(this)
Can he even conceive of an economist that deeply respects the thinking and legacy of Keynes, Hayek, Buchanan, and Friedman or does he just dismiss that as a nonsense position?
In the realm of the history of economic thought - which I've been moving out of lately for career-building reasons but would love to do more with at some point - the thing I probably hate most of all is turning the history of thought into a cartoonish battle of the titans. That's really not how intellectual history works, IMO.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
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It's not like Boettke is targeting anything he writes to people who both 1) Have a deep understanding of economics; and 2) Aren't already sympathetic to his disposition. Why not totally misrepresent those people?
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the cartoonish battle of the titans, I think it's because 'dead scholar said XXXX' seems to laymen like the legitimate method of argument in the social sciences. I think they expect us to talk about Keynes and Hayek the same way other social scientists talk about Marx or Foucault.
DeleteDaniel wrote: "Can he even conceive of an economist that deeply respects the thinking and legacy of Keynes, Hayek, Buchanan, and Friedman or does he just dismiss that as a nonsense position?"
ReplyDeleteNothing he wrote in that piece implies the latter. At all. He's saying that Keynesian thinking, Keynesian language dominates the conversation, and that only challenging the fundamewntal language of economics can bring in a Hayekian revoliution.
Nowhere does he say or imply that Keynes is not a deep thinker, or that there can not be economists who 'respects the thinking and legacy of Keynes, Hayek, Buchanan, and Friedman'. (Hell, Hayek himself was probably one of those economists who did exactly that.)
Again, Daniel, IMO, it seems that you're trying way too hard re the Austrians.
re: "Nowhere does he say or imply that Keynes is not a deep thinker"
DeleteI never said he did. Come on Narrator - these threads have been on track for several days now. Don't send it off the rails again please.
I have to agree with The Narrator. Daniel Kuehn, you are generous to the Austrians in a way that most would not be, but there are limits to generosity.
ReplyDelete"In the realm of the history of economic thought - which I've been moving out of lately for career-building reasons but would love to do more with at some point - the thing I probably hate most of all is turning the history of thought into a cartoonish battle of the titans. That's really not how intellectual history works, IMO."
While turning intellectual history into a battle of the titans is undoubtably a gross over-simplification no matter what, people tend to like the idea of great clashes between two adversaries where one of them has to destroy the other - although in real life, such great clashes between two adversaries ending with one destroying the other seldom happens.
Intellectual history is more nuanced and subtle, of course.
But how long will it be until you reach that "some point", Daniel? Would you be upset if it turned out that you never end up getting around to another paper in the history of economics?
Blue Arora wrote: "I have to agree with The Narrator. Daniel Kuehn, you are generous to the Austrians in a way that most would not be, but there are limits to generosity."
ReplyDeleteTo be sure, I meant the exact opposite of that (i.e. he's being ungenerous to the Austrians).
FWIW, Boettke's piece was more strident than I expected it would be. I happen to *agree* with Pete on this stuff, but I can understand why someone who deeply respects Keynes (like Daniel) would be put-off by it.
ReplyDeleteThat may very well be the case, but it doesn't make what Daniel wrote in this post any more justified (because nowhere does Boettke say or imply that Keynes is not a deep thinker, or that there can not be economists who 'respects the thinking and legacy of Keynes, Hayek, Buchanan, and Friedman'. (Hell, Hayek himself was probably one of those economists who did exactly that.))
DeleteBob - It's not that I find it personally insulting of course - it just seems to distort the issues at hand in a pet peeve kind of way.
DeleteOut of curiosity - what's an example of Boettke on Keynes that's not like this? I'm not sure he's ever presented a discussion of Keynes that isn't fundamentally a foil.