http://www.coordinationproblem.org/2010/03/too-good-for-the-comments-ebeling-on-mises-the-applied-economist.html#comments

While not always bringing total agreement, legitimate scholarly engagement and debate enhances understanding.

Given the current economic situation it is imperative that we make better progress in fighting statist fallacies and policies.

Let me recommend an excellent recent article in RAE by Young and Subrick, “Nobelity and novelty: Finn Kydland and Edward Prescott’s contributions viewed from Vienna.”

They conclude, ” Austrians should be to some extent encourage. KP’s methodology is in several ways radically different than both Keynesian and neoclassical methodologies and many of these differences parallel to Austrianism. … At least their contribution signals that the mainstream can be and has been persuaded to accept a radically different type of analysis.”

“On the other hand, KP’s achievement should also give pause to Austrians to critique themselves. … Why is ‘time inconsistency” a critique of policy makers to be reckoned with while the ‘necessity of economic calculation” is now rarely discussed in the main stream?”

http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2009/12/the-monetary-theory-of-the-trade-cycle.html#comments

Care to guess who made this comment?

I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time viewing these calls for peace as anything but a call
to end debate, however politely conducted.  

Yet what businesses have ever succeeded solely by way of bad-mouthing the competition? McDonald’s doesn’t try to attract customers by running ads claiming, “Burger King and Wendy’s serve fake burgers.” CVS doesn’t erect a sign when it opens a new store across the street from its biggest competitor that shouts “Walgreen’s pharmacists are stupid and evil.”

Successful entrepreneurs wake up every day wanting to attract more customers and build more loyalty to their brand. They do this by improving their product and, dare I say, learning from their competition.

There are nearly 7 billion people in the world and very few have even heard of Austrian economics. We must embrace the competition to expose all 7 billion to Austrian ideas, and believe that the ideas of Mises, Rothbard and Hayek will make the world a better place.

If another organization thinks their strategy will be more successful at reaching the masses, good for them. If they believe their secret sauce is better, fine. But neither side builds capital (intellectual or otherwise) by spending precious time and donor money tearing the other down.

Civilization was built through capital formation and the division of labor. Those with high time-preferences may seek the immediate gratification of landing a punch through mud-slinging.

But for civilization to advance those with a low time-preference must lead. Thank you Professor Rizzo: for taking the lead.

There was an ad for a free copy of Human Action on the back of the April 1978 issue of Reason when Tyler Cowen was 16.

Actually, the CATO ad with Murray Rothbard as a CATO founding father is from the back of the May 1980 issue of Libertarian Review edited by Roy Childs. Inside that issue, there was a short article by Bruce Bartlett promoting a gold standard, here and here. Imagine that.

Bob Murphy says, “I could have written two op eds denouncing Bernanke in the amount of time I spent deleting blog comments that were quite literally pornographic this week.” It is certainly true that some time is wasted because of interpersonal sniping etc.–and given that such battling hasn’t accomplished much in the last 30 years other than make newcomers wonder what is going on, it seems like the time wasted is not being wasted for any gain. That said, there division of labor and specialization is all to the good. Some may want to focus only on the external world–on statists and socialists, on the errors of mainstream economics; but others may want to focus at least somewhat on pure theory and on debating with fellow free market economists and libertarians; and this is all to the good too. If some Austrians want to battle out FRB issues, on either libertarian/ethical (is FRB inherently fraud or not?) or pure economics grounds (is FRB inherently unstable or not), there is nothing wrong with this either; it’s just that the debate ought to be substantive and civil.

There will no doubt always be ill-willed carpers and malcontents who spread lies, who smear and slander and libel. If merely responding to such wicked attacks could easily debunk them, if personally mocking or ridiculing such odious people would work, maybe it would make sense to do it; but this apparently only gives attention to the mudslingers and eggs them on. It seems it’s better to just ignore the occasional haters and malcontents and focus on discourse with those worth our time and respect. Hopefully over time they will be more and more marginalized, taking the wind out of their sails and relegating them to screeching in a phone booth.

As for Read and the power of attraction, he wrote:

Attraction is the best answer to influencing others creatively. Daily experiences supply evidence to support this conclusion. If one would influence another to become a better cook or golfer, he should increase his own proficiency at cooking or golfing. He should attain a perfection, a leader ship, a head-of-the-class status that would attract others to draw on him. No person is influenced to greater creative activity on any subject by one who is inferior on that subject. Influence of one on another in upgrading materialistically, intellectually, spiritually–is by attraction only.

One can do things to others destructively, but not creatively. Creatively, one must confine himself to what he can do for others. One can do things for others materialistically by having money or tools to lend or give, or goods and services to exchange; intellectually by having knowledge and understanding; spiritually by possessing insights that can be imparted to those who want them.

Self-interest can best be served by minding one’s own business-that is, by the process of self-perfection. It isn’t that this idea has been tried and found wanting; it is that it has been tried and too often found difficult, and thus rejected. Actually, coercive meddling in other people’s affairs has its origin in the rejection of self-perfection.

Many persons conclude that they can easily improve others in ways they refuse to attempt on themselves. This is an absurd conclusion. Thus it is that in our dealings with our fellow men, we so often try to coerce them into likenesses of our own little images instead of trying to make of ourselves images that are attractive and worth emulating.

….which reminded me of this simple and graceful phrasing of the same basic idea:

“Become the change you wish to see in the world.”
-Gandhi

I cannot agree to Gene’s request simply because I am too young. If older–not saying “old,” mind you, just “older“–Austrians from both camps start brawling, there’s nothing I can say since I was not yet a zygote when some of the issues occurred.

But like I said, I will certainly refrain from drawing attention to the latest “attack” on “us” etc. at my blog or in my Mises Daily articles.

Last point: For those of you who don’t understand what all the fuss is, I am going to hope you don’t really get what we’re talking about. This isn’t about an intellectual disagreement over fractional reserve banking. I could have written two op eds denouncing Bernanke in the amount of time I spent deleting blog comments that were quite literally pornographic this week.

As Austro-libertarians (especially the Rothbardians) the only thing we really have going for us is (we hope) the moral and intellectual high ground. It’s not as if we go into this stuff for the money, power, and parties. So it is ridiculous to devolve into infighting that we can recognize as hilarious / dumb when we see Marxists doing it to each other.