Wisdom from Ludwig Lachmann

According to some attendees of the South Royalton Austrian conference, W. H. Hutt when he saw Ludwig Lachmann turned to some of the students and asked "Why is he here?  Lachmann is a Keynesian!"

20 years later in 1984, Ludwig Lachmann during his annual visit to GMU a student asked him whether or not Hutt should be considered an Austrian.  Lachmann replied "If Hutt believes himself to be an Austrian economist, then he must be an Austrian economist."

I think Austrian Vice #12 should be debating who is an Austrian and who isn't. (slight variant on the hard-coreness position Pete L raised)  Rather than worrying about who is an Austrian or not, why don't we worry if people are making progress in terms of scientific understanding and/or public understanding (though teaching or popular writing) of the economic and social world.  Our focus should be on whether someone is a "good" social scientist or scholar.

Perhaps Austrian Vice #13 is having blog debates on these topics?!

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BTW, a question was raised about Leeson's originality and I want to stress something to everyone --- Pete's work on social cooperation among heterogenous agents represents a major break-through in political economy.  Like Paul Seabright's The Company of Strangers, though obviously more self-conscious of the Austrian roots of the argument, Leeson explains to us the fundamental truth of what Mises termed "Ricardo's Law of Association."   Leeson explains the "mechanisms" that make the truth of social cooperation under the division of labor a reality in practice.  In so doing, Leeson has always advanced our understanding not only of cooperation in anonymity but cooperation without command.  He is the most original thinker in the economics of anarchism since Murray Rothbard and David Friedman wrote on the topic in the early 1970s (I would argue that a lot of the work done by Hoppe and others are more contributions to the moral theory of anarchism than economics per se).

As I explain in my essay on "Anarchism as a Progressive Research Program in Political Economy," in Ed Stringham's Anarchy, State and Public Choice, Leeson and Stringham have made major advances in the literature on anarchism by working on these mechanisms --- to either filter out non-cooperative types (Stringham), or credibly signal cooperative capacity among diverse individuals (Leeson).   The string of former students from GMU that worked on economics of self-organization without third party contracting is very impressive and would include not only Stringham and Leeson, but also Ben Powell and Chris Coyne.  It was the most rewarding period of my teaching career to work with these students between 1998 and 2005. Leeson, Powell and Coyne are now all teaching themselves in PhD programs and Stringham is the editor of the Journal of Private Enterprise. So whether we want to call them Austrian or not, the reality is that we now have more people teaching at PhD programs that will use the works of Mises and Rothbard in their teachings at the graduate level than at anytime in the history of the tradition, and more people editing journals that are sympathetic to the research agenda of Mises and Rothbard than ever as well.

I call that progress in economic science and teaching -- no hyphen necessary to designate "Austrian".

Comments

[anon]

"He is the most original thinker in the economics of anarchism since Murray Rothbard and David Friedman wrote on the topic in the early 1970s"

Rothbard's 'economics of anarchism' consists of BS about protection agencies enforcing natural law (and their incentive to do that is ...?). Leeson makes real contributions (unlike Rothbard's hackery) so please stop underselling his talent.

[anon]

Surely it is Hayek that the profession and journal editors are interested in? Rothbard!! Are you sh*****g us! Rothbard is a hack.

"So whether we want to call them Austrian or not, the reality is that we now have more people teaching at PhD programs that will use the works of Mises and Rothbard in their teachings at the graduate level than at anytime in the history of the tradition, and more people editing journals that are sympathetic to the research agenda of Mises and Rothbard than ever as well."

[IvanP]

"BTW, a question was raised about Leeson's originality and I want to stress something to everyone --- Pete's work on social cooperation among heterogenous agents represents a major break-through in political economy."

In which of Peter Leeson's papers could I read about this?

[Steve Miller]

Ivan,

Pete Leeson's paper, "Trading With Bandits," is in my humble opinion a ground-breaking work in this direction.

http://www.peterleeson.com/Trading_with_Bandits.pdf

- Steve

[Steve2]

""Rothbard's 'economics of anarchism' consists of BS about protection agencies enforcing natural law (and their incentive to do that is ...?).""

And the incentive for the all-knowing government is? Rothbard is quite clear the incentive is the same incentive for the production of all other goods and services. Consumer Demand.

As a student of all the great Austrians / causal-realists, Hayek and Rothbard included, I find it tiresome the way that *some* of the social democrats and apologists for the state ultimately resort to invective because they lack the courage to reject their psychological need for "mainstream" recognition (like a security blanket) or other accoutrement of the state.

There is always room for debate regarding claims to the legitimacy of the state and the enforcement (if you decide it is worth being enforced) of justice (if you decide there is such a concept), but the comment I quote is nothing more than the vomiting of an angst-ridden mind.