A Government Propaganda Move That Makes "Operation Infinite Justice" Sound Sensitive
Taylor Conant passed this along. I don’t want to spoil it or steal Roderick Long’s thunder, since he had the best reaction. You will not believe what the Census Bureau came up with to encourage people to register.
"It Couldn’t Happen Here"
When Americans are shocked, shocked to wake up one day and realize they live in a police state, they really can’t say there were no signs. The below is apparently actually playing in a movie theater near you. (HT2LRC)
Final Thoughts On Boettke Et Al.’s Preferred Nomenclature
Whenever you get into Internet arguments it soon becomes apparent that your own comments sow confusion / hurt feelings / etc. because other people don’t understand where you are coming from. In my previous post regarding the decision of GMU’s Pete Boettke and the his co-bloggers to rename their site “Coordination Problem” instead of “The Austrian Economists,” I surely did not win hearts and minds when I said: “So it is a bit exasperating when Boettke et al. decide to split off precisely when the strategy that others have been pushing has paid off so incredibly.”
Let me clarify. Ever since I have been active in circles where the economics of Mises and Hayek are held in high esteem, there has been a question of strategy. Obviously no one is saying, “We know all we need to learn about economics. Let’s stop doing research.” No, the strategic point was always, “We are shut out from the mainstream. Our kids won’t get a job unless they learn a bunch of math and Keynesian models, and publish accordingly. What should we do about this?”
So some people decided to focus their efforts on making these ideas and techniques more palatable to mainstream economists who were used to 8 page journal articles with 3 paragraphs of text and the rest filled with equations. Other people decided to focus their efforts on transmitting the basic ideas to a broad audience, both for general purposes of education and defense of liberty (since the public won’t endorse tyrannical measures if they understand sound economics), but also as a way of tipping the scales in favor of the Misesian and Hayekian ideas. After all, if 95% of the incoming economics undergrads loved Human Action, and financial analysts and WSJ editorialists always discussed how flawed the Keynesian approach was and praised Mises instead, then it would be a lot harder for the big schools to keep their intellectual lock on economics.
But guess what? There are obvious flaws with both strategies in their pure form. If it were really the case that only pundits and radio talk show hosts praised Mises, while all the PhDs thought he was a crank, then it could actually backfire and ensure that the “smart people” distanced themselves from him. But by the same token, the other strategy could backfire too: If nobody in the public cared about “Austrian economics,” and all incoming freshmen who wanted to major in economics thought in terms of macro aggregates and spent their time studying set theory and differential equations, then there would be little hope of ever changing the professional structure such that it wasn’t suicidal for, say, someone to do his economics dissertation on the Hayekian triangle.
So, duh, the obvious “solution”–and one which appealed to all the econ geeks in the discussion–was to have a division of labor. Obviously someone like Walter Block was simply meant to be an undergrad professor at a school where you didn’t need an 800 on your math SAT to get in. And–holy cow!–it was amazing what tenure track positions Pete Boettke’s students out of GMU were getting.
I am not reinventing history here, that was how I saw things back when I was teaching at Hillsdale College (2003-2006). I thought the Mises Institute and LewRockwell.com were doing wonders in evangelizing to the masses, and were doing a great service (especially Mises.org with all the free stuff it was putting online) in getting young people interested in Austrian economics. The job of people like Walter Block (and way way way less so, me at Hillsdale College) was to prep kids to then go off to GMU where Boettke would find them a job at a mid-level PhD-granting university. (If I came across someone with very good math skills, I would mention the possibility of NYU and explain the pros and cons.) Over time, other places like San Jose State were becoming meccas too, and I’d mention that to students.
It seemed like the strategy was working, and much better than anybody would have guessed ten years previously. Pete Leeson for example published a paper discussing anarcho-capitalism in a prestigious journal out of Chicago, for example (edited by the Freakonomics guy)!! I was flabbergasted. Wow that was awesome, Boettke was surprising me by showing it wasn’t a career killer if you published on “Austrian” themes, you just had to do it right.
Then my next shock was when Tom Woods was on the New York Times bestseller list. What the heck, can that possibly be right?!! I must confess when I first saw someone refer to him as a “bestselling author” on LRC, I assumed it must have meant, “Among the books we sold at our conference last year, Tom Woods was #1…”
And if you had asked me in 2006, “How long before Austrian economics becomes ‘cool’ enough so that someone can matter-of-factly discuss it on Jay Leno?” I would probably have said, “Let me work on my stand-up act and maybe in 20 years we’ll get there.”
And if you had asked me in 2006, “How long before angry college crowds chant ‘end the Fed’ because they are vaguely familiar with the Austrian business cycle theory and realize the central bank is an evil institution?” I would have laughed in your face. Yeah right, we’re going to get college students riled up about central banking? You must be a libertarian nutjob, since you’re clearly smoking something, buddy.
So, given the above, I hope people at least understand my profound frustration when Boettke et al. give as one of their explicit reasons for changing their name that Google alerts has shown over the last year how much discussion there has been linking the Austrian business cycle theory to anti-Fed rhetoric. For anybody who thought the “big plan” that would bring great results in 10 years was to distribute our efforts as I’ve described above, it is rather a let-down when the GMU-associated guys are explicitly renouncing the brand name.
What happens now when someone asks me, “Yeah I’m in an economics program at small school XYZ, my professors are Keynesians but I love Mises. My GREs are such-and-such. Where should I go to learn more about Austrian economics?”
Am I supposed to even mention GMU at this point? I’m not being rhetorical, I’m serious. Does GMU want people who like the term “Austrian economics” or do they want to get blank slates?
Like I said, this isn’t an empty question. I give free advice to at least a dozen such students a year. I honestly don’t know how I’m supposed to tell them the landscape at this point, since the “division of labor” in getting Austrian ideas into the mainstream was obviously not a universally shared one.
Glenn Greenwald Reminds Us That Terrorism Wasn’t Invented on 9/11
Glenn Greenwald takes Jeffrey Weiss to task over perpetuating the stereotype that terrorism is a thing that Muslims do. Here’s what Weiss wrote that set off GG:
And we’re still left with a terrible problem for a free and multicultural society: Even though 99.999 percent of Muslims abhor attacks on innocent civilians on moral and theological grounds, 100 percent of attempted terrorist attacks on the U.S. (and, with the exception of the Basques in Spain, terrorists attacks on all Western nations) since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing have been committed by people claiming to act in the name of Islam.
I must confess, even though I knew GG was getting ready to list a bunch of counterexamples, they weren’t popping into my head until he listed them for me. In other words, I have been successfully conditioned into only considering a bombing or shooting as “terrorism” if it’s carried out by Islamist radicals who hate the U.S. I’m not saying I consciously articulated it that way, but it’s the only explanation I have for why Weiss’ claims didn’t make me immediately think of:
* The IRA’s terrorist acts.
* The anthrax attacks on US soil that (at least “officially”) were carried out by a white guy.
* The bombings of abortion clinics / shooting abortionists on U.S. soil by Christians (I assume).
GG also lists terrorist acts committed by non-Muslims in other countries, but I’m not embarrassed that they didn’t occur to me.
Now part of what’s going on psychologically, I think, isn’t merely racism or being brainwashed by Fox News’ foreign policy agenda. No, I don’t feel worried about guys shooting abortionists, because I’m not an abortionist. I don’t get anxious about IRA terrorists, because I don’t plan on taking a bus in Ireland anytime soon. Etc. And I’m also not too worried about the political response to such crimes, because they will lead to things like spying on militia groups which is bad but not nearly as bad as federalizing airport security.
In contrast, I do worry about Muslim terrorists deciding to start sending suicide bombers into U.S. shopping malls. That really would completely alter my lifestyle, even if only a handful of people died and I didn’t know any of them. First of all it would justify all sorts of government power grabs, and second of all it would really be a bummer if you couldn’t go to the mall without worrying about getting blown up.
Note to new readers: I am hugely opposed to US foreign policy. The above might sound as if I’m wondering how “we can win the war on terror” when that’s not it at all. I am also not excusing or downplaying people who murder abortion doctors. I’m just trying to be honest with myself about why Weiss’ demonstrably and obviously false claims at first sounded OK to me.
Potpourri
* Carlos Lara passes along this WSJ article explaining that “Gold Is the New Tupperware.”
* I heard a very moving story on NPR about WW2 conscientious objectors who ended up working in state mental institutions. The conditions were so awful that a few of them decided they had to do something, so they smuggled out photos etc. in order to alert the public. Really, you’re probably thinking, “Oh I bet the conditions were bad,” but you probably have no idea. At this link they have a slideshow of photos, and here is the link for the story itself (audio and transcript). Are we really sure we want the government to take care of our health care?
* EPJ linked to this incredible proposal by economist Robert Shiller (of Case-Shiller housing price index fame). I will probably write a Mises Daily for this, so I’ll save my ire, but wow is this thing bad on so many levels.
Boettke Et Al. Engage in Product Differentiation
The blog formerly known as “The Austrian Economists” will henceforth be referenced by the symbol α. No no it is actually now “Coordination Problem,” and Boettke et al. ask you to update your blogroll accordingly. [Insert joke about coordination problem here.] In this post Boettke explains the decision:
As of January 1, 2010, we are changing our name to “Coordination Problem”. This name change is symbolic as well as substantive. The term “Austrian economics” has become as much a hindrance to the advancement of thought as a convenient shorthand to signal certain methodological and analytical presumptions. We started this blog with a clear purpose to emphasize ongoing research in the scientific literature, and developments in higher education as related to economics and political economy. As a group we are committed to methodological individualism, market process theory, institutional analysis, and spontaneous order theorizing. And while we do not shy away from policy discussions, we do not identify with any political party or specific political movement.
As an experiment, over the past six months we have been tracking the use of the term Austrian economics in the news and in the blogosphere. Less systematically, we have also been listening carefully to the use of the term among fellow professional economists and what they think the label means. The results do not fit our intention. Google alert, for example, inevitably points to financial advice or libertarian politics, rarely to the research paradigm of F. A. Hayek, never to the scholarship of Israel Kirzner. Mises is often mentioned, but Mises the ideological symbol, not Mises the analytical economist. The “Austrian” theory of the business cycle is mentioned, but only in relationship to anti-fed politics and hard money advocacy, and never as an ongoing research program among professional economists.
These trends are not recent, but have been constant throughout our respective careers. We have always been among those who attempted to offer resistance to this use of the term. It has become evident to us that our efforts have been futile. Rather than resist the pure ideological identification, we are choosing to devote our efforts elsewhere. The name Austrian economics has been lost as a focal point for a tradition of economic scholarship, and is now a focal point for something else. We have to let it go.
OK I have mixed reactions about this. At first I wasn’t even sure I should mention it, because I don’t want to start another civil war. But since Boettke isn’t allowing any comments on his post, we’ll have to have the discussion here. This is a rather big announcement (in the admittedly small pond of Austrian blog readers) so it should be discussed somewhere. Here are my quick thoughts:
* For sure, I think it is childish if some people flip out at the “betrayal” of Mises, the “selling out,” etc. etc. I saw that happen when Daniel Klein made a suggestion a few years back to rebrand Austrian economics as “spontaneous order studies” or something like that. I disagree with what Boettke et al. have decided, but it is a strategic disagreement and not one of “purity.”
* It is undeniably true that Arnold Kling has gotten way more mileage among professional economists with his “Recalculation Argument” concerning the recession, than Mario Rizzo or I have gotten with our explicit debt to Mises and Hayek. Note that I am not saying Kling has done anything underhanded, and I’m not saying Kling’s ideas are totally unoriginal. All I’m saying is that the progressive economists who bother to criticize Kling’s views would have the exact same response to Rizzo or me, and yet they never bothered to point out why, “Those espousing the ‘Austrian’ explanation of depressions are wrong because…” It’s true that Paul Krugman has explicitly attacked the Austrian theory of the business cycle and the “hangover” theory, but that was like a biologist at Harvard discussing creationism. The explicitly named ABCT has never gotten the courtesy from other econo-bloggers that Kling’s “Recalculation Argument” has gotten, and I suspect much of the difference is simply due to the label.
* Having said that, I think Boettke et al. are wrong. For one thing, everyone is going to still refer to it as “Austrian economics.” Yes, it’s awkward when some people think you are talking about unemployment in Vienna, but in the last two years there has been major progress on that front. When Carlos Lara and I discuss our forthcoming book with insurance industry people, he has no qualms launching into a discussion of “Austrian economics,” and half the time the people know what he is talking about already. One guy floored me by saying something like, “Look I like Schumpeter as much as the next guy, but let’s think about the regulations our industry faces…”
* And this leads into my most serious objection/observation: For a long long time, there has been a big disagreement in Austrian (coordination problem?) circles over the strategy to get the word out. For lack of better terms, some people took the Rothbardian approach of trying to stay afloat in academia, but concentrating on educating the intelligent layperson. Other people took the Hayekian approach of trying to convert the intellectual elites, especially other professional economists.
Now look closely again at Boettke’s explanation. I realize this may strike some as gloating, but that can’t be helped: What Boettke is saying is that the people who decided to “take it to the common man” have been so overwhelmingly successful that the particular spin they put on “Austrian economics” has drowned out what the other camp wants people to think the term signifies. After all, I’m guessing it’s not as if citations to Hayek or Kirzner have dropped in 2008 and 2009, relative to five years earlier. Rather, it’s that people like Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, and–dare I say it?–Lew Rockwell have gotten the term “Austrian economics” into the public discussion in a previously inconceivably short time frame. Ron Paul used the term on Jay Leno, for crying out loud!
So it is a bit exasperating when Boettke et al. decide to split off precisely when the strategy that others have been pushing has paid off so incredibly. Just to make sure my point is clear, let me say this: Five years ago, presumably Boettke et al. did not endorse the things being said in the name of “Austrian economics” referring to the evils of central bankers, the wickedness of George Bush, the dastardliness of Abraham Lincoln, etc. But they didn’t bother to change the label back then. It is only now, when the “take it to the public” strategy has been so much more successful than the “let’s take over the econ journals” strategy, that they have to disassociate themselves from the self-styled Austrians who are ostensibly pushing a narrow meaning of the term.
* Last point: When I become a rock star economist and can start charging for access to this blog, do I have to wait until January 1, 2020 before changing its name?!
GATA Sues Federal Reserve
While the rest of you are getting smashed, I’m standing sentry at the Purchasing Power Castle, looking for signs of maurading central bankers. On my watch, MercedesRules passes along this tidbit:
GATA [Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee] today brought suit against the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, seeking a court order for disclosure of the central bank’s records of its surreptitious market intervention to suppress the monetary metal’s price.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and targets Fed records involving gold swaps, exchanges of gold with foreign financial institutions. In a letter dated September 17 this year to GATA’s law firm, William J. Olson P.C. of Vienna, Virginia, (http://www.lawandfreedom.com) Fed Board of Governors member Kevin M. Warsh acknowledged that the Fed has gold swap agreements with foreign banks but insisted that such documents remain secret:
http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedResponse-09-17-2009.pdf
The lawsuit follows two years of GATA’s efforts to obtain from the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department a candid accounting of the U.S. government’s involvement in the gold market. These efforts parallel those of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who long has been proposing legislation to audit the Fed. The Fed has wrapped in secrecy much of its massive intervention in the markets over the last year, and Paul’s legislation recently was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Fed claims that its gold swap records involve “trade secrets” exempt from disclosure under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
While GATA has produced many U.S. government records showing both open and surreptitious intervention in the gold market in recent decades (see http://www.gata.org/node/8052), Fed Governor Warsh’s letter is confirmation that the government is surreptitiously operating in the gold market in the present as well. That intervention constitutes a huge deception of financial markets as well as expropriation of precious metals miners and investors particularly. This deception and expropriation are what GATA was established in 1999 to expose and oppose.
Of course GATA’s lawsuit against the Fed will take months if not years to resolve. We think we have a good chance of winning it in court. But we can win it outside court, and much sooner, if the suit can gain enough publicity from the financial news media and market analysts and prompt enough inquiry from them and from the public, the mining industry, and members of Congress.
Memorable Free Advice Posts from 2009
I was going to do a Top Ten but that would take too long. Browsing the archives, here are some that jumped out at me (asterisks mean I think it’s a double plus good post):
Coining a New Term for the Coming Economic Disaster
Tyler Cowen, a Sensible Central Planner
Did Deflation Cause the Great Depression?
Casey Mulligan: “Wow, I Was Only Wrong by 72% to 575%”
The Merciful God of the “Old Testament”
The Stock Market in 1929 Was Undervalued?!
** Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen? Part 28 **
Ben Stein Suspicious of Those Untrained in the Ways of High Finance
Comrade Obama to Make Bank Nationalization Official
Scott Sumner Restores My Faith in Economists [SIC!!!]
Toward a Review of Tom Woods’ Meltdown
Robert Wenzel: I Love the Way This Guy Thinks
The Peace That Passeth All Understanding
Star Trek: Get Me to Sickbay, I’m Gonna Puke
Awkward Thoughts on Memorial Day
Krugman vs. Murphy on Inflation: Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves
Do Non-Believers Burn in Hell?
** JFK: Courage Under Fire? **
An Unexpected Invitation from the LORD
Wenzel vs. Murphy: the Grand Finale
Invasion of the Purchasing Power Snatchers
Believing is Seeing, Economic History Edition
Ezra Klein Apparently Doesn’t Think Immigrants Are Part of the Universe
** The Coming Marijuana Legalization **
** A Review of Jon Sciescka’s Smash! Crash! **
The “Efficient Markets Hypothesis” Is a Mental Crutch for Economists
Has Andrew Sullivan Disavowed Barack Obama, Like He Promised?
Kroger Receipt from August 27, 2009
More Free Market Evangelism From Larry Kudlow
That Settles It, Glenn Beck Cannot Be Trusted
** My Response to John Cochrane **
** How to Predict the Coming Bank Pay Regulation **
** “My God, It’s Full of Stars!” **
Arnold Kling’s Bizarre Monetary Theory
Crimes vs. Sins: Letterman’s Blackmailer
** Why Military Spending Didn’t Get Us Out of the Great Depression **
Scott Sumner’s Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste
** Thoughts on Libertarians and Immigration **
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