Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Austrian School Posts: The Good, the Great, and the Ugly

The Good: Jeff Tucker announces that an Austrian wiki has been set up. I think this is a very good development. I'm often disappointed by the Austrian presence on Wikipedia. They dominate economics pages, ostensibly in the interest of everybody getting their two cents in, but the Austrian amendments are always long and disproportionate. People who don't know much economics that look at these pages end up getting a very skewed picture of what economists think as a result. The other problem is that there is a lot of disagreement and discussion among Austrians on different issues that doesn't get highlighted on Wikipedia. Austrian positions usually look monolithic and in agreement. This Austrian wiki hopefully provides a solution to both - it can be linked to from Wikipedia I'm sure, so perhaps naive readers don't get the impression that a third of economists are Austrian (what percentage are self-identified Austrian? Does anybody know if we know this?). It will also provide a venue for disagreements among Austrians.

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The Great: Economic Thought is up and running again! Jonathan has a good post on Bob Higgs's The Transformation of the American Economy, which covers the post-war economy (Civil War, of course!). In the post, he also highlights a new Mises Daily article he wrote on Rothbard's History of Money and Banking in the United States, contrasting it with Friedman and Schwartz's Monetary History of the United States. I'm not sure I agree with everything Jonathan says about Friedman and Schwartz (for example, it's simply not true that they derive theory from data rather than bringing a theory to the data, or that they treat events "as if they were solely a product of the market"), but if nothing else it presents a contrast between the two works. I haven't read either book in its entirety, but I've read large portions of the Monetary History for class, I've read the entire section on the Great Depression, and a lot of the early stuff for my 1920-21 depression paper. Same with Rothbard - haven't read him cover to cover, but I read a large selection for the paper. This all leads me to ask - what are people's favorite books on American economic history? I'm well into the first volume of Joseph Dorfman's The Economic Mind in American Civilization - the three volumes cover the period from 1606 to 1919. I highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in the history of economic thought. but I have a pile I've collected that are waiting for me. At a used bookstore I recently picked up Doug North's The Economic Growth of the United States: 1790-1860 (I already had his Institutional Change and American Economic Growth), and James Cobb's Industrialization and Southern Society 1877-1984. One of the ones I might read soon after Dorfman is Curtis Nettels's The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775-1815. I've also been meaning to read Bailyn's The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century and Frederick Toles's The Meeting House and The Counting House. From the Urban Institute library closing I recently acquired Legerblott's The Americans: An Economic Record. On my list for a long time has been Cooke's Tench Coxe and the Early Republic. And then there are several on the Great Depression which I still haven't gotten into yet (the Great Depression is like the Civil War for me - it's silly I know, but I feel like the entry barriers for this period of history are extremely high. There are so many experts out there that I don't want to dive in and be the naive one. Better to know 1910-1930 well, rather than be a perpetual novice at 1930-1945. Of course, that's an excellent way for me to stay a novice).

Does anyone have any other suggestions for good American economic history? I'm done with theory for a while - I've missed reading history so much so I think economic history is a lot of what I'll be reading this fall. I feel like a lot on my list are just classics that I feel like I ought to read and know, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're the best to read. If anyone out there is looking for suggestions, I can highly recommend Drew McCoy's The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America, and Susan Dunn's Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, and the Decline of Virginia.

BTW - there are also new Economic Thought posts on Structural Unemployment, and Economic Calculation.

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The Ugly: More gems from Wayne William Anderson... thinking government should light street lamps = state worship (if that's all it takes to worship the power of the state, I don't know what my support of the space program makes me!). I wish I could have the Mises blog on my blogroll minus any post that Wayne William Anderson writes. Vaccuous and inconsequential - every last one of them. I gather from Wayne's William's profile that he's a religious man - if that's sincere he oughta know what worship is when he sees it. He'd do better to focus on analysis rather than these non-sequitors, grudges, and these mean-spirited and simply non-sensical posts.

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The "No Comment": Steve Horwitz should not quit his day job :)

38 comments:

  1. "...if that's all it takes to worship the power of the state, I don't know what my support of the space program makes me!"

    Overly romantic.

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  2. I gather from Wayne's profile that he's a religious man - if that's sincere he oughta know what worship is when he sees it.

    Actually, speaking from the vantage point of theology, you'd be surprised how easily religious folk (and especially the educated ones!) jump to accusations of idolatrous nationalism and state worship. I run into this critique mostly from a quite different corner of the political arena when I hear it from theologians, but I think it's a similar impulse that's feeding them both.

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  3. "Overly romantic"

    Hey, my wife appreciates it.

    Evan -
    Needless to say I was being a little tongue-in-cheek, but ya I believe it. In fact I remember you showing me examples. Economists certainly do this as well. There was an article, I believe in the Southern Economic Journal, called "Folk Economics" that went over "fallacies" commonly held by the public. The article was interesting in its own fallacies. It was right if what you're concerned about is what economists are concerned about, namely, the maximization of the net present value of utility. But if you're concerned about relative utility or a few other things the author of the article was actually the one committing the fallacy. People regularly overstate the self-evidence of their own pet assumptions and frameworks, and in the process denounce people that they mistake to be naive.

    Granted, Wayne Anderson should know better since he is an economist (well, purportedly).

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  4. Mises coined the phrase "Statolatory" here: http://mises.org/etexts/mises/og.asp

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  5. ...not surprising, given that he used other ugly neologisms like "praxeology" (though apparently he didn't coin that one).

    One benefit of doing this sort of thing is that, in Peirce's words on the term pragmaticism, it's "ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers"... in his case people who had butchered the meaning of "pragmatism" beyond usefulness.

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  6. Oh that's no neologism!

    I'm sure in a couple minutes you'll get a full history.

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  7. Although I see what you're saying - I guess for Mises it might have reasonably been called a neologism - I thought you were talking about Wayne Anderson.

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  8. American economic history recommendations anyone?

    ...much as I would love to dedicate an entire thread to Wayne Anderson and the idiosyncrasies of the Austrian School.

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  9. Truth be told, I skipped straight to the "ugly" thinking that would be the most interesting part of the post. Which is all for the best, I suppose, given that I probably can't help you with anything economic-history-related.

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  10. Anyway all politics is to certain extent about state worship - or rather, worship of the politician who wishes to run/represent the state. Which is a significant reason why people who are into politics are so passionate (either way) about one politician or another.

    For more see Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer."

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  11. "Anyway all politics is to certain extent about state worship - or rather, worship of the politician who wishes to run/represent the state."

    That's a ridiculous proposition. Why do you say this? What does worship have to do with it?

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  12. Daniel,

    Some things off the top of my head (though they may not be relevant)

    "The Visible Hand"

    "American Plastic"

    "Electrifying America"

    "Most Wonderful Machine"

    "The Transporation Revolution"

    "A Shopkeeper's Millenium"

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  13. Visible Hand as in Chandler? I read selections of that years ago - forgot about that.

    I've heard good things about Shopkeeper's Millenium too. Have you read it? Did you like it?

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  14. btw - I don't think Eric Hoffer would agree with you at all that politics is state-worship.

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  15. Daniel,

    No, it isn't a ridiculous proposition. Have you ever watched a single political ad in your entire life? Modern political advertising tries as much as possible to insert itself into the areas of thinking that religion used to be involved with. All one has to do is appreciate the continuing influence of folks like Leni Riefenstahl to understand this.

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  16. I've read all of the above.

    Yes, I liked it. Plus it is (a) very readable and (b) short. It is also part of the trend of micro or regional studies that became so popular in the 1970s. In the case of Britain nearly every shire has a multi-volume tome dedicated to its history.

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  17. Regarding Friedman and Schwartz's book, it's true that they do attempt to apply theory to their statistics, but this is not a consistent methodology used throughout the book. So, when they do apply theory, it makes it awkward. In any case, their beliefs on the origins of the contraction of 1929 are derived empirically, and I'm not sure that even Keynes can be accused of doing that.

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  18. Daniel,

    He would agree with my position as it applies to most people who follow politics. Much of his point was to reject and cast a negative light on the sort of hero worship (or the opposite) that is so common in politics. "Politics" means a couple of different things in other words.

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  19. Are you simply arguing that political advertising plays on peoples emotions? I'm failing to see the point. Is the private sector corporate-worship then? Is the entertainment business actor-worship?

    Simply being inspired/emotionally attached to/convinced by some one or some thing doesn't constitute a religious devotion to the state, does it?

    If we were to take your logic we'd all be schizophrenic polytheists.

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  20. ...yeah, that point seems odd. One could make a similar argument about libertarians and certain theories/thinkers.

    Or socialists. Or whatever.

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  21. Daniel,

    Yes and yes and it is more than "being inspired, etc."

    That is of course the point that Hoffer makes. Look at what he says about those who live vicariously through the lives of others - who attach themselves emotionally to the ups and downs of people they don't even know (actors, athletes, politicians, etc.).

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  22. But Hoffer was commenting on some very specific dynamics and movements and types of people. He wasn't making statements about politics in general.

    There's something to be said about social psychology in general - in all of us - that enables the kinds of movements that Hoffer concerned himself with. But that doesn't mean that political movements in general amount to state worship.

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  23. Of course it is more dangerous with the state ... since the state has the sanction to tax, imprison and execute you. Actor worship typically isn't such a big deal.

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  24. You're wrong about that. Hoffer's work discusses a whole range of human group behavior - including all forms of mass politics as well as mass movements.

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  25. Evan,

    One could. I'll be the first to admit that most libertarians and most atheists for that matter have not clearly thought through to a significant enough length why they are libertarians or atheists.

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  26. Anyway, the ability for the politician to use rhetoric (without a grounding in any of the checks that the classical world would require of such rhetoric - namely a liberal education as they saw it) is the main reason to (a) avoid political advertising and (b) read the speeches of politicians as opposed to listening to them.

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  27. I'll be the first to admit that most libertarians and most atheists for that matter have not clearly thought through to a significant enough length why they are libertarians or atheists.

    So wait... are you now defining "worship" in terms of unreflective or under-reflective adherence to something? I think I like this worse than your initial reference to passion. At least your initial talk of worship only took on the vice of being bland and vague. Now you're just recycling Marxist tropes.

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  28. "So wait... are you now defining "worship" in terms of unreflective or under-reflective adherence to something? I think I like this worse than your initial reference to passion."

    The most passionate are also generally speaking the most unreflective.

    "Now you're just recycling Marxist tropes."

    Actually, I'm not. If I am recycling anything I am recycling tropes from the classical world - Cicero and the like.

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  29. Anyway, I am nearing vacation time and I need to prepare for that. So I won't be around again until the very end of September. So adieu.

    Oh, and Daniel, have you ever thought about writing an IPhone app for your blog? I'd love it myself! :)

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  30. I wouldn't even begin to know how but if anyone wants to they are welcome to :)

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  31. Apple has a lot of helpful information at their Dev Center. :)

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  32. You might also consider an FB presence; "Economic Thought" has one.

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  33. BTW, the book I am reading on the banking system of classical Athens is superb. Far more satisfying than Finley.

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  34. Cohen, _Athenian Economy & Society_

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  35. @Daniel Kuehn,

    Anderson's take is of course exaggerated, but he has a point.

    The rhetoric of Krugman's article is bordering on preaching. It begins with the heading and then continues throughout the article. It is filled with symbolism and emotions.

    One can indeed get an impression from the article that the government for Krugman is kind of a beacon without which the American people will go astray.

    And of course he mixes the emotions with cheap statements like this:

    "And now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole."

    The statements that seem self-evident but actually beg empirical evidence (because it is well known that most of the US railroads, for example, were privately built). I also suspect that street lights were also privately provided during much of the US history. Let alone schooling which is a private good.

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