I have been out of academia and working for think tanks for a while now, and so I may have a better ear for the changing climate than those of you still grading papers. “Real people” are a lot more receptive to thinking hard about economic issues lately, for obvious reasons.
To give a concrete example, the op ed below (sorry for self-promo) involves a fair amount of concentration to follow. I really don’t think the AJC would have run something like this during normal times, because it’s too abstract/geeky.
Based not just on emails from Mises.org readers, but just casual conversation with people I know outside of work, etc., I think a lot of people are really starting to learn that “the experts” don’t have a clue what is going on. And since this will affect their 401(k)s etc., the average people are actually interested in the issue and will listen if someone explains things.
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Conversely, Bob, as you are an expert of sorts and people are turning to your writings for assistance, couldn’t we also say that in times like these people are becoming even more reliant on the voice of experts to guide them?
Maybe they’re turning to experts, rather than “experts,” and that’s what’s changing?
There’s a chinese saying I can’t help but think of when reading this passage, and reflecting on the time I have been visiting mises.org. “Children should seek those who seek the truth and run as fast they can from those who claim to have found it.”
Taylor,
It’s just that people are at last listening to Hoppe’s “Anti-Intellectual Intellectuals”.
I’m still surprised that there are people who will resoundingly assert that the economic melt-down has been caused by “failure of the free market”.
But there are also lots of younger college-age types who are listening to the Misesians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoXujY1V-Oc
How about a pep talk for members of Congress from the Champion of the Constitution!
January 14, 2009
Central Planners Centrally Planning The Bailout!
I love the emphasis that the heroic Congressman Ron Paul placed on central planning when addressing Congress about the bailout money. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cy1pnbvACE&eurl=http://www.campaignforliberty.com/index.php ) He identified the tools of the central planners – government spending, debt, printing up money, regulation, setting prices (ex. interest rates) – and he summed up what Congress thinks it is doing in these hearings (determining who should be the central planner).
Slap their face and maybe they will come to their senses!
We have Ron Paul to thank for not allowing the unConstitutional coup to use Congress to unilaterally proclaim that the free market is to blame. Alone, Ron Paul’s voice is reverberating throughout the buildings in Washington, DC and that voice reduces the lies and schemes of the agents of the unConstitutional coup to a pile of rubble.
God bless the truthful and trustworthy and wise champion of the Constitution – Ron Paul.
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