My friend Peter Boettke is at it again. Pete is notorious for flippantly propagating gross distortions of the history of the modern Austrian revival. In a recent talk on “Socialism and Transition” at the Foundation for Economic Education Pete is caught in the midst of a discussion of incentives and socialism making the following jaw-dropping statement (at 51:55 of the podcast): “A few years ago at the Mises thing, Hans Hoppe said ‘No Hayekian economist ever believes in private property rights.’”
The “Mises thing” Pete is referring to was the first annual Austrian Scholars Conference held in 1995 at the Mises institute in Auburn Alabama. I was also in attendance at Hoppe’s talk that Pete alludes to and never heard him make such a statement.
Although I do not recall Hoppe’s exact words, I do recollect the gist of what Hoppe said, which was that those who adhere to Hayek’s position in the socialist calculation debate of the 1930s believe that lack of the knowledge conveyed by past prices and not the lack of private property rights, exchange, and monetary calculation based on anticipated prices is the essential problem of socialist central planning.
Whether one agrees with Hoppe’s position or not, thus stated it is certainly a far cry from the position that Boettke attributes to him. Not trusting to my own fallible memory, I asked two others who were also in attendance if Hoppe made the statement that Boettke alleged, i.e., that Hayekians do not believe in private property rights. They confirmed my recollection. Whether Pete was just fishing for cheap laughs–which he got when he later added “What the hell is he talking about”–or whether he had one of his typical lapses of memory, is not important. Since Pete is one of the most visible spokesman for Masonomics, I think it behooves him to express himself with greater attention to the facts and in a more scholarly fashion.
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Believe it or not, Dr Boettke has had a hand in bringing more people to LvMI. He has devoted his life to advancing individualism. I may not agree with all of his strategies for doing so, but I’d guess that some here who call themselves Austrians may have actually done less than Boettke. Argue away, but no need to start hurling names.
I learned a lot from the article and the above comments.Nothing about economics, though.
DNA writes:
“Boettke urges interaction with the mainstream,… but he seriously underestimates the barriers thinkers like Mises or Hayek would face in the current intellectual millieu. This objection has been raised many times in comments on his blog, but I can’t see that he’s ever really effectively responded.”
Good point. I haven’t seen such a response either. Still, his rapprochement with the main stream shouldn’t be cause for schism. I have it from Horwitz himself that he and Boettke respect and appreciate much of what the non-GMU Austrians are doing, including those with the LVMI. If this is contradicted by snipes made elsewhere, so be it, but the viciousness of these debates is bizarre.
BTW, if Hoppe isn’t the character he’s sometimes depicted as, why is he so polarizing? Does it all stem from the gay student of his who filed a complaint? Or is it just professional and social anxieties on the part of the GMU crowd?
What mikey said.
I am sorta new to the politics between LvMI & GMU. Could someone give me a summary thereof?
Clawback,
I agree that dialog with mainstream economists shouldn’t be polarizing within Austrian circles, and in fact I don’t think this dialog as such is polarizing. However, I think there is legitimate disagreement over what is true and what is false within AE, and this going to be reflected the relative worth the two camps assign to debate with non-Austrians.
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**”My problem is why did Boettke not just go ask Hoppe for an explanation of what he thought he said and then read that instead of trying to slam him?”
You must be kidding. A good friend of mine and a prominent Austrian economist went to LVMI one year. Someone introduced him to Hoppe, and my friend held out his hand to shake Hoppe’s. Hoppe looked contemptuously at my friend’s hand, said “We’ve met before,” and turned and walked away.**
I’m just laughing at Callahan’s comment.
it is interesting to me that while rome (usa) is burning some in the academic blogasphere have retreated to the safe havens of debating some irrelevant fine points…what those of us in the real world do know is that mises and hayek were not communists or socialists….put down your textbooks and pickup your rifles men it is time to put out the fire and take back our freedom…so we can live another day to debate the finer points of economic history….
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