Archive for Mises Institute
Austrian Scholars Conference – Day 3
Posted by: | CommentsIt has taken me a few days to finish this post. Unfortunately, I spent Sunday driving back home and Monday working like crazy… Oh well, I hope you enjoy this final installment of covering the Austrian Scholars Conference 2010. If day 1 and day 2 were proper indicators, it would not disappoint – and it sure didn’t!
The first session on “Money and Contracts” was absolutely stunning. Stephen Fairfax of Mtechnology presented on “Returning Gold to the Consumer Marketplace.” Personally, this was my favorite talk of the conference. Mr. Fairfax talked about the main problems surrounding a return to the gold standard: portability and consumer expectations. Transporting gold coins for small transactions is extremely difficult. A one ounce coin, relative to what it can purchase these days, is worth quite a lot. Moreover, people still want to use cash – they expect to be able to carry money in their pockets that doesn’t weigh ridiculous amounts.
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Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 – Day 2
Posted by: | CommentsThe second day of the Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 was quite exciting. From lunch at the Mellow Mushroom munching on the “magical mystery tour pizza” to meeting more heroic media moguls – it was a day to remember. And yes, all that alliteration was intentional.
My good friend Daniel from the University of Texas Libertarian Longhorns presented his paper on “Praxeology of the Knowledge Problem of Socialism.” The gist of the paper is actually pretty simple: Some Austrians call the “knowledge problem” (that Hayek frequently discussed) insignificant, because the problem is also applicable to a free market organization. Daniel says, “No, on the free market there is never a knowledge problem so long as there is always an opportunity for trade somewhere.” Only under a legally sanctioned monopoly – which is just socialism on another scale – or under a purely socialist economy will the knowledge problem become evident.
But the biggest event of the day was the special presentation by John Papola, the creator of the famous Keynes-Hayek rap earlier this year. Seriously, it’s got to be the single best pedagogical tool we have seen in the past few years for teaching Austrian econ. John talked about the process of making the movie and his vision for doing further work at his newly built website EconStories.tv. If you haven’t seen the video, well, you should! Here it is…
I have a picture of John and I together after the talk, but I haven’t taken it off the camera yet. Hopefully I’ll put it up in the next few days.
UPDATE: All of the lectures are being published on Mises.org very quickly, you can download them here.
If you missed it, read the post on Day 1 of the ASC 2010.
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Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 – Day 1
Posted by: | CommentsThe first day of the Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 was marked by greeting old friends, making new friends, and meeting some “internet friends” for the first time.
The authors forum was great. I was impressed by Shawn Ritenour’s Foundations of Economics, which is essentially an econ textbook from a Christian perspective. He shows that the field of economics – from an Austrian point of view – is entirely coherent with Christianity. The book looks great for homeschoolers especially. I’m excited about this book and I hope to get a review copy soon. Jacob Huebert talked about his latest work, Libertarianism Today. It hasn’t been released yet, but the Mises Institute will be selling a less expensive paperback version and you should look out for it. I’ve known Huebert for a while and it was a pleasure seeing him again. Stephan Kinsella, another good friend of mine, talked about the festschrift (a volume of papers written by top specialists in honor of a major thinker) he and Guido Hulsmann put together in honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, called Property, Freedom and Society.
The topic of the afternoon session I attended was “Rothbard and the Pre-Austrians.” In other words, there are a number of interesting figures in history that approached ideas that took greater shape as the Austrian economists developed them. Joseph Weglarz gave a very interesting presentation on the great Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas; his greatest accomplishment was a synthesis of faith and reason forming the basis of Scholasticism. Daniel Coleman gave an excellent, concise, and easily understandable talk on Aquinas’s favorite philosopher – Aristotle – and his conception of trade.
Gerard Casey gave the Lou Church Memorial Lecture on Religion and Economics. He talked about the formulation of “religions” out of the dominant philosophies of the day, such as scientism, environmentism (no, that is not a misspelling), and even economism/statism. These “religions” set themselves up in the place of God and subvert man’s ultimate purpose. He concluded with an excellent call to the church to abandon coercion based on our understanding of the Christian worldview.
Following a nice dinner, we concluded the day hanging out with fellow libertarians over drinks, talking philosophy, current events, economics, and general anti-state awesomeness. Can’t beat it…
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Austrian Scholars Conference 2010
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My wife and I will be attending the Austrian Scholars Conference this week at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. I’m really excited that one of my best buddies, Daniel Krawisz of the Libertarian Longhorns, will be presenting this year in a panel with Hans Herman Hoppe, M. Garrett Roth, Bernardita Escobar, and chaired by Thomas DiLorenzo. His talk is called “Praxeology of the Knowledge Problem of Socialism,” and he will be discussing the often-missed details of Hayek’s knowledge problem in the context of, you guessed it, Misesian praxeology (which is the logic of human action). If you want to tune in, you should be able to listen live on Mises.org sometime between 1:00 and 2:30pm CST on Saturday.
I’ll have some articles prepped to post late this week, and I’ll try to do a little summary post each day at some point. If any of you LCC readers are attending, let me know right now in the comments below. I really would love to meet you.
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Mises Circle Houston Recap
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been reticent to post a recap of Mises Circle Houston because I didn’t have any photos of the event until yesterday. But now, everything is here and I’m happy to tell you a little about it… First off, I need to send a great big THANK YOU to Jeffrey Davis, the conference sponsor, and the entire staff of the Mises Institute for their amazing service – Kristy, Norma, Pat, Chad, and Willard. We love you guys!!!
Our group from the Libertarian Longhorns (and Robert Butler, executive director of LP-Texas) left Austin around 6am on Saturday, January 23, to make sure we arrived in time to get a decent seat. Robert volunteered his vehicle, and so I didn’t have to drive. We talked up the LP’s plans and upcoming events on the drive to Houston and back.
Upon arrival, we had the privilege to meet some really neat people. I happened to run across a few LCC readers as well, like Yvonne Kelly (on the far left of the group picture). Tom Woods said hello as he walked in, and I briefly spoke with Lew Rockwell as well while drinking some coffee.
The theme of the day was "the failure of Keynesianism" — appropriate considering our current political situation, wouldn’t you say? Doug French was the first speaker. For some reason I have lost my notes, but his topic was "Bank Failures in a Keynesian World." What was most interesting to me about his talk was the striking parallels of the circumstances preceding "the lost decade" and the circumstances we are now experiencing in the United States. One can only hope that failed policies would be remembered, but alas and alack it’s politics not wisdom that we deal with.
Tom Woods spoke about "Keynesian Predictions vs. American History." Did you know that as World War 2 was coming to a close, policy makers were concerned that the soldiers coming home would overwhelm the economy and that a new depression would ensue. How wrong they were: 1946 was the single greatest year for the American economy ever. I also enjoyed his ransacking of Paul Samuelson and Paul Krugman.
Before lunch we enjoyed hearing the beloved Congressman Ron Paul. His principal point was simply that a true revolution is philosophic in nature. This is most certainly true, and the Austrian School of Economics is at the forefront of this change. Dr. Paul touched on many topics, but as he likes to do he focused on monetary policy and foreign policy. He made specific mention of the importance of auditing the Federal Reserve. He said that once audited, two well-kept secrets will be brought into the open once again: (1) that the Fed frequently bails out friends via the discount window (Fed short term loans), and (2) that the Fed has many international activities unaccounted for. Thus, we find monetary policy is also connected to foreign policy as well. Call me conspiratorial if you must, but the CIA’s funding goes beyond Congress – it’s tied to the Fed as well. Best quote from Ron: "Quite frankly, in a Constitutional Republic, you would not have a CIA."
Lew Rockwell was our final speaker for the day on "Economics and Moral Courage." He noted that although in many ways we are quite free (such as the freedom of the internet), we are also having much freedom taken away from us little by little. Moreover, as more freedom is stolen from us, people are more frequently not able to envision how freedom actually works. They simply do not have experience in understanding cause and effect. In truth, this is due to the "banality of evil," something small that ekes its way into public life. For example, the acceptance of a wrong premise about the role of government in life can be a first step toward more and more government control, leading finally to totalitarianism. What begins with banality, ends in bloodshed.
Overall, I’d say it was a great day…
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Tags: Austrian School, economics, free market, free society, freedom, history, keynesianism, Mises Institute, Ron Paul
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Norman is the creator and primary writer for LCC. Learn a little bit about him in the