|Peter Boettke|
My friend, and academic role model I aspire to emulate, Michael Munger has called me out in the social media for being "lame" for not following up with periodic posts about this Institute for Humane Studies seminar. I have been trying to be pithy in my reporting on Facebook and Twitter, but Mike is right, I did say I would post here. So I plead guilty and am now trying to rectify the matter. But since I am tryng to also learn from Tyler Cowen, who has told me on multiple ocassions that there are great returns for pithiness than my usual long-winded rambles, I will try to put the posts in bullet form.
> listening at the moment to Antony Davies talk about unlearning errors through experiments in the classroom. He is doing a great teaching experiment on minimum wage laws.
> the lectures so far by David Schmidtz on Adam Smith and Freedom, Michael Moses on globalization and culture, Steve Davies on the modern history of classical liberalism, Jacob Levy on liberal pluralism, and Virgil Storr on defending the market have been very clear and informative. I learn so much when I sit back and listen and take notes to follow up with new suggestions for reading, or re-reading older texts in the new light that came from the lecture.
> Bryan Caplan's lecture on education was provocative and I heard was still being discussed late into the night last night at the toga party (I wasn't invited, Mike would have been!)
> I have discussed students presentations on regime uncertainty, on institutional stickiness, and on the relationship between microfinance in developing countries and the spread of women's rights in the respective societies. All the papers were presented in a clear and engaging style by the authors, and the projects all have potential to be published (1 already has been accepted). I have a few more student papers to discuss before the end of the seminar.
> informal discussions with students have been fascinating as I have had the chance to learn from future lawyers, historians, political theorists, sociologists, but also classicists and an archeologist. There are also at least two geographers here who are doing fascinating work. How cool is that?
> there is a strong group of students here interested in Austrian economics as a progressive research program in political economy and I am always so excited when I learn of these young people getting interested in these ideas and the "movements" being established around the world to support these programs.
> I have learned repeatedly how lame I truly am when it comes to technology --- I did not know you can actually autograph an e-book, but now I know you can, and not just sign, but personalize.
Anyway, that is my report for the first half of the conference at Towson. And Mike, the weather has been fine, the students are very smart, the beds are not as comfortable as they first appeared to be, and the IHS staff has been as gracious and committed as always. My goal for the second half of the seminar, however, is to talk more to Kevin and see how he thinks it is going.
Like!
(I know you are a big FB guy, so I wanted to give you props in a currency you will accept...)
Mike Munger
Posted by: Mike Munger | June 27, 2012 at 12:59 PM
Pete, when you're getting to know a student at an IHS or FEE seminar, and the student expresses interest in Austrian economics AND in becoming an academic, but then answers the "what have you read" question with some combination of Rothbard, Hoppe, Kinsella, DiLorenzo, Paul, and Schiff, what are your reading recommendations for this student to immerse in Austrian economics?
Posted by: Ed Lopez | June 27, 2012 at 04:20 PM
Ed,
Mises, Hayek and Kirzner.
Respect the inspiration, but suggest an alternative path that is more professionally engaged rather than inward looking. But respect the inward looking project and the inspiration that it has represented in this young persons life (just as in my college I read Sennholz et al).
I have erred in my teaching on more than one occasion by failing to give due respect to the sources of inspiration that a young person might find from various authors (which at one time I was very influenced by myself).
I think our central argument should be "become the best economist you can become" or "become the most sophisticated classical liberal you can become." Take the starting point as given (and important) and then suggest that our profession is so exciting and the world is so interesting, that studying economic ideas should be the priority and the most successful examples within the modern Austrian school in that regard are Mises, Hayek, and Kirzner.
At least that is what I hope I am communicating. Respect, but nudging to pursue an alternative path for presenting these ideas we think are so important for social understanding and social change.
Posted by: Peter Boettke | June 27, 2012 at 06:33 PM
Geography when it is well taught is a great interdisciplinary subject. We had a really good geography teacher in the last year at school, in retrospect he missed a lot of connections he could have made to economics but some were pretty obvious for an alert student, like the location of industries and settlements. It hadn't degenerated into social studies in those days.
It is good to keep in touch with all schools of thought (accepting that you can't read everyting) and personal contacts are important for that. Starting with shared problems can enable both parties to lay some cards on the table with a minimum of confrontation - I think that is the way Pete Klein did it.
http://mises.org/journals/aen/aen15_2_1.asp
Posted by: Rafe Champion | June 27, 2012 at 07:37 PM
"I did not know you can actually autograph an e-book, but now I know you can, and not just sign, but personalize."
I will kill you if you ever do this for (to?) me.
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Josh,I do not share Imber's pessimism, but I stnglory agree with many of the claims that he makes about sociologists being a tool for progressive politics. What gives rise to this, methinks, are Intro to Sociology textbooks. Many, if not all, intro level texts present sociology as a congeries of subject matters from gender and race to crime and inequality.An introductory text that inundates students with rational choice and network analysis assignments will truncate the belief that sociology is this atheoretical, impressionistic subject matter.
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