So you’ve been to a summer program sponsored by Mises, IHS, FEE, Cato, Independent, or any of a number of other organizations dedicated to economic research and education. You’re excited, and you’re firmly grounded in your understanding of the classical liberal tradition. You wonder: what now? Here are a few suggestions that will help you make a difference and contribute to the discussion while developing your writing ability.
I see a couple of easy ways to contribute to the Great Conversation. First, look for ways to write letters to editors of magazines, newspapers, and other publications. The July issue of Scientific American, for example, has several articles that could be responded to in a 200-250 word letter to the editor. The same could be said of any issue of any magazine or newspaper. Some professional journals also publish letters to the editor. If they get published, blog them. If they don’t–and many won’t–blog them anyway. You can pick up some tips by looking at Don Boudreaux’s letters to the editor. Professor Boudreaux is a prolific letter-writer, and he blogs most of them at Cafe Hayek.
Here’s a quick example. I revised this on a plane from Dallas to Albuquerque, and just to prove my point I picked up a copy of the in-flight magazine and looked for anything that could be addressed from an economic perspective. I found an article about a shark dive in the Farallon Islands near San Francisco. I wrote the following in about five minutes, and I emailed it to the editor (editor@americanwaymag.com) at my next opportunity:
“Dear Editor,
Amy Sorlie’s 8/1/2009 article on shark diving in the Farallon Islands piqued my interest because I’m a lifelong shark enthusiast and an economist with an interest in conservation. Perhaps counter-intuitively, the key to conservation is not government-mandated protection, but the establishment of clear private property rights over sharks and shark habitats. Since sharks are commonly owned, no one profits directly from their survival and, therefore, no one has an incentive to conserve them. Indeed, in some places it is actually illegal to own and farm sharks. This is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.
“Even though we kill and eat far, far more shrimp, salmon, and catfish than sharks, no one is really worried about shrimp, salmon, and catfish going extinct anytime soon. That is in large part because they can be privately owned and farmed. If we really want to conserve sharks, we should take a similar approach.
Kindest regards,
Art Carden
Assistant Professor of Economics and Business
Rhodes College
Memphis TN”
Why letters to editors? They aren’t “scholarly,” but they’re a great way to practice packing a tight, easily accessible argument into a small space. Letters to the editor also get read. I write letters for several reasons. First, they help me satisfy my attraction to the intellectual equivalent of bright, shiny objects. Second, they help me satisfy my urge to (try to) save the world. Third, they help me practice writing and thinking clearly. When you’re writing a 250 word letter on a specific issue for an audience of novices and laypeople, you don’t have a lot of room for subtlety and nuance, but you also don’t have room for sloppiness.
A second way to contribute is to write op-eds for your campus newspaper or for another local publication (an independent weekly, perhaps). Your local daily newspaper and other outlets might be hard to get your work into, but campus publications are usually well-read and looking for good content. Don’t be afraid to write for free, particularly if you’re just starting out.
What should you write about? I assume you have a lot of notes from the lectures you attended at Mises, FEE, IHS, etc. It might take some work, but you can certainly use these as a very rich source of material for articles and letters. If you are interested in academia, write with an eye toward a future as a researcher: look for ways to hone and sharpen your arguments, and look for opportunities to get involved in research projects. Your professors are usually looking for help, and if you have opportunities to do your own independent research, there are outlets for these projects, too.
A third way to contribute and practice is to review books. If you are a graduate student, you might want to volunteer to review for professional journals, organizations, or websites (not too many, and nothing that isn’t directly related to your research agenda). Other outlets like newspapers and magazines sometimes feature book reviews, as well. You probably won’t start out by reviewing books for the New York Review of Books or the Most Important Economics Journal, but it’s a fair bet that there is someone out there who is looking to publish well-done book reviews. You have to engage with the books’ arguments in a way that is suitable for publication, and you can be reasonably certain that the authors will read the published reviews.
If you don’t really fancy yourself much of a writer or speaker, a fourth way to contribute would be to start and edit a publication or website. If you’re not ready to produce your own content, there are tons of sites (mises.org, independent.org, and many, many others) that have a lot of content you can link to or reproduce for a price of $0.00. Look at Lewrockwell.com and Strike-the-root.com for examples.
A word of caution is in order, especially if you’re blogging. Remember that the Internet is forever, Google knows everything, and if you’re self-publishing you don’t have a gatekeeper that can keep your less civilized thoughts from seeing the proverbial light of day. Practice the virtues of temperance, prudence, patience, and kindness. Just as sending email while angry is a bad idea, blogging while angry is a bad idea. Long screeds about how Eminent Scholar is a whore of The Establishment is a pretty good signal that you should probably be ignored, and anonymous cheap shots in blog comments are childish and unprofessional. Don’t let a couple of rants or clever-but-inappropriate barbs disqualify you from the Great Conversation.
But relax. Above all, read critically, write critically, and have fun. Know where you’re starting, work to get better, and realize that improvement is a long and sometimes painful process. I’m still unsatisfied with the work I’m doing right now, but it’s leaps and bounds better than what I was doing in graduate school. A place at the table is worth the time and effort to secure. Good luck!
Cross-Posted at Division of Labour and The Beacon.
{ 13 comments }
Very informative about the useful opportunities available. Thanks, Mr. Carden!
Easier said than done.
Easier said than done.
The gestation period for sharks and the other fishes you describe are greatly different.
Sharks have a gestation period of 6 to 22 months depending on type and size.
Shrimp gestation period is around 4 weeks.
Salmon / Catfish period is around 3-4 weeks.
Plus both the fishes you listed, shrimp, salmon and catfish can lay thousands of eggs which will be more profitable than the typical shark can lay.
Economically it may not be feasible. However, the restriction to breed them or farm them should be removed for anyone to try. However, this should not be the only option available.
Eh. Some people produce great works while they are enraged, just as some people produce great works while they are considered insane.
I want to agree with your point, but better advice would be to think about exactly what you are trying to accomplish before you publish something. In the end, you can’t really plan more than that (if even that far, at times). There are many chips on the table and only a tiny fraction are under your control.
KP,
FYI, horses have ~11 mo gestation and people manage to breed them just fine. Also, most sharks do not lay eggs. Live birth is the norm.
Good advice. I heartily endorse the idea of engaging people in all types of media and on all subjects where economic logic is applicable, which is to say practically all subjects.
Depending on one’s ego and one’s ambition, various approaches can be taken. Succinct, anonymous feedback can be given at almost any blog or news website, and the websites which don’t allow anonymous comments are not worth reading.
I tend to avoid websites where online comments are unavailable or are locked behind registration – not because I always want to add comments, but because I find that such sites tend to be the worst examples of pro-establishment “gatekeepers of the truth” (that is, liars). I suspect that many other people feel the same that these establishment gatekeeper media will be the first to disappear.
Great advice, Art!
I’ve been discussing changes in government policy with my Canadian collegues for years now, and over time I’m always able to get them to be more “right wing”
I’ve been discussing on other websites for a few years now as well. As soon as I am able to show the seperation between consumerism/consumptionism and capitalism, I usually can even get marxists to listen.
I might try writing out letters to the editor in local newspapers. I’ve found that with the help of reading mises and other blogs every day, I’ve become much more effective in my confrontations with anti-capitalists.
Keep up the great work, everyone!
Thanks for the comments. I forgot to mention that writing can open some interesting doors. I’ve gotten a few speaking gigs and a couple of media appearances because of Mises.org articles–I spoke to a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner today about child labor.
Hey Giant Joe, can you provide a quick explanation of how you argue the distinction b/w consumerism and capitalism?
Vanmind,
I bring up a few points to help reinforce that idea. I’m probably going to go on a tangent here, but here’s some basic stuff I bring up to try to get people thinking or try to get them to understand what’s at play:
I bring up Keynesianism vs. Austrian school economics. The former is how most governments model their economy, and thus, the focus on the economy is aggregate demand. Because of the belief that recessions are caused by a lack of aggregate demand and purchasing power, the government will often hold interest rates below what the market would hold them at, in order to introduce new money to help boost aggregate demand. Aggregate demand, in other words, is consumption. Interest rates are low so that we are more biased towards loaning, spending, consuming, buying. When we hear of people saving money in the news, it sounds like a bad thing, because we know the Keynesian mantra “spending drives the economy”. So instead of saving, producing, and rationing our way out of a recession, we allow the government to induce more spending in itself and in the economy.
Capitalism isn’t based in this. In a capitalist model, people produce more than their current level if production becomes more in demand. People save more if they want to hedge against future uncertainty. People will spend more if they see that prices have fallen, or there are things that they want. From the view of capitalism, there is no emphasis on production or consumption.
The Austrian school also has a better explination of the Boom and Bust cycle. They Keynesians think the bust occurs because of a lack of demand; people aren’t buying enough stuff. The capitalists say that the bust was caused by an unsustainable boom. Typically, this is caused by malinvestment allowed by loose monetary policy. Low interest rates drive consumption and more investment, which may be sustained for a while, but it eventually runs out of steam. It’s just not sensible/sustainable no matter how any statist cuts it.
…
After a rant similar to something above, I usually answer questions people have. I find the biggest help to be reading, paraphrasing, and linking things to this website. I find Peter Schiff is also good at selling the point that consumerism isn’t the point of the free market or capitalism.
Good luck!
The online journal, libertarianpapers.org needs volunteers for audio versions of articles and occasional proofreading.
I thank Professor Carden for posting this entry. One thing I’ve started doing in the last two days is typing my comments and questions on a word processor, and saving them. Then, I wait at least 72 hours, and do revisions and editing. Then, I decide which parts (if any) to send to other people. For me to type words out and send them, during the same day, is unfair, and too traumatic, for other people.
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