The Long March Through FAIR: How Big Can the Tent Become?

[_MCB]

I'm a left-wing socialist/libertarian and don't agree with this particular way to demonize the right. The right has some pretty good intellectuals, along the lines of Milton Friedman and Richard Posner, among others, who can't be tarred with religiosity.

You misread me, again. There are many on the right with whom I agree. I can only call them moderate (because I agree with them?). They are intellectual powerhouses. I respect them highly.

It seems like the current political debate among Republicans is exposing an anti-intellectual cadre of flakes on the far right. And they seem to believe that their religion makes them right. CTR? Capiche?

[_Droopy]

I think key to the conservative populist wave you speak of will be Austrian Economics. Eschewing mathematics and statistics and sticking to relatively simple verbal models makes the subject readily accessible to the pleb, and fully arms him to do battle with the false wisdom of the HFL.

Many Austrians are and have been trained in econometrics and macroeconomics. No blanket statement such as this can be taken seriously. One of the real salient contributions of Austrian economics is its key insight, well supported by history and empirical data, that mathematical economics and marcoeconomics, which are primarily abstract academic exercises in theory construction and mathmatic modeling, have been unambiguous failures in managing the economy at the central government level, as well as in predicting and correctly conceptualizing "human action," or actual human behavior in an economic context.

Austrian economics is about rigorous logical and conceptual analysis of empirical phenomena and the human psychology - incentives, motives, and rational self interest, that actually animates economic behavior. The continual blithering failure of Keynsianism over the last century and the irrelevance of much academic mathematical modeling to the real economic world stand in stark contrast to the theoretic and empirical robustness of Austrian analysis.

Austrian economics, thought not by any means perfect, is the antidote to the "dismal science" and the broad irrelevance of econometrics to actual real world political economy.

I've been reading blogs at the Von Mises Institute and I have to wonder if most of these folks -- and I'm talking about those posting the blogs, not just commenting -- could even make through a basic econ course.

I'll just snip all the smug, posturing blather and point out that the Mises website contains a massive amount of scholarly monographs, studies, entire books, video lectures and seminars, and other resources. Spending a few hours at their blog, a la Kevin Graham, and then coming here and pronouncing judgement is just a game, and as the song says, its all in the game.

[_Droopy]

Or, of course, Sadianton could have done a little more of his own homework on his own chosen point and allowed those he is criticizing to speak for themselves.

http://mises.org/daily/926

The problem is, of course, nothing more than that Austrian economics is not "his" kind of economics, nor the "approved" academic form. Beyond that, the actual competing theories rise and fall on their merits, not on whether or not various gatekeepers of orthodoxy pronounce them pure.

[_Droopy]

A couple of salient points made from the essay linked to above places the entire problem in perspective in a succinct manner. Any emphasis will be mine.

Furthermore, the most vociferous critics of math in economics, Murray N. Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises, were both well versed in mathematics, Rothbard entering Columbia University at age 16 as a statistics major. Rothbard and Mises did not build mathematical theoretical models because they believed it was inappropriate for economic analysis, not because they lacked mathematical competence.

What is the problem, then, of using math for economics, and why are Austrians opposed to such a methodology? In a word, math is not an appropriate tool to describe human action. As Mises and Rothbard often pointed out, one cannot quantify human action. This does not mean that people do not engage in activity in which mathematics is not important, but rather that we cannot accurately use math to describe how humans behave.

[_EAllusion]

The Mises paleolibertarian crowd tends to attract both more traditional libertarians often with some conservative social views and ultra-conservative theocrats. The latter are very fascist. The former are quite the opposite. Yet hard money Austrian economics animates both. Remember that Lew Rockwell's group includes real-deal Christian Reconstructionists like Gary North. That group has been spreading influence in the religious right to the point where the categories are bleeding in strange and unintuitive ways.

Some people want to see limited federal government power because they see personal freedom as a virtue. Others use anti-federalism as a patina for their localist theocratic dreams.

[_Gadianton]

Hi Droopy,

I encountered that particular post during an early web search and it was instrumental in informing my understanding. Thanks for the link. The fortuitous irrelevance of mathematics to economics surely gives Austrian theory a leg up as a populist tool. And the Von Mises Institute positioning itself as an organization that "fights evil"; well, you can't say they don't know how to draw a crowd.

I agree that the school should be judged by its ideas. Its rejection of mathematics or rather, microeconomics as anyone understands it let alone statistics, is one of those ideas I'm passing judgement on. But that's low hanging fruit, I'll admit. I intend to more thoroughly judge the institution for its core theory, the "Austrian Business Cycle." It's a bit difficult getting through what appear to be subtle misunderstandings of the Austrian School's plebeian apologists to really nail it down, so it's taking time, unfortunately.

Anyway, it is fascinating, really fascinating. It turns out Austrian theory is sort of the evil, less informed twin of Keynesian theory and in its modern articulation requires a denial of the schools founding principles in order to make it work. It's really bizarre. And a fantastic case study in the problems with fundamentalism and apologetics.

[Guest]

The Mises paleolibertarian crowd tends to attract both more traditional libertarians often with some conservative social views and ultra-conservative theocrats. The latter are very fascist.

You've been handed your Jester's cap once before on this, E, so let's not do the same stand-up comic routine yet again. In all, and with my help, you were able to come up with precisely two (2) members of the Von Mises Institute partial to a movement enamored of the ideals and psychology of the old South (minus, in their own words, its racism), so this just isn't going to get you very far. Each and every organization has its eccentrics. Heaven knows the modern Democrat party is top loaded with a zooish cornucopia of such eccentricity and extremism.

The Austrian school is represented by the Lugwig Von Mises Institutute in North America, and by other groups in the U.K. and on the Continent, and its core position is that of economic and individual liberty and a rule of law based society. Its few eccentrics change nothing regarding the vast majority and their core concerns.

I'd ask you to cease the as hominem smearing by association that is your usual tactic in most debates such as this, but I've long ago come to the conclusion that such would be futile. I understand that, like most other leftists around here, its really all you can bring to the economic and political science table.

Barack Obama and his party are presently, the most prominent purveyors of "fascism" in America (when they're not wallowing in neo-Marxism), so again, you don't appear to even understand the rudiments of that of which you speak.

The former are quite the opposite. Yet hard money Austrian economics animates both. Remember that Lew Rockwell's group includes real-deal Christian Reconstructionists like Gary North. That group has been spreading influence in the religious right to the point where the categories are bleeding in strange and unintuitive ways.

This is just blather coming out of your own imagination, E, and don't think I don't know it. You can't argue your points intellectually, so you are continually reduced to this. OK, that's North, for a grand total of 3, thus far, out of some 250 academics and scholars resident at the organization, who hold this "Christian Reconstructionist" position.

The Republican party, of which I used to be a member, harbors numerous liberals, party reptiles, and political opportunists, and yet it is still the home of principled conservatism. Although the Democrat party has been long taken over by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Ron Dellums, it still harbors principled Americans with reasonable views, even if divergent from conservative positions.

Some people want to see limited federal government power because they see personal freedom as a virtue. Others use anti-federalism as a patina for their localist theocratic dreams.

Yes, well, that's not the Von Mises Institute, which is Austrian libertarian in nature, all the way to Rothbardian anarchism. Your primary problem, E, is that, as with most leftists as the confront and engage political/economic issues, you and your ideology have already given up the ship and jumped into the lifeboats before the battle has even been joined.

[_Droopy]

Does anyone else think this is just bizarre? Are really seriously supposed to see Franco as leftist?

Then perhaps you could tell us what, exactly, places Franco on the "Right?"

All his social ideals were conservative and he had the support of the Catholic church.

Specifics please, and please don't limit your analysis to "social ideals." What were his views of the proper role and scope of the state, the relationship of the individual to the state, and economics?

Of course, Droopy is not alone in this nuttiness and I am sure he can point to some other online rant that tries to see all retrospectively disfavored historical political movements (including Francoism) as being leftist. After all, to Droopy, leftism is just a synonym for "bad"--and well, Franco was bad right?

The problem, Tarski, is that you appear to have no idea regarding the intellectual, political, and social history involved here, and you're just burping up the CBS Evening News, Cronkite and public school Kool-Aid you imbibed in childhood and youth and never really questioned as you grew older because, as you became an adult, you at some point and at some level realized it was really just what you wanted to hear.

[_Gadianton]

I looked up Gary North. It seems he has quite a lot of respect at the Austrian School. One man, if he has enormous respect, counts a lot.

Anyway, he doesn't matter to my own critique, which focuses on figures I believe to be essential to Austrianism such as Von Hayek and Rothbard, and some of the actual economists who hold posts at real colleges and universities who consider themselves Austrian.

One interesting thing I've learned is that the Austrian School has their own journal, The Review of Austrian Economics. Guess what they call it? The Review. LOL!

I will give the Austrians credit for something here though. They are apologetic in nature and in the dark for sure, but the fact that their journal is open to essay submissions from critics is impressive. I recall another publication that goes by the same nickname whose first edition contained essays by critics of Mopologetics, but afterwards, the journal was sterilized and from volumes 2 to 23 does nothing but toe the party line.

[_EAllusion]

Gary North is a major figure in the Lew Rockwell crowd. He has a ton of articles on Lewrockwell.com for a reason. He's in the inner circle. He's not the only Christian Reconstructionist, and, as it happens, virtually all Christian Reconstructionists are Austrians. I pointed to him as the extreme end of the theocratic wing that clearly exists within the Austrian crowd. If Gary North got his way, there would be mass executions on a scale that would make Hitler look like a joke. I, quite accurately, described that subgroup as being quite fascist. Moreoever, I am not a leftist. I am a libertarian taking note of the fringes of my own area on my political spectrum.

And there is a strong neo-confederate movement within the Mises/Rothbard crowd. And that flows directly from Rockwell and Tucker, both of which have close ties to the League of the South.