In some ways, the stereotype makes sense. All Austrians are fairly political, but the Mises Institute people take it to a whole new level. Sometimes it's that they mix their ideology/political philosophy thinking in with their economics - and they take both seriously. Sometimes it's because they're not very serious and they just take breaks from their Ron Paul boosting and statist (i.e. - non anarcho-capitalist) bashing to talk about economics. There's a range in Auburn just like there is anywhere.
But what I think there George Mason crowd misses in many cases is that as far as scholarly engagement goes, for the most part they aren't especially distinguishable from Auburn. The biggest distinction is on the ideology front.
Painting in broad strokes, of course there are more firebreathers in terms of their actual ideas in Auburn, but the Auburn crowd has been nicer to me personally than the George Mason crowd.
If you look at their treatment of non-Austrians (particularly Keynesians), the George Mason crowd seems equally dismissive to me. They make idiotic or rude comments about Krugman or DeLong with equal frequency as far as I can tell that doesn't speak well to their commitment to "civil intellectual engagement". The public choice facets of the George Mason camp if anything make them more likely to attribute disagreement to bad faith or impure motives on the other side. And that gets old really fast.
As far as basic facts they seem to botch other ideas with equal frequency.
I'm reading Living Economics right now by Peter Boettke to review for Free Liberal, and while he has some great intellectual history in there he also has the EXACT same claims that we see all the time from internet Austrians.
You cannot convince me that Walter Block or Robert Wenzel are any
So as much as I like to see them beat each other up, there seems to be a huge presumption by a lot of people that it's just obvious that we should be more dismissive of the Mises Institute people than the GMU people. It seems to me that a lot of GMUers who might not realize it should hear from an outsider that the distinction is not as strong as they seem to think. And they should probably be more critical of their own bad actors.
I don't think that third paragraph is right. In monetary (and banking) theory, "GMU" Austrians have engaged non-Austrians in scholarly journals. Of course, a lot "Auburn" Austrians have also engaged non-Austrians, especially in entrepreneurship research.
ReplyDeleteThe whole GMU v. Auburn Austrians is somewhat dull, because there is a lot of crossing over -- I think the distinction is used mostly by non-economist "fellow travelers" of the LvMI, because they want to stress how non-"Rothbardian" some Austrians are. You rarely see professional Austrian economists make this distinction. In fact, when they do want to set each other apart, they prefer other terms. Remember Joe Salerno's accusation of George Selgin of being a Keynesian (or pushing "Keynesian" theories), for advocating monetary disequilibrium theory.
I agree with your points re: Keynesianism, though.
So I am largely thinking civility of discourse because that was what was at issue here. You're right - GMU is higher caliber in terms of scientific venues. I'm not 100% convinced that the quality of output is a whole lot different.
Deletere: "The whole GMU v. Auburn Austrians is somewhat dull, because there is a lot of crossing over -- I think the distinction is used mostly by non-economist "fellow travelers" of the LvMI"
I think it is a VERY important distinction to my good friends in Fairfax.
re: "You rarely see professional Austrian economists make this distinction."
Yes and no. It's not out there prominently in general discussion, but then neither is the Austrian school. In histories of the Austrian school (i.e. - Vaughn - someone on the GMU side, fwiw) it's important and it's a very real fact of life.
The monetary food fights are a fight within a fight.
"I'm not 100% convinced that the quality of output is a whole lot different."
DeleteI was writing a response, and I realized I may have misinterpreted. With connotation in mind, do you mean that the output of both is equally high or equally low? If it's the former, I agree; if it's the latter, I don't.
"I think it is a VERY important distinction to my good friends in Fairfax."
Why do you say that? And, is the cause you have in mind basically the debate over free banking and method or something else? (Because, one could argue that the set of ideas they agree on is much larger than the one they disagree on.) And I'm assuming you're not considering things like difference in political philosophy, or social views. Maybe I'm just underestimating the distinction.
"In histories of the Austrian school (i.e. - Vaughn - someone on the GMU side, fwiw) it's important and it's a very real fact of life."
I haven't read Vaughn's book. But, I've mostly seen it in the writing of certain people in the "Auburn" camp, like Hoppe, who seem to want to dichotomize Mises and Keynes, Kirzner and Rothbard. But, they're a minority.
On high or low - it varies of course. I think GMU underestimates Mises Institute work, and of course I also think GMU overestimates its own work (almost everyone does, right?). So... probably a little of both. Like I said I'm not 100% convinced. If I was forced to chose I'm sure I'd say GMU does better scholarly work. But most of the concern in this has been online civility.
DeleteFree banking and method map on to this, but I'm just talking about the general division of the programs. They certainly agree on a lot - otherwise they wouldn't both consider themselves Austrian.
*Everyone* at GMU is well published in fairly high end journals. Such publications from Auburn are the exception, not the rule. I agree with you strongly that too much research at GMU is name-calling dressed up as economics.
ReplyDeleteBut Krugman/DeLong are very shrill on this scale, you realize? I tried commenting on DeLong's blog once and it got deleted. It was a plainly worded link to an academic article. I don't know of any Austrian blog that would do that.
Do I realize?
DeleteCheck my record. I've called them out numerous times.
Part of my motivation here is that GMU never seems to clean house and they only ever seem to blame those crazies down at Auburn for the Austrian school's troubles.
See clarification with Jonathan on the journals. That wasn't really what I was thinking of here, although I agree. That's a strategic mistake on Auburn's part (and Pete Boettke, for his part, often puts it in strategic terms as far as influencing the science). It doesn't make a direct difference in the case of the content (although of course it makes an indirect difference through peer review, etc.).
DeleteBut, in reference to our discussion above, that's mostly about free banking. Otherwise, it's about social views and political philosophy, which is not economics. (And, I don't know if this is some of the evidence you have in mind. But, just to cover all the bases, Boettke's recent complaints are directed at the non-professional Austrians [like me] skewing the readers' interpretation of what Austrian economics is, because the internet provides them a loud voice.) Within strictly economics, there is more agreement than disagreement.
DeleteI suppose I just tend to see GMU as having a lot of non-professionals just like Auburn does (I wouldn't put you in this camp - you're a student but you're not some interloper). GMU has a lot of people with jackass online presences just like Auburn does.
DeleteAnd I get the impression sometimes that the GMU people are not self-aware of this.
Pete Boettke is on the committee of a guy at GMU that has a guy - Jesse Gastelle - that basically turns "internet Austrian" positions on Keynesianism into a doctoral dissertation. Their response is of course that it doesn't, but they don't even seem to be aware that most people don't see a lot of daylight between the two axes of American Austrian economics.
Not that I’m trying to help your argument, but I am trying to understand your bottom line. In the first line of your second-last paragraph, do you mean “less,” not “more?"
ReplyDeleteSorry to be dense - could you quote the sentence? I'm not seeing what you're curious about.
DeleteI could, but I know you can find the paragraph, the line, and the word “more."
DeleteSorry - it was genuine denseness on my part (we were putting Caroline down as I was responding to all these). I read it as "second paragraph". Yes, I mean less. It's change.
DeleteThanks. Understood.
DeleteDaniel Kuehn: Are you reviewing Living Economics for any particular scholarly outlet?
ReplyDeleteJonathan Catalan and Ryan: Does Lawrence White's 2008 article in the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking about F.A. Hayek and Lionel Robbins count as a good example of what both of you have in mind?
*looks at Daniel Kuehn's post again*
DeleteDamn it, I overlooked the reference to Free Liberal.
In case anyone doesn't know which article by Lawrence White I'm talking about, please see the link below.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2008.00134.x/abstract
That, or look at earlier pieces in that journal. Selgin and White have been publishing in high end journals since the early 90s.
DeleteCivility and scholarly output aside, one thing that irks me is that Auburn completely dominates GMU in terms of internet influence (e.g. there isn't a GMU site I know of that is remotely as popular as mises.org or Rockwell's site). I'm not sure why this is so; any thoughts, anyone? I think a lot of it has to do with Rothbard's charisma, which still reverberates today. Whatever you think of his ideas, you can't (or at least I can't) deny that he was a charming MF.
ReplyDeleteOne thing which strikes me as dishonorable behavior by Auburn is the censorship of certain ideas, e.g. criticisms of full reserve banking. Bob Murphy, Gene Callahan--can you comment on this link? Is this really how things are run at the Mises Institute?
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/a-1015086/
Auburn is mostly populist. GMU, much less so.
DeleteRight. I think GMU really should make an effort to become more populist b/c even mainstream economists who criticize Austrian (really Rothbardian) positions are almost completely unaware of GMU Austrians and their work.
DeletePopulist, not popular. Populism is terrible. Populist ideas help make you popular, but they also make you stupid.
DeleteWhy is Kuehn weighing in on this? Kuehn is not - to my knowledge - associated with the Austrian School, Auburn, or GMU.
ReplyDeleteSo you are saying we should just be dismissive of both groups?
ReplyDelete"I'm reading Living Economics right now by Peter Boettke to review for Free Liberal, and while he has some great intellectual history in there he also has the EXACT same claims that we see all the time from internet Austrians."
ReplyDeleteWhat in particular? I presume that you have insight that Austrians of all flavors can benefit from.