is a great servant of Reason, even when he is mostly in the wrong.
A typical example is the inflationist demagogue: the "monetary crank." The vast majority of respectable economists have always scoffed at the crank without realizing that they are not really able to answer his arguments. For what the crank has done is to take the inflationism that lies at the core of fashionable economics and push it to its logical conclusion. He asks; "If it is good to have an inflation of money of 10 percent per year, why isn't at still better to double the money supply every year?" Only a few economists have realized that in order to answer the crank reasonably instead of by ridicule, it is necessary to purge fashionable economics of its inflationist foundations.
How is Mises different from other slightly more statist economics? Knowledge.
You're trying to conflate Mises' failure to formulate is own anarcho-political theory with someone else rejecting of an already formed theory. We have many more resources available to us then even did Rothbard.
Peace
GilesStratton:No, I'm asking him to justify what are essentially empirical claims with empirical evidence.
As I stated in the OP, I don't have a full argument prepared. I just wanted to give an ongoing topic a home for further discussion, and offer a few historical notes apropos to the subject.
nirgrahamUK: The Science of Monetary Policy:A New Keynesian Perspective Richard Clarida, Jordi Gali,and Mark Gertler From the Abstract: Among other things, we show that the optimal policy implicitly incorporates inflation targeting.
So if an economic theory does not call for laissez-faire markets, then the only possible conclusion is that it was the result of the state's corruption of academia?
laminustacitus:So if an economic theory does not call for laissez-faire markets, then the only possible conclusion is that it was the result of the state's corruption of academia?
You've really screwed up the continuity of this discussion by moving posts from live discussions around.
good post.
NirGraham:?are you challenging lilburne to adopt positivist methodology to demonstrate the correctness of his theory?are you asking him to engage in historicism? is this a joke?
Giles: No, I'm asking him to justify what are essentially empirical claims with empirical evidence.
Nir naively played the positivist game. result:-
Are you going to clean up your mess?
liberty student: laminustacitus:So if an economic theory does not call for laissez-faire markets, then the only possible conclusion is that it was the result of the state's corruption of academia? You've really screwed up the continuity of this discussion by moving posts from live discussions around.
A) I did so at the request of the thread's orginal poster, B) that comment of mine that you quoted was in reply to another, completely continuous comment by another individual, C) the continuity need not be disrupted, the debate can just go to another location for I highly doubt there will be many new individuals involved, and D) if you have a problem with my actions as a moderator, take it up on the moderator forum so that we don't have to get into a hissy fit that will hijack this thread created specifically not to hijack another thread. Furthermore, if you actually desire to respond to my comment, which very much does reflect the continuinity of the discussion, feel free, otherwise au revoir.
Seeing that Liburne created the same thread simulataneously with my own effort, I'm going to move this thread to the thread graveyard, and maybe ever delete it after a while. Please, if you desire to have a statement said here to last, move it over to the other thread.
So after forking my post, now you want to delete or graveyard it. Unbelievable.
And in the process, junk Bostwick's quality response as well.
liberty student: So after forking my post, now you want to delete or graveyard it. Unbelievable. And in the process, junk Bostwick's quality response as well.
Then please, move it to the other, more popular thread on the very same topic.
I joined em back.
not the prettiest but... whatever.
nirgrahamUK: NirGraham:?are you challenging lilburne to adopt positivist methodology to demonstrate the correctness of his theory?are you asking him to engage in historicism? is this a joke? Giles: No, I'm asking him to justify what are essentially empirical claims with empirical evidence. Nir naively played the positivist game. result:- laminustacitus:So if an economic theory does not call for laissez-faire markets, then the only possible conclusion is that it was the result of the state's corruption of academia?
I don't really understand the point of this post. The fact that you were unable to meet the challenge does not make it an unreasonable one. Look, even if you can prove that there is some a priori theory of why it is that intellectuals will be corrupt (which you've not done), you still need to prove it's applicability in any given situation. Which means providing some sort of empirical evidence.
Lilburne: GilesStratton:No, I'm asking him to justify what are essentially empirical claims with empirical evidence. As I stated in the OP, I don't have a full argument prepared. I just wanted to give an ongoing topic a home for further discussion, and offer a few historical notes apropos to the subject.
Actually, my post was aimed at those who agree with you, as opposed to you specifically. Thank you for the clarification in any case, I await your response.
JonBostwick: You're confused. A monetary crank is not a value judgement, its a specific ideology. The idea that an unlimited, or nearly unlimited, supply of money should be created in order to provide wealth to everyone. Monetary cranks are only different from mainstream monetarists by degree.
I'm not aware that I've said that a monetary crank is a value judgement, so I'm not really sure what you're referring to. Besides that, your post lacks any real content. You're merely posted a strawman and then attempted to justify it with a reference to Rothbard. The notion that monetarists believe that an unlimited supply of money would provide wealth to everyone is an odd statement given that monetarists believe that money is largely neutral in the long run. I think you've shown your lack of understanding of any macroeconomics that isn't Austrian.
I also can't angry with Rothbard's angry rant. It's all very well caricaturing the position held by anybody who disagrees with him (read: pretty much every economic ever) but I don't think Rothbard dealt with the objections formulated by the free bankers and monetary disequilibrium theorists. Namely that in the face of an increased demand for money, price rigidites combined with interest rate effects will lead to malinvestment, both intertemporally and intratemporally. This argue is not merely of a different degree to Keynesian theory, but it is of a different kind.
JonBostwick: How is Mises different from other slightly more statist economics? Knowledge. You're trying to conflate Mises' failure to formulate is own anarcho-political theory with someone else rejecting of an already formed theory. We have many more resources available to us then even did Rothbard.
Well that's just not true. Mises wrote a review of Man, Economy and State so clearly he read the first statement of "anarcho-capitalism" combined with Austrian economics. So to say that he didn't have access to the information is a falsehood. On the other hand, many mainstream economists have never even heard of Rothbard, let alone anarcho-capitalism, so by your standard they get a free pass to. You've still not given a decent justification for your loose usage of the word "crank". Sorry, try again or bite the bullet and admit Mises is a "crank".
As for rejection anarcho-capitalism and those that you reject it. Are you limiting your use of the word "crank" to those who reject it for political reasons or are those who reject it on scientific grounds also subject to your careless criticisms?
London School of Economics and Political Science.
Of course there's ties between Harvard and government and this London school and government.
I see everything ultimately got merged together in a frankenstein hodge podge which is almost unreadable.
If a thread gets derailed, and you can catch it in the first 2 or 4 posts, then a split seems to make sense, or if the participants agree, the discussion can be forked to a completely new thread, but as it is, despite the fracturing of the discussion, the original debate rages where it started.
Sorry your thread got derailed lilburne, but it seems the boundaries of what is crank and what is not, as well as the repulsion of pedantic arguments from pedestrian mindsets are necessary before the meat of your original assertion can be addressed.
wilderness: London School of Economics and Political Science. Of course there's ties between Harvard and government and this London school and government.
There's ties between almost every individual in this world and the state. Which raises the question "who cares?".
GilesStratton: wilderness: London School of Economics and Political Science. Of course there's ties between Harvard and government and this London school and government. There's ties between almost every individual in this world and the state. Which raises the question "who cares?".
Obviously you care or you wouldn't keep responding.
wilderness:Obviously you care or you wouldn't keep responding.
Haha, OK then, let me rephrase this. There are ties between every individual in this world and some given state, the question that remains is what significant implications does this have?
Giles,
I can attest to some institutions being publicly funded does raise some bias in terms of State interventionalism. Case in point, often whenever there is an assessment in terms of improving the flow of a river, the Army Corps of Engineers is *always* picked first in terms of contract and implementation design. There's no third party often taken into account unless the given stretch of river is also heavily used by a single private company, then they often get their own experts. It may seem to be a neutral bias in terms of the resultant in-housing of all things engineering for the government, but the fact that the dikes in New Orleans and surrounding it were constructed and managed by the Army Corps of Engineers (before, during, and after Katrina), it should be noted little reformation comes to it when it screws up royally.
So, I can't say that the State sponsorship of education doesn't have a similar effect in terms of those who hold the public grants or those who sign the paperwork for a graduate student to receive his doctorate as when you're not directly held liable no one really cares to keep an eye on what you're doing. Who's to say key officials aren't funding specific economic scholars over other ones with a different bend in thought (more Austrian that is)? Who's to say they don't give graduate students with a simiple bend a harder time in their pursuit of their degree? It's all speculation at least from my perspective, but it's speculation that has a basis in other State operated/funded institutions as being a driver of mediocrity and favortism (sp?).
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." -- liberty student
ladyattis:It may seem to be a neutral bias in terms of the resultant in-housing of all things engineering for the government, but the fact that the dikes in New Orleans and surrounding it were constructed and managed by the Army Corps of Engineers (before, during, and after Katrina), it should be noted little reformation comes to it when it screws up royally.
Keep in mind, though, that everyone knew that if a hurricane the size of Katrina were to hit New Orleans, then the levies would fail "royally". There is no need to reform the Army Corps of Engineers' building of the levies there because it was fully known that they could not withstand what they were hit with. The Army Corps of Engineers bear no blame for the failure of the levies that they built, the responcibility is upon those who believed New Orleans could do with the protection that it had.
Iam, in terms of the levies in question that did fail, there is question as to the nature of the maintenance and construction of them, which indicates the Corps failed to meet the necessary standards for the given levies to survive the initial surge. In essence, what's known in terms of Katrina is that they cut corners in regards to the levies. No one that was in charge of the levies was ever reprimanded, or even replaced.
ladyattis:Iam, in terms of the levies in question that did fail, there is question as to the nature of the maintenance and construction of them, which indicates the Corps failed to meet the necessary standards for the given levies to survive the initial surge. In essence, what's known in terms of Katrina is that they cut corners in regards to the levies.
The Army Corps of Engineers is not responsible for the budget of the levies, and the "cut corners" that you speak of, to my knowledge, was a result of the organization not being given enough funds in the first place to do a job that would not require cutting corners. Indeed, the Army Corps of Engineers cannot be blamed for the fact that the budget given to them for the probject was not enough to build a high-quality levee, and, while building the New Orleans levee, they were doing so unfunded.
ladyattis:No one that was in charge of the levies was ever reprimanded, or even replaced.
The reason for that is that everyone knew that if a storm with the intensity, and storm-surge (Katrine, due to its immense size, had a horrific storm-surge, but I won't go into the physics of it) hit New Orleans as it did, then the levees would fail. The levees built were simply not designed to withstand a Katrina-sized storm, and that was a blatantly known fact.
Of course, budgetary concerns like how much money is alloted for levee-maintenance is far too trival of a matter to effect elections, or at least it was too trival of a matter to affect the elections hitherto.
Juan:Was it mentioned that the london school of 'economics' was founded by the fabian society ... ? It's an interesting bit of info...IMO.
May I also mention that Lionell Robbins, and F.A. Hayek both were reknown LSE professors?