Coordination Problem

Thomas Sowell -- Intellectual Mavrick at Work

|Peter Boettke|

WSJ columnist Jason Riley's book Mavrick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell will be published later this spring, but this past week The Free to Choose Network has released an inspiring film on Sowell narrated by Riley -- 'Common Sense in a Senseless World' and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  It also features my late great colleague Walter Williams providing some context to Sowell's greatness as a thinker and public intellectual.

 

One of my prized possessions is signed copy of Knowledge and Decisions that I got when Sowell visited GMU during my graduate student days.  One of Don Lavoie's best papers on the discovery, use and dissemination of knowledge began as a reflection of Sowell's contributions made in Knowledge and Decisions. James Buchanan told me on more than one occasion during my graduate student days (1984-1988) that he thought Knowledge and Decisions was one of the best books published in the last decade in economics, but that it was probably the one book of Sowell's that didn't sell as well as others.

We should also always remember what both F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman had to say about the book when it was published in 1980.

"In a wholly original manner Sowell succeeds in translating abstract and theoretical argument into a highly concrete and realistic discussion of the central problems of contemporary economic policy." --F. A. Hayek

"This is a brilliant book. Sowell illuminates how every society operates. In the process he also shows how the performance of our own society can be improved." --Milton Friedman

Watching this documentary on Sowell, I am once more struck on how many fruitful research questions can be raised by pursuing the hypotheses he raises in his works.  I also respect the clarity of his voice, and the clarity of his purpose.

Watch this intellectual maverick go to work in unearthing the governing dynamics of the social world.

Fastballs, Curveballs and the Market Process --- RIP Jerry Ellig

|Peter Boettke|

I wrote my dissertation on the origins of the Soviet Union.  I was fascinated by the country ever since in 1972 Olympics the Soviet basketball team was allowed to win the gold medal from the US team by incompetent referees on the court and corrupt officials off the court.  One of the consequences of this game is that I was transformed overnight from a kid obsessed with everything baseball to a kid obsessed with everything basketball, and a fascination with the Soviet Union.  My love of baseball has stayed with me throughout, and I always enjoyed running into other people who shared this love of baseball.  Thus, in graduate school when I ran into Jerry Ellig, a strange bond was formed from day 1.  Jerry was perhaps the best student in my cohort in terms of being efficient in assignments and quick study of whatever material was put before us.  He seemed to be never stressed about course work or qualifying exams.  While the rest of us were in various fits of high anxiety, Jerry would lean back in his chair sometimes reading Lionel Train catalogs and say basically -- I got this. And he always did.

A native of Cincinnati, Jerry grew up with a dominant baseball team.  So while I decided to write my dissertation on the Soviet system, Jerry wrote on the opening up of labor markets the Curt Flood free agency issue.  In particular Jerry examined before it was enacted the abolition of MLB's antitrust exemption, which would eventually signed into just a few year after we finished graduate school.  When Jerry would describe his dissertation to us, he would title it -- "Fastballs, Curveballs and the Market Process" -- the real title was 'Law, Economics and Organized Baseball' and it was defended in 1988.

I heard the sad news today that my old graduate student classmate and baseball jokester and trivial pursuit master had suddenly passed away last night.  I had not seen Jerry since a few months before the pandemic, and we never regularly spoke outside of the times our paths crossed at conferences. But every time I saw Jerry for 30 years, I smiled and had fond memories rush back into my mind of our time trying to learn economics together, debating fine points in theory and methodology, and the role of the economist in society.  For many years we technically overlapped at Mercatus, but Jerry was located in the Arlington campus and focused on the public policy and regulatory analysis, I am in located in Fairfax, don't like the DC culture, and would prefer to discuss foundational issues in economic theory and philosophy of science.  We couldn't be farther apart -- but whenever we ran into each other we always smiled and took the time to catch up on what one another was up to professionally and personally.  He was after all my classmate and one of my first co-authors, we helped each other move residences a few times, and we encouraged each other as we both began our respective careers in the late 1980s.  Me the myopic academic, Jerry the more applied practical minded economist.  Our co-authored paper is titled -- The Business of Government, and Government as a Business -- which is highly critical of the idea of "efficient" government because -- well don't be surprised -- bureaucratic incentives and knowledge problems that political decision makers face.  I haven't re-read that paper in 30 years, if I can find a copy I will do so. But let me say the following, that title was Jerry's -- he was a very good writer, he was a clear presenter, and that followed from being a coherent thinker.  He had a strong voice.  Tonight, what I am thinking is boy I sure wish we could go back to that old seminar room at CSMP in the mid 1980s and along with Dave Prychitko and Steve Horwitz attempt to gang up on Jerry and persuade him that he was thinking about this or that issue wrongly, only for him to smile back at us, completely unfazed by our onslaught on this or that, and completely convinced that while we were harmless radical eggheads we were a bit crazy. Then we could discuss baseball, and perhaps enjoy some beer together and on the best days pizza as well.

I will miss his smile, his jokes, and the clarity of his voice in the debates on the overregulation of the US economy.  My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and close friends.  

 

 Veronique de Rugy has a short announcement of Jerry's death at NRO, and Don Boudreaux as well at Cafe Hayek.

Bruce Caldwell on The Road to Serfdom at 75

|Peter Boettke|

The AEA sits down and discusses with Bruce Caldwell The Road to Serfdom. 

Discussing The Essential Austrian Economics at FMF

|Peter Boettke|

Chris and I recorded this conversation earlier today with Chris Hattingh. They work quickly at FMF so the episode is already up. Thank you Chris H and Chris C for what I found an engaging conversation about the ideas of the Austrian School of Economics and Classical Liberal Political Economy.

 

The Midnight Economist and the Art of Economic Communication

|Peter Boettke|

Don Boudreaux reports the sad news of the passing of William R. Allen.  Bill Allen was best known for his co-authorship with Armen Alchian of University Economics.  And that is a great accomplishment to be known for. Allen was a force in the great UCLA tradition of economic education that challenged the Keynesian hegemony in the 1960s-1970s.  His retrospective on UCLA is one of my favorite and most informative retrospectives on the trials and tribulations of maintaining greatness over time in an academic setting.

Allen had a radio show -- The Midnight Economist -- and you can purchase the transcripts as a book.  Milton Friedman wrote the foreword for the book, and it emphasizes Allen's genius at presenting the basic principles of economics in an easily understood manner and the versatility he displayed in the art of applying those principles to make sense of the world we occupy -- both historically and in the contemporary moment.  Allen was a master communicator of those principles.

He lived a long and productive life as an educator.  We mourn his passing, but celebrate his achievement as an economic communicator.  In so doing, I actually long for economic communicators like Bill Allen, or Milton Friedman, or, of course, my late great colleague Walter Williams.  These individuals were able to take the principles of the science of economics, forged and tested in the scientific give and take over centuries in Europe and North America, and communicate them with clarity and demonstrate their relevance.  Scarcity, trade-offs, multiple margins of adjustment, role of property, prices and profit-and-loss, competitive processes, and the marshaling of incentives, and the discovery, dissemination and utilization of knowledge -- all played out within a variety of institutional settings and interpreted with skill and relayed with clarity and conviction to the everyday reader, watcher and listener in popular forums. Bill Allen, as was Milton Friedman and Walter Williams, was a master craftsman of the art of economic communication. 

These individuals didn't choose teams in the political game to cheer for, they stood for the economic way of thinking universally and unflinchingly applied.  They understood that situations vary, and economic interpretation must account for that, and they understood the moral judgments could differ, and they accounted for that in any discussion of advocacy.  But their primary goal in their efforts was not advocacy, but understanding of the workings of the world.  This is what they were attempting to persuade their audience of, as opposed to particular policy steps to be taken in this or that context.   But understanding the governing mechanics that would explain why what happened, was in fact happening.

Econ 101, in their hands, was not a tool of ideological indoctrination anymore than the law of gravity is a tool for such a purpose.  Econ 101 is an introduction to the basic principles of the discipline established over centuries of debate and discussion and observation and experimental testing.  No doubt some folks misunderstand the basic principles, other are allergic to them, and still others misuse them. But not the individuals I am discussing here.  We need more Bill Allen's and we need them in our classrooms, in the print media, on TV and radio, and throughout the modern media world of the World Wide Web.  Econ 101 needs champions.  

With the passing of Bill Allen we lost another of the great ones, who will rise to the challenge to be the next Midnight Economist?

What Should Economists Do? Don Boudreaux in Conversation with Russ Roberts on James M. Buchanan

|Peter Boettke|

Anytime Don and Russ get together to talk Econ it is self-recommending, but even more so when it is about James M. Buchanan.

 

 

Debating Soviet Economic Growth in the 20th Century

|Peter Boettke|

I am once again preparing for my graduate seminar in Comparative Economic Systems.  My research interests over the years has drifted from this core part of my research and teaching specialization.  It is not inaccurate to say that my research of late has been less economic history and comparative systems, and more history of economic thought, political economy, methodology and social philosophy.  But every time I return to my scholarly roots, I am fascinated by the issues raised, including measurement problems in economics.

This is a nice short video by Ross Emmett on the issue from his days at Michigan State.

On the particular debate he is discussing see the original book by G. Warren Nutter, and more recent discussions by David Levy and Sandra Peart in JEBO and in the RAE.

More recently, the work of Robert C. Allen and Sergei Guriev should be compared and contrasted.

Finally, and I am still working through this in my head, these issues are at the core of the forming of the Virginia School of Political Economy according to Levy and Peart, because they are embedded in the debate between Rutledge Vinning and T. Koopmans and the entire "measurement without theory" discussions.

So much to learn and digest and discuss and rethink.  How exciting is that, after more than 30 years of reading, writing and teaching foundational issues are still at play in understanding one of the largest social experiments in history of the century?!  

BTW, what do you think we will be talking about 60 years from now about Covid-19 -- the science, the political economy, the historical significance?!

Ideas Matter -- their development, their dissemination, and their impact on public discourse

|Peter Boettke|

This is a video of Janek Wasserman from a few years back introducing himself, but I particularly like the part where he describes his self-understanding as an intellectual historian.

 

Janek Wasserman from CIT Multimedia Services on Vimeo.

 

Since that time, Janek has published The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas (Yale, 2019).  There is a lot to recommend about the book, but also I believe some weaknesses/blind spots.  It is, however, required reading for all interested in the Austrian School of Economics.  The book is in the genre of social history as developed in the field of intellectual history.  I am actually a big fan of the "Ideas in Context" movement, and "Social History" as the focus on the lives of ordinary people, underrepresented people, rather than the exclusively on the elites.

In 2021, I think I will start a project on social history to clarify for myself what I mean by it and why I am drawn to it both as an intellectual historian and economic historian/comparative systems economists, but where I find contemporary practice falling short, especially in the field of intellectual history of neoliberalism.  Don't worry, I will try to keep Dennett's Rules for Intellectual Engagement in mind throughout and if I fail hold me accountable for that.

A taste of a treasure trove for intellectual historians of 20th century political economy

|Peter Boettke|

 

James M. Buchanan, I would argue, is more responsible than any other 20th century figure for the renewal of political economy -- even more so than F. A. Hayek.  Buchanan was well positioned to do so because he was operating in the field of public finance, but from a decidedly price theoretic position.  Critical to his enterprise from his earliest essays was his insistence that one cannot do public finance without first postulating a theory of the state.  Political theory, Buchanan argued, helped define the boundaries not only about the right and wrong of the state, but the scale and scope of the state as well.  Asking such questions put him in direct conversation with the leading scholars of his era throughout the world in philosophy, political science, sociology, law, and, of course, economics.  His mentor Frank Knight must be understood, his engagement with those slightly senior to him such as Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson must be consulted, his contemporaries such as G. Warren Nutter, William Riker, James Coleman, Vincent Ostrom, as well as those he influenced as a teacher or in his own way as a mentor such Gordon Tullock, Lin Ostrom and Mancur Olson, or students such as Toby Davis, Charlie Plott, Mark Pauly, etc.  And if you look, you will also see not only Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek, but GLS Shackle and Israel Kirzner, and John Rawls and Robert Nozick --- and in the form of ideas Adam Smith, David Hume, J. S. Mill and Knut Wicksell.  It is all there in his archives to dig up and explore, and wrestle with. And how can I forget the Italians, you cannot forget the Italian public finance theorists of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Alain Marciano and I recently published a sampling from the archives with the hope of exciting the imagination of scholars of 20th century economics to come explore the Buchanan archives at GMU. This was a long project that was first envisioned before the professionalization of Buchanan's archive actually started.  Alain and I originally had very grand ambitions, but we scaled down to a more manageable project. Alain is current working on an intellectual history of Buchanan that will explore the development of his unique perspective in 20th century political economy.

We were thrilled to publish this book with Mercatus and hope you will take a look at the content and when all the travel restrictions are lifted come visit GMU and spend some time looking through the remnants of a fascinating career and life.  Till then, perhaps The Soul of Classical Political Economy will give you a taste of what can be found.

 

Starting 2021 re-examining 1871 and Menger's fundamental contributions to economic theory

|Peter Boettke| 

Richard Ebeling has an overview of the contributions of Carl Menger's Principles of Economics.  It is a valuable way to start the new year.