It doesn’t matter if Krugman or myself is right, left, in between, or libertarian, my problem with him is that his economics is not correct.

Addtionally, it is somewhat of a shame that economists like Professor Anderson have to spend time responding to Krugman’s fallacious arguments when instead they could be working to elaborate and extend the Austrian paradigm.

It’s just typical slander of the “other side.” The opinions of your enemy are always based on myth, fantasy and religion. Your opinions are always grounded in hard truths and logic. Robert Reich (who had a priceless interview on The Daily Show last night) has written a book called “Reason: Why Liberals Will Win.” That title made me laugh. It expresses the same viewpoint — our enemies are bereft of reason, so we’ve got to win!

Every political faction does this. It’s not enough for your opponents to merely be wrong, they must be morally bankrupt,, devoid of reason and motivated by the darkest of motives. Krugman doesn’t have ability to debunk Hayek or DiLorenzo, so he just attacks them as a group rather than undermining their points.

Somehown in the US among academe calling something a “religion” is a put-down (shows how much they believe they are the standard… amazing: everything man has was given to him, and HE the standard … hmmmm.) I think the bigger point is — and Austrian economics is included — all thinking is presuppositional.

Hope the Mises website doesn’t go the way of the objectivists or Krugman making themselves the “objective” (or in the case of Mises the “subjective”!) standard. Randian logic goes “existence is primary”. Yes, but WHAT form of existence and what (WHO!) is the non-contingent existent? The philosophy goes on to assert that consciousness occurs as a sub-category of existence. But how can objectivists possibly know that? Perhaps God’s existence and his consciousness are both necessary and primary and united. For US consciousness might be secondary, but how can we assert that is the “way it is” as if we are the standard? Seems to me we’ve common experience of exactly the opposite of what is being claimed by both Subjectivism, Objectivism, and also Krugmanism, not to mention Austrianism. There is an objective standard, and it is not us.

And who says methodological subjectivism or scientific thought is above religious thought? Consider: science is basically a presuppositional worldview that ASSERTS, by it’s activity, that causes are natural and follow a discoverable and regular structure (and in fact it as a practical matter asserts that “the largest group of people that agree that the event occured under the stipulated rules is ‘science’”… Science is not “objective” by it’s own standard, it is simply “group subjectivity”). Okay. But does that necessarily hold for ALL events? And for which does it not hold? Science can have no answers: it cannot meet it’s own criteria.

And for subjectivism: is it true that there are not objective values? I think it is according to common experience (Isn’t the reality of God and sin an unalterable truth? Isn’t the connection between success and morality enough to convince people of that?) Rand has some really cogent criticisms of Austrian Economic Philosophy. I think the bottom line is the “quantum view” that reality is at some level united into a categoryless truth that involves morality and in fact IS morality.

And St. Augustine (among other religious people) was likely one of the brightest people that ever lived. Think Krugman’s “put-down” seen in the right context might be a compliment.

Have you sent the article to Paul Krugman and have you sent a letter to the New York Times?

“He would not reply and they would not print the letter”.

It should be done anyway.

For sure, Krugman’s comment was silly. Hayek won the Nobel Price, for heaven’s sake: it’s just dumb to compare him to creationists. If Kruguman thought about it, I suspect he’d agree that any large econ department that doesn’t devote some classes to Austrian economics (and Marxist economics) is shortchanging its students. On the other hand, Krugman is right that Austrians remain a marginal force in the profession. I suppose Austrians and non-Austrians would disagree about why this is so. But Austrians would definitely get more respect from their mainstream colleagues if (like Roger Garrison) they’d get their hands dirty, do empirical research, do rigorous theorizing, publish articles in peer-reviewed journals, and quit grinding philosophical and methodological axes left over from the early 20th century.

Bruce,

“But Austrians would definitely get more respect from their mainstream colleagues if (like Roger Garrison) they’d get their hands dirty, do empirical research, do rigorous theorizing, publish articles in peer-reviewed journals, and quit grinding philosophical and methodological axes left over from the early 20th century.”

You miss the whole point of Austrianism. It’s not about empirical research or peer reviewed journals and whatnot. The whole point (read: difference) of Austrianism is that it’s based more on philosophical reasons than empirical ones. It makes little sense to debate on such issues when your whole corpus of thinking is rooted elsewhere.

Austrians already do theorizing, such as Roger Garrison, and also Peter Boettke.

Why bother debating in mainstream journals on economics? They are heavily biased towards their own point of thinking. It is better for Austrians to create their own journals of inquiry, instead of asking the elites up to if they can publish articles that our of synch with the publisher’s ideas (anyone who has published in an academic journal knows what I am talking about).

It’s a mistake for Austrians to get clobbered in mainstream journals by thousands of voices when they can concentrate on making their own common voice in other areas, sans arguments over things that Austrians have long ago believed; that you cannot find economic truth with mere empirical evidence. What good does it do to debate these things endlessly, in other peer journals, on their terms?

Rather than attempt to change mainstream academic journals and thought, the Austrian movement is circumventing it. By making their own ‘place’, they are successfully going around the modern thinking of debating ideas; they are no longer trying to engage people in wars of ideas based on their own terms. Rather, they are doing something that modern academia (both left and right) cannot do much of anything about; they are ignoring them altogether. This is probably quite frustrating for both conservatives and liberals.

This is quite an excellent idea, and I think a superior strategy. Why should we look to academic journals – those whom we already disagree with – as places for truth? Because the ‘common man’ reads them? Don’t be silly – the common man no more cares about what ridiculous liberals, communists, and economic thinkers of all stripes says than he cares about the great socialist calculation debate.

There are only two other reasons to engage other economists in academic thought, and that is to attempt to change their minds or gain academic prestige.

But who’s academic prestige and validity are we being measured by…? Our own? Or theirs? And what happens when a radical organizations takes up the mainstream’s form of political change and debate?

There are two excellent showpieces for how each strategy has worked out over time.

One institute is the Mises Institute. The other one is the Cato Institute.

I think everyone knows which path each institute takes, and what happened to CATO when it decided to take the path that many people like Bruce suggested.

Alex:

You are entirely correct in positing the impossibility of Austrian economics becoming empirical and in criticizing the depth of understanding from which that criticism arose. But you’ve almost immediately muddied the water by tracing the basis for the Austrian views to “philosophical reasons” (as opposed to empirical ones).

The fact is that the Austrian method is fully as “scientific” as any empirically-based natural science and further, that Mises has explained the relationship in excruciating detail in HUMAN ACTION (and in other places). It’s scientific procedure is to build logically-unassailable chains (and results)upon a base assumed to be true: that man acts (chooses between alternatives). Whoever would question this core supposition must support the opposing view–that the individual, as an individual, plays no part in acting beyond comprising an aggregate of physical entities responding in manners quite nicely apprehended by the physical sciences, though not quite yet fully describable in such terms. But, if the latter view were correct, the future would already be determined and beyond susceptibility to influence one way or another by any of the choices made by men. Clearly, in arguing for the superiority of their own particular views and in extolling one or another of their own particular policy recommendations, all opponents of the Austrians pay unwitting homage to the insight
they deny.

It is a mistake to view the knowledge gained through deductive reasoning as different from that provided by laboratory (empirical) methods. The latter is a subset of the former and indispensable in those matters to which it is properly applied. But likewise, the endeavor to measure or otherwise render quantifiable such magnitudes as satisfaction and utility are nearly laughable until one reflects that these basic errors are the bedrock belief system of “mainstream” political economy.

The Austrian view has proved, at least, that truth has a certain resilience, a certain ineradicability about it. This is especially remarkable when it is noted that the followers of Mises suggest methods and policies which are extraordinary in that they promise the best of all available alternate policies for everyone which do not benefit some particular group at the expense of another. The hallmark of all policies of all competing economic views is their recognition of antagonists whose interests must be both served and balanced in order to maintain coalitional support. In other words, it is difficult for for the Austrian view to gain not only political ascendancy but even a decent exposure and consideration in either general education or public discussion.

Krugman (and others like him) will continue to say things that make no sense, that may verge on the ridiculous. We laugh–but they continue to “command the heights.”

Anderson seconds Krugman’s contention that academia is leftist because leftish types are more likely to pursue that kind of career. Anderson then declares that it’s leftists who prefer to be in an environment that’s heavily concerned with politics. (It’s unclear whether Anderson means the office kind, or the ideological kind, of politics.)

What’s left unsaid is that, the Left dominating academia as it does, the situation is self-exacerbating because it makes for uncomfortable and unpromising academic career prospects for non-leftists who’d otherwise be so inclined. The disagreeable course of study one would usually be expected to pursue in grad school, the prospect of few or no mentors and of a hostile thesis committee, and then, if a non-leftist should still somehow manage to obtain a tenure-track beginning job, facing special obstacles getting published and tenured, are usually profoundly discouraging to young such scholars.

As the literature professor John M. Ellis has written of his field,

“A whole generation of bright graduate students of literature (and therefore potential future literature professors) is looking at the present state of the field and many of the best of those students are deciding they do not see a productive life for themselves in the conditions that prevail. Too many of the most able are deciding to do something else with their lives. One of the saddest commentaries on the present state of affairs is that professors who [aren't under the sway of postmodernism and multiculturalism] find it hardest to counsel them against that decision.” — LITERATURE LOST: SOCIAL AGENDAS AND THE CORRUPTION OF THE HUMANITIES (Yale, 1997), p. 230.

Paul Krugman knowns perfectly well why statists (“the left” or what in the United States are called “liberals”) dominate the academy.

As the late W.H. Hutt was fond of pointing out, the collectivists dominate universities because they dominate who gets key qualifications and who gets a position.

It does not matter how knowledgeable you are or how well you argue, someone like Paul Krugman will never pass you (for a higher degree). And if you have all the qualifications, folk like Krugman will have, most likely, managed to put themselves in place to block you getting a position.

I repeat, no level of knowledge or ability to argue will help when dealing with these people – they place no value on such things. One writes in reply to what they write in order to try and win over the readers of the newspaper or journal they have written in (not to try and convince them). And if the newspaper or journal refuses to print even a short reply – well then one stops reading that newspaper or journal, as it has proved it is not interested in ideas.

Back in the 1930′s my father got a conference table and smashed it down on the heads of a group of (nonacademic)leftists who had acted agaist him and others. Of course this did not achieve anything (although it did make him feel better).

When (academic) leftists acted against me I took the route of peace and appealed all the way up to the Lord Chancellor of England (then Lord Irvine) – this did me no good at all (after all Lord Irvine was Mr Blair’s old boss and was appointed Lord Chancellor as a reward for past favours).

Looking back, perhaps I should have done what my father did – but I lacked his physical strength, and perhaps his courage as well.

Overall the Ludwig Von Mises institute approach is best: Try and help intelligent and hardworking pro free market scholars, by working to give them the best chance they can have to get the needed qualifications – AND work to make sure that free market people with the correct qualifications get suitable jobs.

Young Americans may complain that not enough is done. And, no doubt, they are correct – a lot more could be done.

However, young free market Americans should take this bit of advise from a middle aged Englishman – you should get on your knees every evening and give thanks that you were born American.

Nick:

You included, in your criticism of the commentary of Mises-oriented posters with regard to mainstream economists such as Krugman, my remark to the effect that “everything is done.”

What you apparently missed in reading (i.e., understanding) that remark is that it was not intended as commentary on the original article nor as criticism of Krugman’s (or others’) position on various matters of controversy. Rather, it was directed specifically to Dennis Sperduto, who had bemoaned, essentially, that Mr. Anderson’s time and effort was being needlessly absorbed in polemic exchange. My point to Mr. Sperduto was merely to emphasize that the criticism of opposing viewpoints is a valid (and necessary) function of an economist; the same remark could have been directed to someone distressed at the extent to which the intellectual efforts of more mainstream economists need be expended in refuting the propositions of Misesians.

My further remark, that “important insights have been well-done already” was gratuitous–that is to say, unnecessary to my main point, the essence of which would be unaffected even were this subtext to be untrue (though I do not believe it to be so and would refer you to comments on the same matter and in the very same vein quite some years ago by Mises himself–if I knew where to find them).

Much has been made by Misesians over the matter of the “implosion” of the USSR somehow “proving” the correctness of the Misesian (Austrian) view. Were the man alive today, I do not think that he would support that conclusion but, rather, would say something to the effect that that fate was not one of inexorable necessity based on a chain of logically-unassailable cause and effect relationships but was, instead, in the realm of “prophecy”–itself informed by a mostly-correct assessment of innumerable such cause and effect relationships. He might even have finished up, a la Dennis Miller, “That’s my opinion and I’m stickin’ to it. I could be wrong.”

Mises’ chief insufficiency (and this is merely my own view) was in not making certain other “leaps” that are (again, my own view) almost as obvious from a proper understanding of economic relationships. Chief among these is the insupportability of the idea (held by honest economists of all persuasions) that human economic progress is dependent (or somehow related to) progress in economic theorizing. But that’s another matter and if you want my ideas along those lines, you’ll have to e-mail me (clicking on the name-link screws me up in a shift in OS–sump’n I haven’t been able to figure out how to navigate).

I guess I should clear up the mud sliging from Mr. Schandler.

1) Austrians are conceited,

2) Krugman was right; we are religious cultists

3) following this line of reasoning, Mr. Schandler and his fellow thinkers are the ones who are real preachers of civility, not the Austrians.

Glad to get that out of the way!

It seems as though it’s patently incorrect for Mr. Schandler to become upset and accusing when Austrians are defending their views on economics to someone who has smeared them. What we have here, is someone berating Austrians as being uncivil for responding to an uncivil comment by a not too good economist! This is the first thing that hit my mind.

Simply put, he can’t believe the ‘hypocracy’ [sic] thats coming from the Austrians.

Most Austrians have come from more mainstream economic backgrounds. They have found that empirical research into economics is faulty, as it needs to be interpreted by theory. Numbers don’t tell you anything – and numbers themselves are not physical objects! They themselves are merely ‘ideas’, or, put another way, ideas of philosophy.

Even if numbers could tell us what they mean, we would still need to make sure that they were correct. If a economic spreadsheet on stastics and an econometric spreadsheet merely came out and told a positivist economist what the data ‘showed’, he would still need to know whether or not the statement (or statements) were correct, by his own reasoning.

There is simply no way around theory and philosophy in economics and understanding; you cannot even look at numbers without using a form of philosophy (numbers are not physical things! They are ideas representing physical things in our universe).

Austrians have said that empirical data by itself cannot show the way for new theories. But it can show previous theories to be incorrect. (Walter Block commented on this some time ago). I believe this to be correct, for reasons stated above.

You’re right that Mr. Anderson doesn’t take too well to being walked on by the academic elites. Some people don’t like being treated as religious fanatics. Call it a ‘bad habit’.

Now I have to say ‘More Mises!’ and like I mean it, right Mr. Schandler?

Get a grip.

Hayek did in fact compromise many ideals that Mises did not. Austrianism is a priori; it is the methodology of the school that seperates it from other economic thought, not it’s conclusions, which are sometimes similiar to the views of others. You will have a hard time trying to classify it in another way. This is common knowledge to most. Have you really read Mises and Rothbard?

A lot of Austrians do use Mises’ quotes. Why is this is a bad thing? If Mises has something truthful to say, why should we try to look somewhere’s else? You suggest that we should look somewhere else because, it seems, people get ‘tired’ (or something) of hearing Mises harp on about economic truths.

Much of the arguments from Austrians and other economists has to do with methodology, and government policy. They don’t seem to enjoy arguing the same thing over and over again – but some people, in their own way, seem to think that there is no underlying truth to economics; it is a malleable science that differs from the sciences in the physical universe.

While economics does differ in that it isn’t measurable in the same way that the study of physical sciences is (nor reproduceable), it is set in a reality who’s laws are just as iconoclast as the laws of other sciences.

I’m sure Austrians would like to get away from all of the navel gazing (even the most hard Austrians must be becoming glaze eyed about it by now) but the most fervent debating often comes on the methodology of the school versus it’s conclusions. It’s basically, more or less, pointless; unless someone says these things are true, the Austrians are correct;

1) Human beings have reproduceable actions in the same way as atoms,

2) Economics is a purely empriical science

Some in the Austrian movement (Bob Murphy comes to mind) have disagreed with Mises and Rothbard on interest theory, among other things. There are ways to expand Austrian thinking along some lines, but most disagreements on economics and government policy come down to methodology, which is why some of it is redundant.

I don’t think Austrian economics is as insular as it once was a long time ago. It is growing, and more people are getting involved.

More of a classical liberal, I agree with Mises more than I agree with Rothbard and today’s anarchists. But I appreciate their ability to push the market in areas that even I was unsure of, such as product testing and private roads.

The Austrians have really done a lot of damage to the idea of the State as being omnipotent and untouchable; we known know that at least 80% of government services can be privatized, and this isn’t a pie in the sky view.

The biggest area where people are going to disagree with Austrians is some of their views on morality. I agree with (fellow) cultist Mr. Anderson on a more Christian leaning government that is highly localized – each State as it’s own country, coupled with laissez faire capitalism. I know that some on this board will disagree with me, but I think that this is the most practical solution to many problems.

But on the whole, I think it’s a good thing for people to see the radical side of Austrianism, and I think that it is this way because the Mises Movement hasn’t been subjected to withering and draining lefty (and righty) mainstream academic boards, journals, and the like.

I commented to one poster on what happened to another formerly (vaguely) classical liberal institute that adopted a strategy much like the one you suggest; CATO.

This is stipulation, but I’m guessing that it matters to you a lot as to how the Mises Institute is regarded in the outside world. Why?

Of course, we can compare the MI to CATO to get a good idea of what happens when one institute becomes ‘mainstream’.

David, Krugman is more deserving of The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel than any Austrian writing today.

I would hope that any Austrian consider for the “Nobel” would take such as an insult.

Alex,

Regarding your equating Austrianism with a priorism, I don’t think it’s all that obvious. No doubt many do feel that Austrian economics is synonymous with a priorism, but I personally know of several Austrians who do not feel the same. My question was not as much asking how Austrian economics is to be defined (I think that’s unresolved, at least in the minds of some), but rather where you stand on this issue. Again, your position seems to lead to the rather peculiar classification of Hayek as a non-Austrian. In any case, I can’t claim to be an expert on it, or really to have thought about the topic all that much. There was a time when I associated Austrian economics with a priorism, but I think I’ve changed my view here as I’ve moved increasingly from the Misesian to the Hayekian framework.

The primary reason I do not like reading quote after quote from Mises is because it is for the most part unnecessary. I don’t see the advantage of quoting Mises on diminishing marginal utility every time you explain why your 3rd apple is worth less to you than your 1st. It would be much easier to simply explain diminishing marginal utility. It feeds into the “Mises already said everything worth saying” mentality.

The reason I am concerned with these issues is not as much because I am concerned with how Austrian economics is viewed by outsiders, but rather how it is viewed by Austrians themselves. Mises, Hayek and the rest were full of great ideas – to me, the best way to honor them is to build upon their work, including modifying or altogether scrapping those parts of it that have not stood the test of time.

Imagine if Mises had simply declared that Menger got it all right, or if Hayek declared that there was nothing that could be added to Mises. We would all be the worse for it. Why stop now, when the great Austrians of the past gave us so many great ideas to work with? But that precisely is what so many Austrians seem to do.

In short, I think that Austrian economics is too great and too pregnant with ideas for 2 or 3 men to have figured it all out. That is why I detest what James Buchanan has called “the arrogance of the eccentric,” an arrogance that I see too often in Austrian circles.

David,

It also appears that you have a fan club online. It looks as though you are being hanged. Crime: being a muppet.

http://thefilter.blogs.com/thefilter/2005/04/hang_a_libertar.html

A couple of things:

Paul Krugman is a moron, who is hardly worthy of respect.

In quoting Mises there is no implication that Mises got it all right.

Schandler’s comments are classic pseudo Austrian slander of real Austrians.

“ALL THINGS ARE SUBJECT to the law of cause and effect.”

Except quantum mechanics. All things are subject to the “law” of quantum mechanics. It is a problem of scale.

Anyone want a logical refutation of “intelligent design,” see “Unintelligent Design,” by Mark Perakh