That’s a fun tool. I typed in “keynes” for the past 365 and found he reached a high of 140 on day and nearly every other day was below 100 hits per day….plus he has no upward trend in his figures.

Of course the blogosphere is growing exponentially, so the increase in “mises” mentions might just reflect that.

A study like this should be conducted with comparisons. “hayek” is probably out, because this name is shared with a contemporary movie star whose mentions may fluctuate wildly according to entertainment industry trends. “marx” (the Marx Brothers were long ago and current reference levels to them are probably stable unless a movie or notable book should appear) and “keynes” would be better tests over time. “friedman” is simply too commonplace a surname.

And what about “rothbard”? Other than for Murray, I’ve never heard that name before.

I expect a good hypothesis is that Mises (Ludwig, not his now-obscure applied mathematician brother Richard) is simply just about the contemporarily fastest-rising intellectual star from the past in the social sciences. And that trend, if true, may well be for the long term and not a passing fancy.

If further study confirms this, that’s very encouraging indeed, and suggests that the efforts of Misesian libertarians are worthwhile indeed and hold a promising future, however discouraging current policy trends toward ever-larger government may be.

Yes, apparently the picture is interesting but wildly misleading due to non-English words. On Google, Blog Search” it works to use “Mises”; 95% of the returns are related to LvM. Not so on Technorati. Technorati wants blog.mises.org” or Mises.org. Why neither search generates a chart is beyond me.