Reflections on the Seminar at FEE

The Austrian seminar at FEE this year had close to 100 students, and they heard from 10 different faculty over the course of the week: Israel Kirzner, Mario Rizzo, Larry White, Roger Garrison, Peter Lewin, Bill Buots, Steve Horwitz, Pete Leeson, Chris Coyne, and myself.  In deciding on lecture topics, I wanted to highlight not only the history and basic concepts of the Austrian school of economics, but also to reflect current work and contemporary relevance.

Due to the size of the group, all the lectures were conducted in the FEE library and students sat in folding chairs.  Each lecture was a 90 minute period, and there were five lectures per day, followed by break-out discussion groups.  One discussion group was designated for advanced graduate students and we rotated the faculty -- Kirzner the first night, Mario Rizzo the second night, Caldwell the next, a night off, and then a macro panel consisting of Steve Horwitz, Roger Garrison and Larry White.  Faculty in general were rotated so that students were exposed to as many different voices as possible.

The schedule was too grueling, and the learning environment was not as comfortable as would be ideal --- though FEE's home in Irvington-on-Hudson, NY remains a wonderful environment in general.

After thinking about the seminar, I guess the following comments come to mind:

1. Kirzner is amazing

2. Pete Leeson is not a rising star, he is a superstar both in lecturing and in writing

3. It is increasingly hard to combine undergradutes and gradaute students together for these sort of seminars; better I think to separate them and limit size for more personal contact and a more intense intellectual experience at the graduate level especially

4. The teaching of the basic lessons of the Austrian school to students is a vital exercise in the promotion of economic education

5. Inspiring serious study and encouraging research should take priority in economic education over inspiring students to activism due to a sense of "injustice'

6. However, you can employ the sense of injustice to ignite the intellectual passion to figure things out

7. A lot of bad economics is taught at university world-wide, and perhaps worst at the graduate level.  Several participants were confused about the difference between scientific propositions ('inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomena') and ideological policy positions.  This causes a lot of problems in discussion, and note I used a phrase from Milton Friedman not Mises or Hayek to highlight the level of the problem.  This is not mere opinion, but the teachings of basic economics -- however if participatns deny the teachings of basic economics it is hard to know where to start.  In one discussion I even just went to discussing Friedman's graphs on inflation in FREE TO CHOOSE and also in MONEY MISCHIEF, but the gradaute students I was talking to were unimpressed. 

8. If you think about the problems we have discussing basic economic ideas related to free trade and the costs of inflation as economists in general, let alone Austrian economists, then you being to realize how much work we have to do to improve the communication of economic ideas to the public, our students, and even our peers in academic economics

9. Geoff Lea really did an outstanding job with the summer seminar line-up this year at FEE --- congratulations Geoff you did all your teachers very proud in the way you took the bull by the horns and focused on solid economic education and pushing the envelope on supporting the cutting edge of research in libertarianism

10. FEE has an extremely important niche to fill in our intellectual movement

I am sure there are others I could list, but I wanted to really ask any who attended the seminar to leave feed-back so that we can improve the experience.

Comments

[matthew mueller]

I really enjoyed the seminar. I have always had the attitude that I will never learn much from listening to someone talk, because reading seems to be so much more productive. But this seminar changed all that. Questions that I never thought of came up while I was listening to all of these great Austrian scholars.

Here are some of my reflections.

1.) I would have liked to see more discussion on Austrian topics and problems by faculty and students alike. The students seemed to be more interested in libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. I also think Mario Rizzo's lecture on Time was by far the most important lecture of the conference, but nobody talked about it at all during the seminar, and when I asked people about it, they said they found it hard to follow. I also expected to see the faculty talk about eachother's papers and works more, but they seemed to be more interested in sharing personal stories that had no relation to Austrian economics. There is still a great deal of tension in Austrian economics (just read Karen Vaughn and Joe Salerno!), but the faculty seemed like they didn't want to address these issues. I mean you had Roger Garrison (anti-kaleidic society) and Mario Rizzo (follower of Lachmann) at the same table!

2.) And the trouble with these seminars is that people seem more interested in networking than in talking about Austrian economics. I was asked for my myspace and facebook pages more times than I can remember. I am not sure how you organize a seminar that encourages people to attend for the ideas and not the parties and drinks, however. I think it would be a good idea to split this seminar up into undergraduate and graduate programs. The Post Keynesian workshop does that at UMKC, and I think that is why I had such a great time there this summer (they made an exception for me).

3.) Israel Kirzner is great!! I can't imagine lecturing with the patience and penetrating insight that he did with 100 cameras flashing every five seconds in a small room. Even I had a hard time concentrating with all that going on. Kirzner is a true scholar.

4.) If I could arrange the schedule, I would have given students more on the history and intellectual development of Austrian economics. Here is what I would have done:

Eliminate the lectures on: Happiness Research, Development Economics, Economic History of the 20th century, Government funded science, libertarian paternalism,

and replace them with lectures on: Vaughn's description of the tension between Kirzner and Lachmann; A detailed lecture of Menger's 1871 book; a detailed lecture of the socialist calculation debate, following very closely the three essays by Hayek in his 1948 book and Don Lavoie's book; a lecture on the controversy between Hayek and Mises on calculation; and so on.

This is because a lot of the students that were there were followers of Rothbard. They were confused to hear White talk about fractional reserve banking and Horwitz on the problems of deflation. I think a detailed lecture should have preceded these two lectures that described in great detail the split between Hayekians and Misesians. This would have enabled students to appreciate and understand the differences better.

Anyway, it was a great seminar, and I want to thank FEE and Dr. Pete Boettke for making it possible.

[Steve Horwitz]

Some helpful suggestions there Matt. I would just offer one general thought: I, for one, was happy that this seminar focused on *looking forward not backward*. By that I mean, I'm happy that we did NOT engage in any more history of the Austrian school than we did, and I'm especially happy that we did NOT lecture on the intra-Austrian differences. I think you are very much the outlier in finding that to be of interest. Speaking for myself, I'm really tired of rehashing all the old internal debates. It's time to DO Austrian economics, not talk about it. And in that sense, I think the schedule Pete put together was a real advance over past years.

As for the Rothbardians who were confused/surprised by defenses of fractional reserve banking etc, well so be it. The first seminar on Austrian economics I attended as a student caused me to have the same reaction (I was a 100% gold guy back then). I survived. Students who come with an open mind and are willing to learn will see that Austrians disagree and understand that it's not totally self-destructive if we do. Plenty of students there had been to the Mises Institute earlier in the summer and heard a different story there. They can learn to sort it out for themselves.

What bothered me were the large number of students clearly there because they thought they were getting libertarianism not an economics seminar. The conflation of libertarianism and Austrian economics is a big problem, and one is not helped by terms such as "Austro-libertarianism" and people and organizations who don't sufficiently make those distinctions. It's, ironically, an unintended consequence of the Ron Paul campaign as well, I think. The very success he had with the brand name "Austrian economics" led to its connection with a set of political views with which it does not have an automatic connection.

That said, let me echo pretty much all of Pete's comments above. The best part for me was having several days of hanging out with my colleagues, even though being Lewin's sherpa is a full-time job. :)

[matthew mueller]

Dr. Horwitz,

Thanks for the friendly reply. I always enjoy reading your comments, and I can appreciate your desire to see Austrian economics become more useful by pushing it forward. I don't want to hijack this post because I would like to hear what others thought of the seminar, so let me just briefly desribe my impression with the current work that is being done in Austrian economics.

A lot of able and talented young economists are doing excellent applied work in Austrian economics. The problem is that they have just taken certain arguments for granted and put them to use in matters involving public policy. D'Amico (prison system), Powell (development economics), Leeson (self-governance), Coyne (reconstruction), and Horwitz (natural disasters) are all EXCELLENT economists, but I don't think their work is advancing the Austrian research program. In fact, I would argue that this development in Austrian economics is responsible for the burgeoning "Austro-libertarian" movement that you are so concerned about. All of this work basically follows the same formula: Knowledge is diffuse; markets are the best means for coordinating this diffuse knowledge; excessive government involvement in the form of LAW manipulation inhibits the workings of the market. That is basically it, with a little Public Choice sprinkled in. I don't see how this is moving Austrian economics "forward not backward." And it is no longer surprising to see why libertarians and not Austrians are taking over Austrian economics. Again, this is just my view, and I am not in any way attacking the efforts of Austrians who have contributed to this literature, because I admire them all very much.

I just think all of the issues that make Austrian economics unique are far from settled. Karen Vaughn is the BEST source to consult on equilibration and disequilibration, and she is emphatic on this point: "I conclude that neither Kirzner nor Lachmann provides a satisfying view of economic order that reflects the Austrian assumptions of time and ignorance, and that more work needs to be done in specific directions to fully articulate an Austrian paradigm" (The Problem of Order in Austrian Economics, Review of Political Economy, p. 252).

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss these issues in Austrian economics as no longer relevant.

Ok, now back to Reflections on the seminar.

[Steve Horwitz]

I'm not dismissing them Matt, I'm saying that a seminar designed for undergraduates and graduate students is not the place for those issues. In that environment, we should be focusing on the core of the ideas and then exciting and interesting ways they are being applied by current scholars in the field.

Sorry that you think all this applied work is just libertarianism in disguise. I think you're wrong about that of course, as the analytical arguments being used stand or fall on their own. The work would not be getting the attention it is *outside of the usual libertarian circles* if the analytics weren't solid, interesting, and to some degree new to those audiences. I won't bore folks with a list of where people have published, or what media outlets are paying attention, but if this was just thinly-veiled ideological dogma, good journals and presses wouldn't be publishing it and mainstream media outlets wouldn't be talking about it.

[Peter Boettke]

Matt,

I think you miss the point about the positive political economy work that is being done.

Also, I think many of the issues you think are unsettled have in fact been settled in the journals and among those working in the field. Karen Vaughn's book was published over ten years ago, the discussion of the issues she summarized in that book have been discussed at length.

To say that the debates have been "resolved" does not mean that everyone agrees. Instead, it means that scholars working in the field have found the conversation on those issues to be "unproductive".

You have to understand what a productive question is in building a scientific research program. Popper understood this --- you don't keep spinning your wheels on fundamental issues.

The questions on happiness, reconstruction, paternalism, alternative banking regimes, etc. are where the conversation is within the economics profession. Focusing on those issues signals that Austrian economists are concerned with being ECONOMISTS and attempting to be part of the conversation at the top departments and in the top journals in the profession. To instead cultivate a conversation around heterodox issues among Austrians would in fact be of intellectual value, but would also guarantee that Austrians would be relegated to the backwaters of academia.

However, I do think a deep knowledge of the terms of the various debates within the Austrian school are a pre-requisite for working in the field, but being locked into those issues is a recipe for a frustrating professional life. Better to settle those issues in your own mind, then get on with the business of being an economist, and then after awhile cycle back and rethink what you are doing and the way you have done it.

I hope that makes sense.

Pete

[Rafe Champion]

Maybe someone did this, before the conference it would be good to flag some piece like the relevant chapter in Hulsmann to acknowledge the efforts of the people who set up FEE in the beginning. This does not need to take up precious time at the conference but the people who have a lot of fun becoming facebook friends need to be reminded that in living memory Austrian economics and the free enternprise movement were hanging on to the edge of a cliff by their fingernails. Sometimes it still feels like that.

[Pete]

I think Pete and Steve are correct.

I'll only chime in here to note the following: As I tried to emphasize repeatedly in my second talk, if one thinks that the applied work being done in Austrian economics is somehow peripheral to the core of Austrian economics, they've gravely misunderstood what Austrian economics is about.

These areas *are* the core. Just because they don't use the words 'radical uncertainty,' 'disequilibrium,' and the rest doesn't mean they're not. Only a truly superficial (mis)understanding of Austrian concepts would lead to the conclusion that they're sideshows.

To those who find this message confusing, my recommendation: go back and read Mises. In particular, read Theory and History. Then read Human Action. If you're feeling sprightly (as you should, you just read Human Action), read the rest of Mises' major books. After that, read Hayek's Individualism and Economic Order.

If after doing this the connection still isn't clear, don't move on because you still haven't comprehended central messages in these works.

A few tips to help you decide if you're 'there' or not: Hint 1: If you still measure the 'Austrian-ness' of an idea by its level of abstraction, you're not there. Hint 2: If you still see Menger's spontaneous order theory of money as 'Anarcho-libertarianism,' you're not there. Hint 3: If you're still trying to measure, and are explicitly concerned with, the 'Austrian-ness' of an idea or piece of research, you're not there.

Once you've comprehended Mises and Hayek and thus the connection is clear, move forward and begin engaging in the research that Mises and Hayek paved the way for.

[Goran]

Pete - even if it is stuff like pirates? The Invisible Hook might be a good pun, but that doesn't mean it makes interesting research. Let's tackle contempoary policy issues.

Respectfully yours,

Goran

[Brian Pitt]

Pete Boettke; Pete Leeson; Steve Horwitz: I believe that until Matt enters a graduate program he will be unable to appreciate the importance of obtaining a good pair of theoretical lenses for the purpose of cultivating a fertile research program.

1. I would have liked MORE attention to applied topics such as Happiness Research, Libertarian Paternailism, Science as a Spontaneous Order, The Family, Post-War Reconstruction, Free Banking, and Self-Governance. Another lecture by Caldwell on the Weberian-Austrian connection would have been GREAT too. (But that may be mere "wheel spinning.") In addition to these, I would have liked discussion from Storr and Chamlee-Wright on topics such as Social Economy; discussion from D' Amico on criminal justice; and discussion by Stringham (and Caplan) on the influence of public opinion.

[Peter Boettke]

Goran,

The Invisible Hook is a pun for the title, but the book itself is FULL of contemporary relevance. The New Yorker and the Boston Globe has recognized this, why several readers of this blog cannot baffles me to no end.

Same with dismissive comments on war reconstruction work by Chris Coyne. I titled my review of his book "The Most Important Book on the Most Important Topic of Our Time" for a reason.

Name me the top 5 issues that are currently facing the world as it relates to economic theory and public policy. I bet that at least 3 of these on any given list are being studied and addressed by my former students.

[Roger Koppl]

Pete Leeson said, "These areas *are* the core. . . . Only a truly superficial (mis)understanding of Austrian concepts would lead to the conclusion that they're sideshows."

Pete, could you restate your message for us? I don't quite know what you mean. I mean, I am personally doing some *very* applied work, which is driving me think deeper about theoretical issues, and so on. Like you, I reject Austrian-economics-as-belly-button-gazing. It's just that you seemed to have a relatively precise argument in mind and I wasn't able to see what that argument was.

[matthew mueller]

Well Dr. Boettke,

Jeffrey Friedman has taught us all that there is an inverse relationship between (1) the Truth and (2) acceptance by the public and popular press companies like the New Yorker and the Boston Globe.

Are you suggesting that success is to be gauged by how many books Pete will sell with his new research project on pirates? That is not success, but instead pedagogy similar to the approach taken by people like Anne Coulter and Noami Klein.

The truth is a complicated matter, and that is why many people would rather not bother with it. That is also why people like Shackle, Popper and Hayek do not sell many books, although they are all respected by people who themselves are seekers of the Truth.
-----

And Dr. Leeson's post was interesting. I would just point out that I don't think the "nasty and dirty" work in economic methodology is complete yet in Austrian economics. His post seems to suggest reading Hayek and Mises should enable you to take their message forward into applied research. My own view is that we need to develop these theories further before we can do good applied research. I don't like Lachmann and Shackle only because they spoke about uncertainty. I admire their work because they tried to develop subjectivism and the theory of choice and rationality further. To say that it is all in Mises is like a student in the 1930's saying "It's all in Marshall!" when clearly economics has moved past this.

[Roger Koppl]

Matt,

Hayek's Road to Serfdom was hugely popular. A cartoon version was published in Look magazine: http://mises.org/books/TRTS/. (For those based outside the US, Look was a very widely circulated popular monthly magazine filled with photos.) Hayek was involved in a radio tour. The equivalent today would be appearances on the Colbert Report and, perhaps, the Tonight show. I don't think it's right to say that popular success is a sign you're wrong or fluffy. Think of the popular success of Darwin! Shackle wrote a book called "Economics for Pleasure" or something like that. I don't know if it was successful, but it was aimed at a popular audience. Milton Friedman gives us another good example.

Personally, as I hinted in my earlier post, I've found that the more applied my work becomes, the deeper my thoughts on theoretical issues. My forensics stuff has (unexpectedly) driven me think way deeper about epistemics. I've even ended up with two hits in a philosophy journal because of it. To my mind, then, the rule of thumb is that you need to be applied if you're gonna have a decent shot at being a good theorist. Think about the fights Mises, Hayek, Schutz, Morgenstern, et al. were having. It was all about the Austrian constitution, Bolshevism, and so on. It was completely applied issues in Vienna between the wars. The abstract stuff came out of the fights over policy. As Klausinger has documented, MIses had his guys writing all sorts of popular and journalistic stuff in an effort to save Austrian liberalism. (Mark Thorton goes a bit into this in his Machlup article in the American Biographical Dictionary, as I think it's called.)

All in all, I think there is room to reconsider the position you take in your last post.

[Peter Boettke]

Matt and others,

I agree that Truth is not an issue of popularity. But I also don't believe that Jeff or anyone else has "taught us" that there is an inverse relationship between "truth" and publication in the best outlets. To argue that would entail the complete bankruptcy of our intellectual culture. Several scholars within the "Austrian" and "libertarian" circle make this argument, but I would argue that they are wrong in their thinking.

Our goal should be -- if we believe that we have discovered Truth --- to communicate that truth as clearly as possible to our peers in the scientific community, and to spread that knowledge to as prestigious media outlets as possible.

The gold standard in academia is appointment in a top 20 PhD program, publication in the top 5 professional journals, books consisting primarily of your essays by 1 of the top 3 university presses, and reviews of your books and solicitation of your opinion in outlets such as the NYT, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, The Economist and the TLS. In terms of electronic media I guess I would say NPR for radio, and ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS for TV. Being on C-SPAN is great, but not breaking through; same with being on talk-radio shows.

There are of course only so much space and time in these TOP outlets and only a few spots in top departments. The fact that there are alternatives from GMU to the blogosphere is absolutely fantastic, but lets not delude ourselves. Professorship at Harvard, publication in the AER and JPE, books with Cambridge or Princeton, and op-eds in the NYT would be as influential an intellectual as one can imagine.

And wouldn't it be great IF that intellectual was promoting a humanistic version of economics, and the policies of economic and political freedom of the individual?

I certainly think so, and I tried to cultivate a desire among my students to strive for that sort of professional success --- but a success in that regard on their own terms, not by changing who they are. This requires a deep commitment to learning to write and speak effectively --- and to do so better than those who use alternative ways to present their economic research findings (such as models and statistics). No small task, but one that is vital IF we are to advance Truth in our time.

At least that is my position. It is not careerism and it is certainly not stealth, but it is professional climbing and intellectual ambition.

In my opinion, and I could easily be wrong here, to pursue the alternative strategy happily --- aspire to teach in academic backwaters, publish only in low circulation journals or online, and publish only with non-academic publishers, and do only alternative media is to relegate the positions one has to a very limited influence --- it might be an important influence, but it will not be a major influence on our culture.

What do you find objectionable in my position Matt?

Pete

[Roger Koppl]

And, if I may draw out something implicit in Pete's last post, you gotta know what the high-impacts folks are writing and how they think. You gotta know where the conversation is at and engage that conversation. Otherwise 1) you have no standing to claim superiority for your POV, 2) you have no chance of penetrating the top levels of discourse, whether academic or popular, and 3) you run the great risk of having, in fact, a weak and insubstantial position, even if it is rooted in the greats.

[Geoffrey Lea]

Pete,

Thanks for the kind words. It's been an incredibly interesting summer, and I hope FEE continues--at least in this spirit--into the future.

The only thing I'd add is a small correction to your original post. There were eleven lecturers, the eleventh being Bruce Caldwell.

gsl

[Peter Boettke]

Roger,

Right on ...

BTW, I think Pete Leeson's comments are completely consistent with your position. By "core" he doesn't mean theoretical core, but instead just that the issue of self-governance and institutional evolution/construction are at the core of the agenda from Menger to Hayek. On this it would be hard to argue I think. But so are issues of the epistemic environment --- which is what I take you to be working on.

Pete

[liberty]

I'm gonna jump in here before reading all of the comments and give my view:

1. The days were too long and the social time too short. I wanted to discuss and debate with the presenters "late into the night" as Pete B. promised me I could, but instead it was late into the night by the time we got back to the hotel, and then people were pretty much beat from 13 hours of lectures, chatted about this and that for a bit, and went to bed. Add to this a toothache and allergies, and I am surprised I made it through the week.

2. The lectures were far too introductory. Most of them were rehash of stuff we all knew (or many of us knew; maybe the split between grad students and the rest would resolve this, although I wasn't invited to the grad discussion group, didn't even know it existed). All of them should have more technical, detailed, and advanced. The banking lecture, for example, should have been on banking not on (primarily) the origin of money - something we all already knew about.

3. I very much enjoyed the fractional reserve debates. I would have loved it if there had been more disagreement. One of the worst parts of the seminar was that everyone seemed to agree on most everything. You can't learn in that kind of environment - at least I can't.

4. We should have had papers for all the talks beforehand, and for a bonus the talks could go online. The talks should be optional and parallel and if you have to miss one you want to see, you will have read the paper and will have plenty of social time to discuss, along with (hopefully) the podcast online. Talks should be 45 minutes long with 15 minutes for questions.

All of my issues boil down probably to the difference between a seminar and a conference, I guess. I would have greatly preferred conference format. Something like:

Sunday night: dinner with opening talk - Boettke on current state of economics

Monday:
Morning session 1 [on history] 9:00-10:00
1. Kirzner on History of Austrian School OR
2. White on Economic History of the 20th Century

Morning session 2 [on new directions] 11:00-12:00
3. Leeson on Development Issues OR
4. Coyne on War Reconstruction

Lunch 12:00 - 1:00

Afternoon session 1 [flashbacks] 1:00-2:00

1. Boettke on soc calc debate OR
2. Garrison on Austrian Business Cycle Theory

Afternoon session 2 [boundaries of economics] 2:00-3:00
1. Coyne on Happiness Research OR
2. Horwitz on The Family

Break 3:00-3:30

Discussion Groups (if you like) 3:30-5:00
(alternatively, there could be one more session of talks)

Dinner 5:00-6:30 (dinner could have a guest speaker on some nights, keeping it light and short)

Free time 6:30-whenever

See how much you can do in one day without steam-rollering people?

--
p.s. I chose the talks by category, but of course sometimes that sucks because people like all of a certain category, and none of another one. An alternate way to do it might be to randomize, or to pick them alphabetically, or based on their contrast rather than their similarity somehow, etc. Or based on what time of day the speakers feel like speaking!

You'll always end up having people miss talks they would like to see, but that is the nature of the beast, and that is also what the FREE TIME is for.

[mthomasg]

Seems liberty, while being a bit overzealous is on to something.

My biggest concern at these seminars is that it is hard to get faculty to take the time off from their research. So is it possible to have an undergraduate and graduate seminar at the same time?

Seems like their could be some section of the day where an introductory lecture was presented while faculty discussed papers by graduate students, open to anyone who thought that they already new the material being covered. This would economize on faculty and time while adding a benefit which would make it very attractive to serious graduate students.

As far as papers being available before hand, seems like it is low cost to link to some relevant work the professor has already done. This being said, in my experience even the good graduate students don't read them. But if they are not there, it seems like you would have made the time... :)

[liberty]

I (obviously) don't think I'm over-zealous. I just described what 99% of conferences look like.

[mthomas]

liberty,

That is an empirical claim. However, I am not sure I agree with you. You are jumping between conferences (which by this term I am assuming you mean people presenting current research) and seminars (the distillation of themes for interested non-experts), which I would assume you would agree tend to look more like the seminar you attended.

I hope you will see that I tried to take your suggestion one step further, and I will suggest that you have forgotten the consideration that I added that the requisition of faculty for these seminars is a function of the scarcity of both their time and the resources of the host for their honorarium.

Short of that, our only hope for reconciliation is references to a sample size adequate to determine that 99% of seminars are organized in the way that you have suggested.

[Rafe Champion]

A good point from liberty on circulating the papers in advance. That way the speakers can just identify the key points in the paper and show how they relate to other important papers or issues that are being discussed at the conference. More time for discussion, and maybe shorter sessions to allow more informal meeting.

One on one meetings with role models can be life-changing but it sounds as though there was no time in the crowded schedule for that.

On theory and applied research, there will be a synergy between good theory and good research.

On depth and popularity, tempting to suggest there is an inverse relationship but the relationship is haphazard. Popularity of Serfdom in the US was possibly due to the Readers Digest version that gave Hayek mixed feelings.

Interesting to note that the long version of Popper's Open Society remains in print in the US due to lay readership, someone mentioned 12,000 copies pa but it is practically impossible to find on campus reading lists. Not even in the bookshop at Sydney Uni.

[liberty]

mthomas,

If you read carefully what I wrote, I did admit that my bias was that the seminar be conference-style. I recognize that it was a seminar. As to the 99% number, I will admit now that I pulled it out of thin air, and probably should instead have said that, in my experience, conferences tend to be run this way (and seminars probably are not).

Still, I maintain that a movement in this direction - especially with regard to the time component - would be a huge improvement. Simultaneous lectures could free up the speakers' time schedules as well; and if lecture times were chosen by the speakers, they could use the rest of the daytime slots to do their own work, and just return in the evenings for the social hours.

[matthew mueller]

liberty,

I enjoyed reading your thoughts on the seminar. I didn't know you had attended. It was great being able to meet Brian Pitt, and I would have liked to meet you as I enjoy your posts on this blog.

I think you are absolutely right that the social time was too short. An hour for discussion is not enough time. Although, even in the graduate discussion group, it seemed that many were more eager to get out and drink than to talk "late into the night" as I would have loved to do.

Also, and I hate to point this out, but it seemed that Kirzner, Rizzo and Caldwell were not that interested in participating in the discussion group. They answered the questions from students in a friendly way, but they didn't seem too interested in them. However, Pete Boettke was just fantastic. His enthusiasm for economics is inspiring!

And about having the papers available beforehand. This is not that hard to do on your own. Austrians are great because they make it easy for students to access their papers. Try doing this for Post Keynesian or New Institutional Economics! It is as though the economists in these fields go out of their way to make their work inaccessible to students! But the Austrians (Boettke, Horwitz, Rizzo, etc.)all have their work online, and I spent the two weeks before the conference reading all of their papers related to the conference schedule.

Thanks for the comments liberty! I can identify with a lot of what you wrote.

[liberty]

Thanks for nice comment matthew. You may have noticed me; I was in the back and had questions for many of the talks early in the week (exhaustion combined with wanting to give others a chance slowed me down after that).

Personally, I don't mind the discussion being in an informal session - I would just as soon skip formal discussion group and go straight to the bar/restaurant, so long as the presenters come along. It just felt to me more difficult to get face time than it should have been - as if the speakers were more like celebrities than I am used to with regular conferences. But even for those who were accessible, they were understandably tired, as I was, and so it was difficult to find time to talk.

As for the papers, you are right to point out that all of the presenters probably have plenty of work online. I did try to read up on papers of those whose work I had not already spent time with, before the conference. Still, there is an advantage to having specific papers suggested before the talk, to focus on and refer to.

[Goran]

Peter,

I will actually go and read Leeson's book. Then I might not be so full of BS. I will take Leeson's advice and re-read Human Action. Maybe I am not getting it.

All the best,

Goran

[Peter Boettke]

On the issue of the semiar experience --- from the comments I get the following:

1. smaller group and divide graduates and undergraduates into separate semiars;

2. have concurrent sessions so students can choose topics and lecturers;

3. leave more free time for informal intellectual interaction;

However, as a practical matter, I am not sure how to square these demands with the operation of running a seminar for students that both presents foundational material and current applications.

I guess on the issue of faculty availability for discourse, I would simply say as one of the faculty that I tried to talk to students as much as they wanted to talk, but it is hard to switch gears from basic to intermediate to advanced questions as you walk from one end of the room to another and also to do so from 8:30am to 11:00pm over the course of a 5 day schedule.

I tried to sit a lunch with some advanced students, but I find it hard to following serious argument in settings of multiple conversations --- so I am sure I missed subtle arguments that were being made (often by non-native English speakers). I regret this.

Pete

[Maxx Mantooth]

Pete, Pete, Chris, and Steve:

I truly enjoyed the Seminar. As a first time experience at FEE it was a pleasure to be with familiar faces and teaching styles, as well as getting to experience new ones.

I'm going to by-pass some of the "deeper criticisms" I've seen posted because; A. I don't share the sentiment(s), B. You all have more than adequately resolved any of the problems and dissents other posters have mentioned.

But, I do have some comments that might be valuable to the discussion.

The lecture that challenged me the most, but that really forced me to think and analyize the message was Rizzo's Time and Economics. I admit, I'm still not certain of what he wanted to say, but I came away with a new perspective and insight (even if my thoughts had nothing to do with his intended message.)

Leeson and Coyne- Such a great dynamic in discussion groups and informally. Hearing them lecture on their own new, and (I would say) groundbreaking research really hit home with a lot of us that "Austrian Economics" as a "Positive Science" is alive and well. That there is a great future for those who seek to persue Economics as Profession.

Those who know me, would not be surprised that I was awe struck with Kirzner's "entrepreneurship" lecture.

I have studied in both Dr Leeson's and Dr Boettke's Classes. They gave me a glimpse into, and new found passion for, the "Austrian" Way of thinking. They inspired me to read more, but more importantly to write and ponder more concerning what was read.

I had always struggled, and had many dissagreements, with my Macro Professors. But I just couldn't exactly explain why. Dr's Horwitz, Lewin, and Rogers really cleared it all up for me. While Austrian Macro at first seemed counter intutitive, they proved that the Future for austrian Economics will be more diverse and very bright indeed.

The greatest rewards from the seminar, I think were the relaxed informal discussions. Not just with the Professors, but also with the other participants. I wish more of this went on within my own University.

However, my limited complaints are similar to those already posted.
Though I feel this maybe somewhat un-justified, the biggest "issue" I had was the "untasteful" blending of Austrian Economics and Libertarianism. While this was not the fault of the presenters, maybe more can be done to keep them seperate. Many of the students simply could NOT deliniate the difference. It was frustrating to me becuase, while the two forms of thought are not mutually exclusive, they are distinct and seperate. Dr. Leeson really pounded that into my brain last semester, with his opening lecture "Positivism vs. Normativism". It's important to deal with Economics as a science. The "should's could's would's and ought's" have little to no place in it. Leave those terms for the libertarian discussions.
I have read some of Rothbard "the libertarian" and find him abrasive and unconvincing. That approach often closes minds and drives the reader away. Hayek and Mises on the other hand were just as blunt with their topics as Rothbard, but through their Positive analysis, they invite the reader to open his mind and think a little deeper about issues which may challenge the reader's own views/opinions.
I think this issue needs to be addressed.

Some are calling the Presentations "basic". Indeed, it felt a little more like an "Intro to austrian theory" seminar than advanced. While I am not a grad student, It would have been enjoyable to be stretched intellectually (up to the grad level) by way of more detailed theory and analysis.

Lastly, the Dicussion groups. The concept is a good one. However, it seems like they generally missed their intended mark.
I was expecting a forum of sorts where the lecturer would guide the students to contemplating and verbally resolve their doubts and/or objections. Instead, (in my group at least) very very little economics was discussed, in fact Pete B's post about inflation was on point... it was infuriating to listen to arguments on the nature and effects of simple inflation, or the "Obama policy" discussion which had nothing to do with the lessons taught. Maybe it was just my group, but I felt that with a little more direction and stimulation from the professors, the groups could have been more effective.

[Maxx Mantooth]

Pete, Pete, Chris, and Steve:

I truly enjoyed the Seminar. As a first time experience at FEE it was a pleasure to be with familiar faces and teaching styles, as well as getting to experience new ones.

I'm going to by-pass some of the "deeper criticisms" I've seen posted because; A. I don't share the sentiment(s), B. You all have more than adequately resolved any of the problems and dissents other posters have mentioned.

But, I do have some comments that might be valuable to the discussion.

The lecture that challenged me the most, but that really forced me to think and analyize the message was Rizzo's Time and Economics. I admit, I'm still not certain of what he wanted to say, but I came away with a new perspective and insight (even if my thoughts had nothing to do with his intended message.)

Leeson and Coyne- Such a great dynamic in discussion groups and informally. Hearing them lecture on their own new, and (I would say) groundbreaking research really hit home with a lot of us that "Austrian Economics" as a "Positive Science" is alive and well. That there is a great future for those who seek to persue Economics as Profession.

Those who know me, would not be surprised that I was awe struck with Kirzner's "entrepreneurship" lecture.

I have studied in both Dr Leeson's and Dr Boettke's Classes. They gave me a glimpse into, and new found passion for, the "Austrian" Way of thinking. They inspired me to read more, but more importantly to write and ponder more concerning what was read.

I had always struggled, and had many dissagreements, with my Macro Professors. But I just couldn't exactly explain why. Dr's Horwitz, Lewin, and Rogers really cleared it all up for me. While Austrian Macro at first seemed counter intutitive, they proved that the Future for austrian Economics will be more diverse and very bright indeed.

The greatest rewards from the seminar, I think were the relaxed informal discussions. Not just with the Professors, but also with the other participants. I wish more of this went on within my own University.

However, my limited complaints are similar to those already posted.
Though I feel this maybe somewhat un-justified, the biggest "issue" I had was the "untasteful" blending of Austrian Economics and Libertarianism. While this was not the fault of the presenters, maybe more can be done to keep them seperate. Many of the students simply could NOT deliniate the difference. It was frustrating to me becuase, while the two forms of thought are not mutually exclusive, they are distinct and seperate. Dr. Leeson really pounded that into my brain last semester, with his opening lecture "Positivism vs. Normativism". It's important to deal with Economics as a science. The "should's and ought's" have little to no place in it. Leave those terms for the libertarian discussions.
I have read some of Rothbard "the libertarian" and find him abrasive and unconvincing. That approach often closes minds and drives the reader away. Hayek and Mises on the other hand were just as blunt with their topics as Rothbard, but through their Positive analysis, they invite the reader to open his mind and think a little deeper about issues which may challenge the reader's own views/opinions.
I think this issue needs to be addressed.

Some are calling the Presentations "basic". Indeed, it felt a little more like an "Intro to austrian theory" seminar than advanced. While I am not a grad student, It would have been enjoyable to be stretched intellectually (up to the grad level) by way of more detailed theory and analysis.

Lastly, the Dicussion groups. The concept is a good one. However, it seems like they generally missed their intended mark.
I was expecting a forum of sorts where the lecturer would guide the students to contemplating and verbally resolve their doubts and/or objections. Instead, (in my group at least) very very little economics was discussed, in fact Pete B's post about inflation was on point... it was infuriating to listen to arguments on the nature and effects of simple inflation, or the "Obama policy" discussion which had nothing to do with the lessons taught. Maybe it was just my group, but I felt that with a little more direction and stimulation from the professors, the groups could have been more effective.

[Maxx Mantooth]

sorry for the double post folks.

[mthomas]

One of my favorite Boettke quotes seems to be relevant: "economics as a tool of critical appraisal does place certain parameters on various utopias" (Fred Foldvary, ed., 1996) - thanks to J.Horpedahl for helping me find the reference.

Concurrent sessions: Typically these would be designed to maximize the difference in the group. One might be nice, so graduate students could do something "advanced" while the undergraduates get the tools needed to participate in the discussions. There must be diminishing returns to these break-out sessions, so the exact number is greater than zero and less than the full allotment of sessions. Continuity constraints being a significant factor.

I gather the major problem with having both graduates and undergraduates is distinguishing the level of a particular presentation. There are three as I understand it: 1) advanced, paper presentation by aspiring students including detailed criticism: Seems that the only way to do this is to have faculty comment on graduate student research in the field. We have to assume a supply of such research by the participants, but the enthusiasm for more advanced topics is either overstated or such a supply exists. 2) Basic - some participants will need to be given basic tools, even definitions which will allow them to get anything out of the discussions. It seems that these two purposes are mutually exclusive and therefore there is an opportunity to do both simultaneously with the same allotment of faculty. 3) Intermediate: Once the basic students are given tools, they are likely to benefit from more advanced application. The Advance students, who have now seen their own research critiqued and picked apart by experts, can approach these lectures with new eyes and ears. Perhaps this is the best way to learn, like a weight lifter must cause small tears in his muscles to grow, a thinker must be show his otherwise obvious errors to acknowledge and incorporate this recognition into future work.

It seems, that given such interest (100 people) that some arrangement could be worked out. However, I acknowledge facility constraints as well as a scarce resource of attention span which works against both students and faculty alike.

On a final note, I hesitate to characterize social time as unproductive. Depending on how one unwinds and the effect of the compliment of alcohol to their thinking, this can be a really good opportunity to "distill" (hehe) the wisdom from the day and cleanse the pallet for the next day's topics.

[Alf]

How come Sautet wasn't involved? Then the blog guys would have been completely covered.

[Peter Boettke]

No slight to Fred, but with 11 lecturers and with 5 lectures per day, we just ran out of spots. Kirzner gave the entrepreneurship lecture and Peter Lewin gave the theory of the firm lecture.

To the participants in general, I am a bit confused about the "intro" versus "advanced" distinction that some are making. For example, what do they make out of Pete's discussion of "Hard Case Questions" --- do they have an answer for all of those? How about Kirzner's discussion of the evolution of market process theory --- what would they have done different to get that to an "advanced" level of discourse?

The famed basketball coach John Wooden used to tell his All Americans as they entered the gym "It is what you learn after you have learned it all that matters most."

Pete

P.S.: I am open to all the criticism in the world, but I am at a loss when it comes to this criticism because I really don't believe any lecture was pitched at the lowest common denominator, and instead was presenting mostly current research that goes on in the journals. In fact, when a claim was made that students couldn't follow the lectures we made a decision to try to make them stretch a bit rather than pitch to a lower audience. I take it many found the presentations still too elementary --- but I don't know what that precisely means in this context.

[Peter Boettke]

Economics and Libertarianism

I wanted to just say very quickly that I do think that many who complain about the blurred line also fail to appreciate how much positive economics actually tells us. It is NOT libertarian to say that "inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomena", yet some students critical of presentations insisted it was. It is NOT libertarian to say that "demand curves slope downward", yet again some students critical of the presentations claimed it was. And I would add, it is NOT libertarian to say that "economic calculation under socialism is impossible", or "that interventionism is unstable" or "the commerce is a tool of social reconciliation" or "contracts can be self-enforcing", etc. These are positive propositions in ECONOMICS. They happened to be positive proposition that in combination with other intellectual positions can become the bedrock of a libertarian position. But they are not identical to libertarianism.

As I said in one of my lectures at FEE --- science should hurt, praxeology puts parameters of people's utopias and economics is about truth claims, not mere opinion.

[liberty]

Pete B. says: To the participants in general, I am a bit confused about the "intro" versus "advanced" distinction that some are making. For example, what do they make out of Pete's discussion of "Hard Case Questions" --- do they have an answer for all of those? How about Kirzner's discussion of the evolution of market process theory --- what would they have done different to get that to an "advanced" level of discourse?
--

I was one of the people who said this. But I do not mean that I have answers for any of the talks, that I know everything about the current research or have great insight into the questions posed. That is not what I mean at all.

What I mean is that much of the lecture time was spent introducing some of the basic concepts - and I have been introduced to them elsewhere, so it seemed like material which I was already familiar with. To some extent this is expected and OK. But for 13 hours, this can get tiresome - I wasn't as intellectually stimulated as I would hope for. I've heard the questions before - I don't have the answers but just hearing the questions posed again, or hearing arguments I have heard before, isn't enough. As to Pete's Hard Case, except that I took his class I would not put that into the same category. I think Pete's lectures were less "introductory" and in fact, I was greatly inspired by his development one. But the exception, not the rule.

One example: I found the banking lecture to be a real disappointment because most of the time was spent on the origin of money. I already knew the origin of money. It isn't current research, it is something you can read about in many sources, and it isn't particularly unique to Austrian economics.

It is true that the consequences of really understanding the history of money - emergence, the power of exchange, the consumer sovereignty aspect - are powerful and related to Austrian economics. I enjoyed the discussion of the snow path.

But, still, I would have much preferred it if the presentation had actually been about free banking. In fact, by the end I still did not feel like I understood the arguments for free banking, or how to relate it to my concerns over the fractional reserve system and price response - instead I felt like I got a history lesson about how currency is emergent, therefore free markets in banking must be good - which doesn't actually follow. But, I probably just didn't understand the point there. I wish more time had spent on free banking, and less on origins of money, then maybe I would have understood.

Furthermore there are plenty of relevant applications that weren't touched on - what are the core economic arguments as to how free banking might stabilize the economy from business cycles (yes, inflationary central bank policy won't be possible, but more specifically, is there a mechanism where free banking can also reduce price volatility, external shocks or speculation cascades?)

What are the arguments that it won't? What do gold bugs think about free banking - what is their argument as to why centralized banks with gold might be better?

How would free banking affect our exchange rate - would it matter if the banks were international? Could China peg to a free currency, and would they want to? What are some of the core debates currently going on with regard to globalization versus protectionism, and free banking?

If any one of those topics had been addressed, I would have been pleased.

In general: I felt as if presenters presented an introduction to a topic, rather than an in-depth look at their own work or some question or questions in an area (with a couple of exceptions). I would have preferred the latter. But, this is obviously just my preference, and may not be shared by other participants.

[Steve Horwitz]

Liberty,

Each of my talks was based on a professional journal contribution. The MET talk is essentially an article of mine in the Journal of the History of Economic Thought from 1996:

“Capital Theory, Inflation, and Deflation: The Austrians and Monetary Disequilibrium Theory Compared,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 18 (2), Fall 1996, pp.287-308.

The cost of inflation lecture is based on:

“The Costs of Inflation Revisited,” Review of Austrian Economics, 16 (1), March 2003, pp. 77-95.

And the family lecture was based on two articles (as well as the book material):

“The Functions of the Family in the Great Society,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 29 (5), September 2005, pp. 669-84.

“Two Worlds at Once: Rand, Hayek, and the Ethics of the Micro and Macro-cosmos,” Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, 6 (2), Spring 2005, pp. 375-403

All can be found via links here:

http://myslu.stlawu.edu/~shorwitz/Papers/pubs.htm

So speaking for myself, I did exactly what you say you wanted: "an in-depth look at my own work". I can only hope I was one of your exceptions. ;) (And let's not get into a naming names debate - my point here is to make the case for those not in attendance that you may be generalizing from a small number of exceptional cases.)

[liberty]

Steve,

I won't go into naming names; I do want to thank you for the comment, and I will be reading those papers more closely. I already am finding more in the monetary equilibrium paper than I got from the lecture-- perhaps because it was too new to me in the lecture, perhaps because I was tired, maybe I learn better when reading than listening. Too many variables to be sure of the cause.

In any case, you have a lot of interesting papers!

[Justin Bowen]

I hope the audio on this seminar is better than the audio on previous seminars. I emailed FEE about this following the posting of the audio from the first two seminars but heard nothing back from them. The speakers are always clear and understandable, but the audience members aren't. I find myself trying to edit the audio clips to increase the volume level during the Q&A sessions so that I could better hear the questions, but this isn't always successful. The questions that are asked are, in my opinion, just as important as the answers that are given.

I don't know if FEE uses cordless microphones, but it seems that this would be the easiest way to solve this problem. They could look to CATO to see how this works. When they have seminars, they will have a microphone for the audience so that the person asking the question can introduce his or herself and have their question on record. It makes understanding the answers to the questions much easier.

[Geoffrey Lea]

liberty et. al.,

As a co-conspirator in the planning of the Austrian seminar, I think I can do some good in addressing concerns and comments.

Yes, the day was long and grueling. As a multiple attendee of similar seminars, I know how long the days get to be. Further, this seminar was even more brutal than others; there were 7.5 hours of lecture a day, plus the discussion groups. There doesn't, however, seem to be a good way to make the days shorter without significant losses in other directions. Yes, we could have done concurrent lectures, but where? We would need to assign a space based on the number of attendees at each lecture, which requires people to sign up. The facilities at FEE, nice though they are, don't accommodate this kind of thing. Further, what are we to say if 90% of the students go to A and not to B? Do we cancel B? And sure podcasts are nice, but they're certainly no substitute for being there. Were this not the case, I would expect no one to show up for the real thing.

As to the content and general level, there isn't much I can say in defense. Many of the lectures were at the level I liked, others probably could have had more punch, and people have expressed their satisfaction and dissatisfaction both here and on evaluations. The problem, of course, is with the audience. With 100 students, a record number for a seminar hosted at FEE, there are going to be different reactions in the audience. This large number also tends to account for the breakdown of people interested in economics vis-a-vis libertarianism, as well as the level of interest and background of participants. Nearly every professor--if not every single one--asked me about the level of the participants, and I am confident that if I had told them the whole audience was comprised of graduate students who had no serious deficiency in their knowledge of the breadth and depth of the literature, you would have gotten significantly different presentations, both in style and substance. As it was, I think the faculty did an excellent job in knowing that the content and delivery had to be tailored to fit the audience and delivering talks accordingly.

Yes, ideally there would be both introductory and advanced seminars in Austrian. I sincerely hope FEE does this next year. Doing so would help fix many of the quibbles people have had. But even this doesn't solve the problem. If it were merely a question of sorting, we could have done better. The problem is one of knowledge; we cannot know the optimal allocation of students into groups or seminars. Our instrument is the application, which, as you saw, was clunky and imprecise. It helps us weed out people who think Austrian economics is about the economics of Austria, but it doesn't help us determine if the student can quote _Human Action_, delivering careful textual exegesis with their feet to the fire, or if they simply read and liked _The Road to Serfdom_ and wanted to learn more about the economics of Hayek and Mises. We can get a *little* more info based on where the person has studied, but with a discipline like Austrian economics, where so much is done in self-study or with resources online, that's a noisy signal at best. The solution to this and other problems is far from easy to recognize, and efficient and effective implementation approaches impracticability.

The request to have materials available early is justified. Matthew's point about scouring the internet is a good one, but it would also be nice to have things in advance. Several did send in recommendations and drafts (Prof. Butos had a significant reading list that I sent out just before the seminar began). At some point, it may come down to an irreconcilable difference of opinion regarding whose time is worth less (i.e., whose best spent collecting the materials): the faculty, who use their summer for seeing their families and doing their research; the staff, whose time is spent getting ready for the logistical problems of the seminar; or the participants, the chief beneficiaries of said effort and whose time is spent in any number of different ways. The onus could rightfully be put on any of these groups for various reasons, the problem is that until it is someone's responsibility, it is no one's.

I recognize that discussion groups in the evening were sub-optimal. The rest of the summer we had them in the afternoon just following lunch, and this appeared to work much better. Of course, we didn't have 5 lectures a day at other seminars. This comes back to the time problem. Ultimately, if Dr. Boettke didn't think each of the talks had a place in the seminar, and would positively contribute to the students' understanding of Austrian economics as a research agenda, that talk would not have been included. I don't think shortening the lectures would be an improvement (consider how many ran over with an hour and a half), and that is antithetical to making them deeper, more technical, more advanced. Concurrence has its own problems, which I mentioned above, and to which I will add the point that the topics were chosen deliberately; it is not as if there were a triage system in mind of which were less important. True, we could have left this to the student's discretion, but I see no check to keep it from quickly devolving into vacation-at-FEE, something we didn't want.

You can believe me when I say that the logistical side of these programs is a total mess, one it is difficult to imagine until you actually have to solve all these little problems. And never will you more plainly see the problems of central planning until you try to centrally plan a large enterprise like a seminar series. In saying all this, do I think we did the best job possible? No. I don't even think we did the best we could (which is not to say that we intentionally failed at something). Rather, we did the best we thought we could with the constraints (both physical and mental) we faced, and I think we were wrong on how we could do some things. This is the benefit of hindsight. Thanks for your feedback, and it will be exciting to see what FEE does next year.

gsl

[Lawrence H. White]

Pete wrote:

"It is increasingly hard to combine undergradutes and gradaute students together for these sort of seminars; better I think to separate them and limit size for more personal contact and a more intense intellectual experience at the graduate level especially."

I agree.

liberty provided supporting evidence:

"The banking lecture, for example, should have been on banking not on (primarily) the origin of money - something we all already knew about."

I agree. I was aiming at undergraduates and no doubt thereby boring the graduate students. I will refocus the lecture for next year, assuming a graduate-student audience.

[Renato Lima]

I liked very much the seminar, it was a good opportunity to meet leading professors in Austrian economics and students interested in this subject. What is really not common, especially for foreign participants. I would like to highlight the lectures about economic development (an area mostly approached by keynesians), economic history of the 20th century, the political economy of exporting democracy, economics of the family and, of course, professor Kirzner. As a small suggestion, diminish the overload of class, probably ending the programme one hour earlier, at least. But, in overall, I´m very happy for all the time spent at FEE.

Cheers from Brazil!