Talk about cognitive dissonance
Edward Harrison is suffering from an acute attack of cognitive dissonance: he is holding "two contradictory ideas simultaneously."
On one hand he is a self-proclaimed longtime "devotee of the Austrian School," believing the Austrian school provides a useful "lens through which to view the credit bubble and crash." Yet, on the other hand, Harrison also believes "[i]t is more the work of John Maynard Keynes and his followers that is likely to offer useful prescriptions."
Harrison notes his "economic viewpoint is founded on the Austrian economics." But that belief was challenged when "the Lehman bankruptcy changed things significantly."
The title of the article implies he is still an Austrian economist, an Austrian who believes in Keynes. You can almost feel the dissonance slowly scratching the chalkboard of his internal harmony.
Comments (18)
Inquisitor
If Lehman Bros shook his confidence, it is dubious he even knew anything to begin with...
Published: December 11, 2008 11:36 PM
Mike
Sure, banging our heads against the wall got us into this mess, but if we bang our heads on the other side of the wall...
Published: December 11, 2008 11:49 PM
Francisco Torres
He's schizophrenic.
Published: December 12, 2008 12:21 AM
Mick
It's the Keynesian implant that gets drilled a centimeter below the skull when you get your PhD in consensus economics.
Published: December 12, 2008 12:59 AM
Mick
It's the Keynesian implant that gets drilled a centimeter below the skull when you get your PhD in consensus economics.
Published: December 12, 2008 12:59 AM
Friedrich
It's the same with Krugman. I'm afraid they do believe in the allmighty governements. And they simply do not get that we would be better off without them. (At least in this form)
It's depressing to see how this "elits" drive us down
Published: December 12, 2008 2:00 AM
Brian Lee
I notice the advertisement for Hulsman's book "Mises:The Last Knight of Liberalism". Keynes, of course, was a liberal as well - though his liberalism evolved as society's needs changed, as can be seen in his writings, and in the good books on him, like those by Moggridge, Skidelsky, and Markwell. Why not read one of them? It's always nice when people comment from knowledge rather than ignorance.
Published: December 12, 2008 5:15 AM
Arend
@ Brian Lee: Mises was born on the European continent, where liberalism means classical liberalism. Keynes was born on the European island of Great Britain where the term liberalism was, while the time of his life, taken over by the philosophy of social(istic)-democracy. In the US the same thing happened. In short: no, Keynes and Mises weren't adherents of the same political philosophy of liberalism.
Published: December 12, 2008 7:24 AM
Arend
Ontopic: I didn't really know that cognitive dissonance meant HOLDING two incompatible ideas simultaneously. I normally use the pathology as well to refer to people's rejection of an idea just because that idea is incompatible with the body of ideas one already holds. While the right meaning occurs often, e.g. when one claims to be orthodox Roman Catholic and a Marxist/Communist at the same time, I think my/the other interpretation occurs even more. It's normal for most people to initially reject a new idea instantly, mostly just because on the face of it the new idea is incompatible with already held ideas/beliefs. This practice is of course highly unscientific/irrational (in the non-praxeological sense - because cognitive dissonance in this sense seems to serve some purposes, namely to make to body of held beliefs/ideas relatively stable artificially).
Funny thing is that ideologies such as Marxism and postmodernism have a respectively implicit and explicit assumption at the core that (logical) incompatible held ideas/beliefs/assumptions at the same time is not only permitted but even to be encouraged. That's one of the reasons why these ideologies/philosophies are highly unscientific.
Published: December 12, 2008 7:37 AM
newson
to brian lee:
comments returned to sender. disabuse yourself and read these articles by raico:
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=136
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_13_02_1_raico.pdf
keynes was a "liberal" only in the contemporary american sense of the word, not in the classical one.
Published: December 12, 2008 8:01 AM
John Tate
What happened to Aristotle's Law of Non-Contradiction? Anyone see it? Where has it been?
Published: December 12, 2008 8:20 AM
David Ch
Newson said: 'keynes was a "liberal" only in the contemporary american sense of the word, not in the classical one.'
Permit me to expand on this shift:
'Liberal' sense 1: 'One who loves liberty'. As in 'John Stuart Mill was a liberal'.
'Liberal' sense 2: 'with largesse' As in 'He smothered the hot dog with a liberal dose of ketchup'
Seems that at some point in the 20th century, the ideological label 'liberal' ceased having anything to do with sense 1 and acquired sense 2, with the qualifier 'with other peoples' money' invariably left unsaid.........
Published: December 12, 2008 10:11 AM
(8?»
There isn't really a contradiction from Harrison's perspective, as his comparison isn't about validity of concepts, but about the "useful prescriptions" that they offer.
The Austrian prescription of "don't do that" being the only solution to the crack-up boom isn't very useful to the social manipulators who have to DO SOMETHING!
So, the something is further destruction? Well, at least they tried, making them feel morally superior to those would do nothing. After all, it isn't their fault that their machinations did not produce the outcome desired, but yours for failing to support them!
Otherwise yes, cognitive dissonance would reign supreme. Luckily for them, reality has been safely altered to align with their belief systems.
Published: December 12, 2008 10:33 AM
Enjoy Every Sandwich
Of course we're being generous in assuming that his protestations of belief in the Austrian school are sincere. I can almost hear him saying "...some of my best friends are Austrian economists..."
Yes, I suppose I'm a bit cynical. As Lily Tomlin once said, "No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up." It's just that I hear so much of this from politicians and pundits. For example, nearly everybody who proposes a gun control law declares "I support the Second Amendment".
Published: December 12, 2008 10:36 AM
Inquisitor
Didn't you know, logic is outdated!
Published: December 12, 2008 11:52 AM
jon
"i think being a poor monk and preaching kindness is a great way to look at the world. only, what i'm actually going to do, is borrow and spend like mad, any shoot anyone who tries to stop me."
Published: December 12, 2008 11:55 AM
Per-Olof Samuelsson
Ralph Raico's essay "Was Keynes a Liberal?", to which newson gave a link earlier, is very informative and shows how close he actually was to the totalitarians of his day.
Anyway, everyone should know the foreword Keynes wrote to the first German edition of "General Theory" but carefully left out in the English edition. In case you don't know, he claims there that his theory is better adapted to a totalitarian society (such as the German society of that time, 1936) than to a laissez-faire society.
Liberal - my foot!
Published: December 12, 2008 12:20 PM
gene berman
I've begun to realize that I enjoy every comment by "Enjoy Every Sandwich."
Published: December 13, 2008 9:31 AM