I'm a fan of GMU economics, but mostly of Caplan. His books were really influential for me. Whereas, I find books by other top economists not as influential on my thinking. For example Why Nations Fail or Poor Economics. If I ever decide to do an economics PhD, I would go to GMU.
I can attest to the iconoclasm. When I met Bryan, he caught me off guard by how naturally he referenced facts I was well aware of but never hear IRL, in public. There was no looking over the shoulder or speaking in hushed tones and at the same time he wasn’t overstating it or trying to be loud or defiant. How refreshing!
You're an ideologue because your department is an oasis of free marketeers, libertarians, and even anarchists. The fish have spied land, and they're scared that all the world is not water.
I think what drew me to libertarianism how seriously many libertarian thinkers approach opposing views and the desire to avoid immediately falling into assuming some nefarious purpose behind disagreement. I definitely disagree with Bryan on a number of things (take this as an irrational dogma of faith, but I cannot believe that gender and racial discrimination doesn't play a meaningful role in labor markets) but the disagreement is less meaningful to me then the attitude the frames the disagreement: a shared interest in figuring out "what exactly is the truth of the issue." My father was an academic who probably would have been driven out of the field if not for tenure and I have no illusions about how nasty and groupthink-esqe university systems can be.
As a non-college attender, my familiarity with GMU came through Econlib.org: articles, blogs, encyclopedia entries, and Econtalk guests. (There was some NCAA basketball in there too!) This remains my go-to source for information and so I suppose I hold GMU Dept. of Economics professors in high regard, at least by proxy.
I would not be surprised to find that I share ideologies with GMU professors than those of other universities. Had I stumbled onto, say, the Center for Economic Policy instead of Econtalk, then likely I'd be more Chicago-centric. That's just how life goes.
I imagine the incentives to publish in journals is hard to resist. But the more I hear of university/college faculty trying to ban guests and suppress controversial ideas, the more I view peer-review publication with suspicion.
I liked the post more for the references to other posts illustrating your thinking (five-year crisis cycle, herding and vividness, etc.) than you trying to imagine what people are thinking when third parties report that they use the term “ideologue.” All you know for sure is that some of your fans say their professors appear not to want to be members of the fan club. Anything else is just guessing.
An ideology is an exonym of a [explicitly held] belief system, an ideologue is someone who holds an ideology.
It is very similar to gentile in meaning if you are a mormon talking about non mormons or a jewish person talking about non Jews.
You can have a small group of followers with a belief system which is genuinely vicious, destructive, and downright crazy and have people around you call you an ideologue, and a generation later find yourself in a situation where more or less everyone at least has to mouth fealty to the belief system and the open holdouts from the old era are labeled ideologues.
That's not how Marx used the term ideology but it's better to define a word in a way that encompasses how 99% of people use it in practice.
A few years back, multiple co-workers told me I should read your work. I worked for an agency that was mostly economists, so it’s not surprising there should be interest in the subject, but I’d never heard such praise for any economist’s work. So yes, you have a fan base.
Excellent and true. My time at GMU was great for me, and many of my students since have shown great interest as well. About the only school I feel I could recommend.
Wondering how much of the above is field-specific (field being 'social sciences' in general). Though there's a pecking order in all fields (we want to be honest), this isn't common in the sciences and engineering, at least not in my [limited, of course] experience.
Very good. Most papers are crap with lots of make-up to appear publishable.
I was reading the eulologies for a Farhi, a recently top-academic who passed away and the description they made of his work is that he was a good artist in crafting articles that are cute and survive peer review but nobody talked by the actual original IDEAS that he had.
In general, I don't think the fact that older studies lose their relevance over time is a problem in science. On the contrary, science is supposed to be progressive and old studies should become obsolete. No one reads Maxwell or Einstein to learn physics these days because no matter how great they were, they have been superseded. (Of course, this doesn't mean that today's scholarly publication culture isn't in many ways rotten.)
I love it. Bryan at his incorrigible best.
I'm a fan of GMU economics, but mostly of Caplan. His books were really influential for me. Whereas, I find books by other top economists not as influential on my thinking. For example Why Nations Fail or Poor Economics. If I ever decide to do an economics PhD, I would go to GMU.
I can attest to the iconoclasm. When I met Bryan, he caught me off guard by how naturally he referenced facts I was well aware of but never hear IRL, in public. There was no looking over the shoulder or speaking in hushed tones and at the same time he wasn’t overstating it or trying to be loud or defiant. How refreshing!
You're an ideologue because your department is an oasis of free marketeers, libertarians, and even anarchists. The fish have spied land, and they're scared that all the world is not water.
I think what drew me to libertarianism how seriously many libertarian thinkers approach opposing views and the desire to avoid immediately falling into assuming some nefarious purpose behind disagreement. I definitely disagree with Bryan on a number of things (take this as an irrational dogma of faith, but I cannot believe that gender and racial discrimination doesn't play a meaningful role in labor markets) but the disagreement is less meaningful to me then the attitude the frames the disagreement: a shared interest in figuring out "what exactly is the truth of the issue." My father was an academic who probably would have been driven out of the field if not for tenure and I have no illusions about how nasty and groupthink-esqe university systems can be.
As a non-college attender, my familiarity with GMU came through Econlib.org: articles, blogs, encyclopedia entries, and Econtalk guests. (There was some NCAA basketball in there too!) This remains my go-to source for information and so I suppose I hold GMU Dept. of Economics professors in high regard, at least by proxy.
I would not be surprised to find that I share ideologies with GMU professors than those of other universities. Had I stumbled onto, say, the Center for Economic Policy instead of Econtalk, then likely I'd be more Chicago-centric. That's just how life goes.
I imagine the incentives to publish in journals is hard to resist. But the more I hear of university/college faculty trying to ban guests and suppress controversial ideas, the more I view peer-review publication with suspicion.
I liked the post more for the references to other posts illustrating your thinking (five-year crisis cycle, herding and vividness, etc.) than you trying to imagine what people are thinking when third parties report that they use the term “ideologue.” All you know for sure is that some of your fans say their professors appear not to want to be members of the fan club. Anything else is just guessing.
An ideology is an exonym of a [explicitly held] belief system, an ideologue is someone who holds an ideology.
It is very similar to gentile in meaning if you are a mormon talking about non mormons or a jewish person talking about non Jews.
You can have a small group of followers with a belief system which is genuinely vicious, destructive, and downright crazy and have people around you call you an ideologue, and a generation later find yourself in a situation where more or less everyone at least has to mouth fealty to the belief system and the open holdouts from the old era are labeled ideologues.
That's not how Marx used the term ideology but it's better to define a word in a way that encompasses how 99% of people use it in practice.
So how do we email you? GMU email address?
A few years back, multiple co-workers told me I should read your work. I worked for an agency that was mostly economists, so it’s not surprising there should be interest in the subject, but I’d never heard such praise for any economist’s work. So yes, you have a fan base.
Excellent and true. My time at GMU was great for me, and many of my students since have shown great interest as well. About the only school I feel I could recommend.
Wondering how much of the above is field-specific (field being 'social sciences' in general). Though there's a pecking order in all fields (we want to be honest), this isn't common in the sciences and engineering, at least not in my [limited, of course] experience.
Very good. Most papers are crap with lots of make-up to appear publishable.
I was reading the eulologies for a Farhi, a recently top-academic who passed away and the description they made of his work is that he was a good artist in crafting articles that are cute and survive peer review but nobody talked by the actual original IDEAS that he had.
"I reject the Labor Theory of Value in all its forms, with all its empty promises."
From your Sour Grapes post:
"I say struggling with a great question is better than definitively answering a trivial one."
Those seem at odds. What's so great about "struggling" if you don't succeed, judging by some criteria other than the labor put in?
In general, I don't think the fact that older studies lose their relevance over time is a problem in science. On the contrary, science is supposed to be progressive and old studies should become obsolete. No one reads Maxwell or Einstein to learn physics these days because no matter how great they were, they have been superseded. (Of course, this doesn't mean that today's scholarly publication culture isn't in many ways rotten.)
Bravo!