Coordination Problem

Liberalism Misunderstood

|Peter Boettke|

Liberalism was born in an effort to escape oppression and dogma -- a critique of the alignment of the Crown and the Altar that was enforced by the Sword. True radical liberalism is a foundational critique, and seeks to set in place constraints and establish extreme limits on the scale and scope of the Crown, Altar and Sword.  In operational terms this led to constitutionally limited government, religious toleration, and peaceful relations between nations through the free flow of labor, capital and goods.  I have not raised the issue of the abolition of the Crown, the Altar and the Sword, I am just limiting the discussion to the constraints and the machinery of establishing and enforcing those constraints -- the institutions of Liberalism.

The intimate relationship between the evolution of liberalism in political, social and economic affairs is critical to understanding various important basic facts in human history.  This is a theme highlighted in Lionel Robbins's The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy (1952).  But this understanding of liberalism came under severe criticism throughout the late 19th and throughout the 20th century.  Many intellectuals argued that due the inherent tendencies of unhampered capitalism toward monopolistic power, microeconomic inefficiency and macroeconomic instability, liberal political values and freedoms would be threatened by the powerful and indifferent to human suffering.  They had to be socialists in their economics, they insisted to remain liberals in their politics.

It is against this line of argument that F. A. Hayek wrote in The Road to Serfdom, and why his dedication in that book to socialists of all parties is not ironic in the least.  He was trying to persuade his fellow liberals that this move would introduce a new era of oppression and dogma.  His message is a warning of the possibility of a tragic ending -- liberals who fought so hard to overcome the oppression and dogma of an earlier age only to usher in a new era of oppression and dogma.  But tragedy could be avoided, if -- and only if -- the warning was heeded and the socialist path was rejected.

The intellectual world in large part scoffed at Hayek, though the practical world in large part heeded the warning and thus the most dire consequences where reserved for those countries who had already suppressed liberal political and economic institutions in the name of communism.  The history of the communist experience speaks clearly to the human tragedy of oppression and dogma, and these societies terrorized their own populations and are responsible for 100 million lost souls.  But intellectuals still scoff at Hayek's thesis.

And, in fact, the way the history is being written today, the claim is that it was Hayek who ushered in a new age of oppression and dogma in the global market economy, whose institutions supposedly unleashed markets and constrained local populations from using democratic means to regulate the market tendencies toward monopolistic power, microeconomic inefficiency, and macroeconomic instability.

The bottom line -- students of economics and political economy must be aware of this literature, turn their attention to exploring the claims being made, and address the arguments they find wanting.  In reading some of the presentation one is left wondering where to start as conceptual confusion and factual innocence is combined within a conspiratorial narrative. But I think students of economics should resist the easy temptation to dismiss, and instead engage in the laborious  effort to clarify the argument, critically examine the data, and straighten out the narrative.  The stakes are quite high.

True radical liberalism correctly understood remains an emancipation project -- emancipating human beings from oppression, dogma, and I should add crushing poverty.

For a different view see Jordan Ecker's essay in The American Prospect.  I think this piece gets Hayek wrong, Buchanan wrong, and the economic history implicit throughout is either high contested or downright wrong.  Instead of a nuanced and subtle engagement with the liberalism of Hayek and Buchanan, and the economic history of Globalization and the 'Great Escape' we get time-hop weaving and blending of misreading of theoretical arguments, neoliberalism name-calling and efforts at guilt by association, and 'analysis' of recent ugly efforts in US at real politik that the author finds repugnant (and which this liberal would agree are repugnant).

My sincere hope is that scholars and intellectuals will get past name-calling and mood affiliation team choosing, and critically engage with one another as true liberals and with the tools of reason and evidence.  I fear we are still far away from that era due to the contemporary craziness in the political culture and growing pains of learning how to discourse in the age of social media.  But we will get there ...  ... ... 

Knight, Common Sense Principles, and Democracy

|Peter Boettke|

Part 1 of a new essay of mine is available at Econlib.  "The Role of the Economists is a Free Society: Mises to Knight" is adapted from my larger essay recently delivered at the MPS meetings in Dallas.

In working on that paper, and a few other projects over the past few years (mainly with Rosolino Candela, but also with Scott King and Henry Thompson) working through these issues of the role of the economist in a self-governing democratic society has led to an increased appreciation for the profound nature of the puzzles that Frank Knight sought to crack with his work.  Ross Emmett is probably the world's leading authority on all things Frank Knight.  He is, in short, an internationally recognized expert on Knight, and of course, on Knight's expert critique of rule by expertise within a democratic society. Enjoy his presentation.

 

Frank H. Knight on Democracy as Discussion from Ross Emmett on Vimeo.

Israell M. Kirzner -- 10 Volume Collected Works

|Peter Boettke|

This month the last volume in the Collected Works of Israel M. Kirzner will be published.  It is his book Ludwig von Mises: The Man and His Economics, but it includes a comprehensive bibliography of Kirzner's works throughout his career that was expertly edited and refined by Rosolino Candela for this version.  It is fitting for Kirzner's collected works to be bookended by his dissertation written under Mises's direction at NYU -- The Economic Point of View -- and his intellectual biography of Mises which was originally published in 2001 as Kirzner officially retired from active teaching at NYU.

Editing this collection was a labor of love for Frederic Sautet and me, and we are thrilled to see the corpus of Kirzner's work now easily available for new generation of students and scholars. We are most grateful to Liberty Fund for undertaking this project.

Israel Kirzner is a scholars' scholar, and he pursued his career as a teacher and researcher with great integrity and commitment. And, with a sense of gratitude toward his teacher -- Ludwig von Mises -- but also with a scholar's dedication to critical inquiry and pursuing the truth wherever that may lead them.  Always charitable to those with whom he disagreed, Kirzner sought to be dispassionate while also engaging.  He is, in my opinion, a role model that I can only aspire to imitate with full knowledge I will fall short.

Given that Liberty Fund produces these books handsomely but inexpensive versions in paperback, it is my sincere hope that the entire set will quickly find its way on to the shelfs of every student, graduate student and professor interested in the Austrian School of Economics and the modern development of the theory of the entrepreneurial market process.  Soak these works in and learn from his careful dissection of doctrine, and philosophically astute style of argument.

Here is a lecture he recently gave on "Why Mises Is Important" -- it will be a perfect lead in to reading Ludwig von Mises: The Man and His Economics.

 

What is Heterodox Economics and what is its relationship to Mainline Economics?

|Peter Boettke|

I just returned from the annual History of Economic Society meetings at Columbia University. It was a great meeting if you ask me, but also very revealing.  Europeans scholars dominated the attendance, especially for younger scholars, and the number of none economists actively engaged in research in the history of economics and political economy is staggering.  This has been an evolving trend, but it was particularly striking to me at this years meetings.  It speaks to the challenge that those of us who hope to carve out a niche within economic science, and within the US academic landscape face, and how one's main discourse partners in scholarship are changing.  My observation has no normative thrust to it, it is just what it is.  If you go back in time to the old internet discussion board for history of economics, you will see that I was arguing against this trend that Roy Weintraub was pushing since the 1990s, when I taught history of economic thought at NYU.  I am getting ready to teach my history of modern economic theory class again this fall, so these questions have not only research but pedagogical import for me.  I am still with Kenneth Boulding, my teacher, on the importance of history of thought in economic science and agree with Jacob Viner's plea for scholarship in the graduate education of economists.

But another observation was obvious at these meetings.  Austrian economics is no longer considered heterodox economics among the younger generation of heterodox economists.  There is a new book out that was discussed at the meetings -- What is Heterodox Economics? Conversations with Leading Economists -- and, as the book description states: 

Since the Global Financial Crisis, economics has been under greater public scrutiny, revealing a crisis in the discipline. This represented a potential turning point on how economics should be thought and taught. Heterodox economics has played a prominent role in these discussions revolving around new economics thinking and pluralism in economics. Yet, its identity, aspirations, and pedagogy remain underexplored, contested, and somewhat opaque.

This volume brings together sixteen interviews with leading economists to understand what heterodox economics is. How and why does an economist become heterodox? In which way do heterodox economists see themselves as ‘different’ from mainstream economics? The interviews shed light on what problems heterodox economists perceive in the mainstream; elucidate the different contexts under which they operate in higher education; and provide insights on their ontology and methodology. The reader will also find answers to the following questions about the nature and state of heterodox economics: Do heterodox economists have particular intellectual journeys, motives and aspirations? Is this reflected in their teaching practices and strategies to achieve social change? What is the relation between heterodox economics and the humanities and arts?

Appealing to a diverse audience, including philosophers, sociologists and historians of economic thought, the book will be of great interest to anyone keen to find out more about the internal discussions in the economics discipline.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Danielle Guizzo's discussion of the book and ask my questions about selection criteria, etc. for the economists interviewed.   But it is clear from a look at the table of contents, the selection criteria is much different from what would have been the case when Daniel Bell published his The Crisis in Economic Theory in 1981, or Steve Pressman published his collection on Economics and Its Discontent in the late 1990s.  So something has happened since that time to weed out in the minds of younger scholars that Austrian economists from the camp of heterodox economists -- this is despite the JEL category of the modern Austrian School of Economics in the heterodox camp.  Of the authors interviewed, only Ulrich Witt would come close to having any affinity to Austrian ideas with his evolutionary economics perspective, but he surely would distance himself from any such "Austrian" identity, though he has been and continues to be a valued member of the editorial board, and contributor to, the Review of Austrian Economics, which I edit with Chris Coyne. Though I should say upfront that several of those interviewed could speak very intelligently about the Austrian School of Economics and its strengths and weaknesses as a tool of analysis and social criticism -- especially Tony Lawson and Gary Mongiovi. 

Perhaps there is an underlying logic to this exclusion.  I actually believe the contemporary editors are correct, and the JEL classification was an error. But before I make that argument let me stress that the contemporary Austrian school of economics does represent a radical challenge to the existing practice of scientific economics.  This challenge isn't new.  Hayek in his Nobel lecture told him audience that the economics profession had failed and made a mess of things.  He also argued that they made a mess of things because of scientism, and that scientism would lead to scientific charlatanism. And that this charlatanism would be protected by the vested interests of departments and professional associations.  He also concluded that unless this situation was reversed the venerable and honorable tradition of political economy would cease to be practiced and instead economists would be turned into potential tyrants over their fellow citizens and destroyers of the very civilization that they had so significantly benefited from.  That was in 1974, and nothing in his message would have changed in 2008-2009.  Austrian school fellow traveler, James M. Buchanan, for example was adamant in his condemnation of economists after the crisis, arguing that the "economists have no clothes."  Like, Hayek this challenge to the conventional practice was not new, back in the 1970s, Buchanan had stated in one of his essays that: "If not an economist, what am I? An outdated freak whose functional role in the general scheme of things has passed into history? Perhaps I should accept such an assessment, retire gracefully, and, with alcoholic breath, hoe my cabbages. Perhaps I could do so if the modern technicians had indeed produced "better" economic mousetraps. Instead of evidence of progress, however, I see a continuing erosion of the intellectual (and social) capital that was accumulated by "political economy" in its finest hours."

Keep in mind, those words are from two Nobel Prize winners.  In those earlier texts on crisis and dissent, hearing from the leading economics voices meant including those who had a claim to that sort of status in the science.  That isn't the case with this volume, if you just do a citation impact study of the various authors interviewed you will see that they are not high impact scholars -- Tony Lawson is the only one with over 10K citations, and to put that in perspective someone like Andrei Shleifer has over 200K citations, and Elinor Ostrom's Governing the Commons has alone 35K citations.  Though I do not agree with the thrust of this comment, but you can understand why Frank Hahn one time referred to the critics of economics as a bombardment of so many soap bubbles.

I, obviously, believe that there is a lot more to scholarship and impact than citations studies can capture, but they do suggest something about readership and influence.  Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes as well as Adam Smith show up very strong in any citation study.  So excluding dissenting voices that were major figures in the discipline has a cost to this conversation the editors want to initiate, and that should be understood.  Slightly out of sync voices matter -- so Coase, North, Ostrom, Smith, but also Bowles and Ginits, Kirman, Sethi, Roemer, etc. all could have found representation in the volume if that was the intent. But I think the sorting mechanism was a more wholesale rejection of economic theory, including any semblance of an individual actor model, and a coordinative properties of social interaction guided through the market price system.  The central mystery of mainline economics -- how the invisible hand theorem can be derived from the rational choice postulate -- simply doesn't interest the editors.  That doesn't mean that all the contributors share the editors priors on this -- e.g., I actually think Lawson, Witt and Mongiovi all have puzzled about this question in serious ways in their work.  In many ways the mainstream discourse in economic theory since the 1950s, did not puzzle over this question -- the answer was built into the respective positions --- the dominate perspective argued it could only through heroic assumptions about human cognitive capabilities and the social environment of interaction, and the outlier opinion in the mainstream was that the model was a useful "as if" approximation and provided useful testable propositions about about individual behavior and social interaction.

The dissenting voices that I mentioned -- Hayek and Buchanan to start, but then Coase, North, Smith and Ostrom additionally, sought the answer in a more detailed examination of the institutional environment within which individuals interacted with one another.  Whether or not individuals would pursue productive specialization and realize peaceful social cooperation was a function of the institutional environment in which the game of life was being played out.  Change the rules, change the outcome. Economics that did not permit this examination of alternative institutional arrangements of human behavior and interaction was bad economics plain and simple.

But after what I have just said, it should be clear why our editors are actually more attuned to the reality than the JEL classification.  The dissenting voices I have mentioned, and add Israel Kirzner and Mario Rizzo to that list, all work more or less within what I am calling the mainline -- rational choice --> invisible hand via institutional analysis.  Coordination of economic activities through time is a by-product of an institutional environment of well-defined and enforce property rights that structures incentives, of the free adjustment of relative prices which guide decision makers, and the lure of pure profit to entice actors and tap into their curiosity and creativity, and the penalty of loss to discipline them and redirect their efforts.  And, in this analysis, human decision makers weigh the costs and benefits of decisions as they subjectively perceive them, and choose on the margin and against a background of given constraints.  So rather than heterodoxy, this style of economic reasoning is simply an enriching of the the core model of human decision making and social interaction from Adam Smith onward -- or what Buchanan called "political economy in its finest hours."

Thinking about Rational Choice as if the choosers were human, and doing Institutional Analysis as if history mattered, is not the same thing as the economics practiced at MIT/Harvard, or published in the AER, JPE, QJE and Econometrica, but it is also not heterodox as understood by our editors, or other practitioners who believe that the economic way of thinking was thoroughly discredited by the Global Financial Crisis.  The contemporary Austrian School of Economics has inherited the intellectual capital that was accumulated in the evolution of economic thought from Adam Smith to Vernon Smith.  It twists the neoclassical lens and sees through a different prism to see an alternative picture of the behavior of individuals (the logic of choice), their interaction with others (situational logic) and the resulting social pattern (social order).  These mainline economists are heterodox in the problem situation that they throw their actors into -- complex, uncertain, and difficult learning environments -- but they empower the actors themselves to thinking creativity (not just prudently) and in concert with each other to discover and devise institutions that provide coping mechanisms, and if they do so successfully they will realize human betterment just as orthodox theory would conclude.  The research program of these slightly out of sync economists has been to examine the being and becoming of these alternative institutions and to understand their reasons for their emergence and the impact on social affairs, and the consequences when they fail to emerge for realizing social cooperation.  Explanation of the variation in the pattern of human interaction is to be found in the impact of alternative institutional arrangements on social interaction.

So mainline economics is neither heterodox nor orthodox, it is just the continuation of the grand and honorable tradition of political economy in its finest.

 

Richard Ebeling on the South Royalton, VT Conference in June 1974

|Peter Boettke|

Economists and social thinkers of a certain generation draw great inspiration from a conference sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies 45 years ago this week.  This conference produced Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics, and led to a flourishing of educational programs, publishing (both classics in reprints and new volumes) and additional conferences.  Karen Vaughn's Austrian Economics in America (Cambridge, 1994) builds its core narrative around this conference, and Joe Salerno has countered with a history that challenges that by going back farther in history to the publication of Man, Economy, and State (1962) -- and of course there is truth in both because South Royalton conference was possible only because of Rothbard's galvanizing personality, but South Royalton was a catalyst for a renewed efforts to advance the Austrian School of Economics.  The Austrian Economics Program at NYU was pursued with a renewed energy after the conference, this led to new opportunities for faculty appointments and graduate student education.  And, of course, new research and educational centers were established in the coming decade and with that new PhDs who eventually would make their way in the competitive game of academia -- publishing new works in the Austrian tradition and assuming professorships at a variety of institutions of higher education throughout North America, South America, Asia and Europe.  So pretty phenomenal growth in a scientific research program, though obviously for those of us committed to this research program we would have like to have seen much greater success than we have so far.  Our hope now falls to the next generation.

Ebeling's piece is well worth reading so please do so, and follow the links. 

Gems in Mises's Notes and Recollections

|Peter Boettke|

There are some great gems in Mises's memoir.  I was looking for 1 small item, but I ended up spending most of the day reading a book I had not read I wage since the 1980s in any serious way.  Mises is a proud man, and a man with great conviction.  But there are so many things crystal clear to anyone who will read this book.  His opposition to violence and militarism is evident throughout, as is his embrace of true radical liberalism.  He warned his friend Otto Bauer of the coming violent backlash -- he did NOT embrace that violent backlash against the Social Democrats.  Look at his depiction of the "Home Guard" those rose up in opposition. Otto Bauer lead Social Democrats of Red Vienna, who had engaged in street violence to "control the streets" ... Mises had challenged his friend with saying what will you do when another party rises up to challenge you for command of the streets --- Bauer said, that is impossible because nobody would ever challenge the proletariat. Mises's observation was as follows: "I watched with horror this development that indeed was unavoidable. It was obvious that Austria was moving toward civil war." ... "The formation of the Home Guard introduced a new type of individual into politics. Adventurers without education and desperados with narrow horizons became the leaders, because they were good at drill and had a loud voice to give commands. Their bible was the manual of arms; their slogan, “authority.” These adventurers—petty Il Duces and Fu ̈hrers—identified democracy with Social Democracy and therefore looked upon democracy “as the worst of all evils.” Later they clung to the catch-word, “corporate state” (“Sta ̈ndestaat”). Their social ideal was a military state in which they alone would command [be the man on horseback]."

This military state is everything Mises is against, just as much as the socialist command economy. In fact, if you read him carefully, the impossibility of the socialist command economy leads to the establishment of the military state economy.  We learn in his memoirs that Carl Menger shared with him this disregard for the military state, and also saw promise in true liberalism. But this also resulted in Menger's despair over the development of economic science in the German language community.  It is Menger, not Mises, who describes German economic ideas as "the logical development of Prussian police science."  I had forgotten that phrase -- PRUSSIAN POLICE SCIENCE -- but I think it is a beautiful one that captures so much that is wrong with the development of economics in the 20th century under the influence of the utilitarians, the social engineers and the elitists (as Buchanan would put it).  Economics is not meant to be the handmaid to the police state, it is meant to shed light on the spontaneous coordination of free individuals within the marketplace and how alternative institutional arrangements either promote or hinder the ability to these individuals to realize productive specialization and peaceful social cooperation.  This Prussian police science version of economics is "seeing like a state" synoptic view, whereas the Misesian view is "seeing like a citizen" and the quest for human understanding of the self-governing democratic society of true radical liberalism.

But let me conclude with this gem from Mises about the spread and success of scientific ideas -- a comment I think I have at times under appreciated, and other times believe he was extremely naive as a thinker to believe.  In short, I would like to believe what he says, but I don't think that is how the world works.  At some level it is obviously true, you cannot orchestrate a scientific revolution.  On the other hand, science takes place within specific institutions of the organization of inquiry and ordinary incentives to play a role and vertical and horizontal relationships matter just as much in many instances as scientific genius and/or scholarly brilliance.

At this point it may be necessary to correct a misunderstanding cre- ated by the term, “Austrian School of Economics.” Neither Menger nor Bo ̈hm-Bawerk desired to found a “school” in the sense this term is customarily used in university circles. In their seminars the true Austrians never sought to make young students their blind disciples, and then to provide them with professorships. They knew that through books and economic instruction they could promote an understanding of economic problems and thus render important services to society. But they also knew that economists could not be reared. As pioneers and creative thinkers they were fully aware that scientific progress can- not be organized and innovation created, according to plan. They never attempted to propagandize their theories. Truth will prevail by its own force if man has the ability to perceive it. If he lacks this ability, it will be useless by dubious means to extract lip service from people who cannot comprehend the content and significance of a doctrine.

Anyway, I recommend a re-read of Mises's Notes and Recollections, written during a dark period of his life, he nevertheless shines through as an inspiring intellectual who faced down brutal inhumanity and petty discrimination throughout his life, and never let it deter his quest for understanding and the his relentless development of the sciences of human action.

Elinor Ostrom as Role Model and Mentor

|Peter Boettke|

Bobbi Herzberg and Vlad Tarko discuss Lin and Vincent Ostrom and the Workshop in a recent Hayek Program Podcast.  The discussion focus on Lin's impact is worth listening to and fully absorbing. Her approach has had a huge impact on the way we have pursued things here at GMU, as I discussed at this celebration of her work at the APSA meetings.

 

Listen to Bobbi's wonderful discussion of the choice of the name "Workshop", and also the deliberate flat nature of the organization, and the Ostroms' self-understanding of apprenticeship, citizenship and scholarship.

Lin inspired in word and deed, and the Ostrom legacy -- both Vincent and Lin -- continues to shine through in ongoing work on democratic self-governance both here at the Hayek Program and at universities and research centers throughout the world. 

Why are we not talking about this more?

|Peter Boettke|

The other day in lecturing to undergrad class I made a mistake only foolish old professors make. Discussing the Soviet experience, I said to the class ‘How old were you in 1989?’  Of course, they looked at me with puzzled looks.  ‘I wasn’t born yet’, one pointed out.  Right!  My son Matthew was born in 1988, and he is 31, what was I thinking?!

But boy those decades have flown by. Still scrambling to get my bearings, I asked a follow up, ok, how old where you when 9/11 happened?  2-3-4 years old the answers came back.  And then two realities hit me. These kids have no living memory of communism, and their entire lives the US has been at war.  We are living in a permanent war economy with all the distortions and dysfunctions that follow. 

For the first time in US history it has been reported in military news as well as on Buzzfeed, there are soldiers fighting a war that started before they were born.  WHY is this not front page news everyday?  WHY are there not protest marches in DC to demand an end to violence and destruction and death?  WHY have ‘we’ become so accustomed to war at a distance that it just fades into the background of our collective conscience?

These questions are vexing. Readers should spend time looking at the Costs of War Project at Brown. And, readers should spend as much time as they can reading the powerful work of CHRIS COYNE, who has done more than any other thinker in economics and political economy to explain the futility and horror of these US led military adventures. His work lays out clearly the consequences both foreign and domestic, and I should add the true costs monetarily, politically, and spiritually. If you think a generation can grow up in a permanent war economy and have it have no deleterious consequences on their material opportunities, their political sensibilities, their civil liberties, and their psychological dispositions THINK AGAIN.

We need to be talking about this.  Lets get this conversation started. 

Clothes on Floor, not put away; Jazz music, not Classical; Books all around, not Sports posters -- and Political Division and Democratic Society

|Peter Boettke|

One of my favorite podcasts as readers of this blog will know is Hidden Brain hosted by Shankar Vedantam.   A recent episode discussed partisanship in America, and offered psychological/biological analysis, and historical analysis. But as I was listening I couldn't help thinking about a few things and I wonder how you think about these things as well and what your personal experiences are -- both with the psychological dispositions discussed to define conservatives and liberals, and with your understanding of history and challenges to democratic society.

On the first, just let me say.  I think I am probably some odd ball --- a liberal with some conservative dispositions, but not many.  Maybe I am just a radical liberal who learned economics so that I take the issue of scarcity seriously.  But it is also the case, that I am weird by all standards of categorizing.  I leave my clothes on the floor, I listen to a wide variety of musical styles from Jazz to Classical, and lots of alternatives in-between, since my sophomore year of college I have had books all over my room/house as well as lots of sports items.  I have no problem with free form writing or speaking, though of course I also look for quotes in Shakespeare.  My oldest son is a musician and specializes in the genre of Industrial Noise, so I have my share of noise and ambient music in my collection as well as punk bands, alternative rock, classic rock, country rock, blues, jazz, and of course my own collection of Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart and Vivaldi, etc.  I am an academic, who would prefer to dress like a basketball coach going to practice rather than an investment banker about to make a major deal.

I wonder if all classical liberals actually defy the psychological dispositions described in the episode.

On the second matter, let me just say --- cyclical majorities.  What I mean by that is just Jim Buchanan's old argument again Arrow from 1954.  We want turn taking in politics as discourse, and want to avoid like the plague any notion of permanent winning coalitions.  Political institutions can either promote cyclical majorities, be neutral with respect to them, or prevent them.  How they do this is largely tied to the question of the "status of the status quo".  We need more research on political structures and their relationship to the functioning of a self-governing democratic society. And we need more historical research on the pressure points when the vulnerabilities of self-governing democratic societies are being tested in severe ways.

So once again, I listen to Hidden Brain and walk away with new ideas to wrestle with, and new books to read, and authors to track down.  I will not say NPR is a "public good", but in this day and age of multiplicity of media, I do find the shows on NPR the ones I return to again and again to learn from.  So I am thrilled it is produced and that folks involved are striving to stimulate a conversation and discussion and not necessarily fixated on winning debate points, and providing solace for those seeking political mood affiliation.

‘an oppression of the weak by the incompetent and an exploitation of the poor by the lazy’

|Peter Boettke|

EconTalk this week on urban planning and economic forces at work in the everyday deliberations of city dwellers and builders and architects is highly recommended.