Austrian School vs American Founding Fathers(read OP)

[Cutlerzzz]

Who would you say has influenced your beliefs more?

 

[Gumba of Liberty]

Does Ron count as both?

 

[Cutlerzzz]

Does Ron count as both?

Even he's not that old.

 

[Dreamofunity]

Austrian.

 

[Southron]

Founders, although I appreciate the Austrian economists.

 

[realtonygoodwin]

Founders

 

[LibXist]

Austrians

 

[lester1/2jr]

australians

 

[Vessol]

Well there's only really one 'Founding Father' who I kinda like, Thomas Jefferson.

However, comparing his works to Rothbard, Mises, Hayek, and others?

Incomparable.

 

[ssantoro]

Adam Smith?

 

[Travlyr]

The Austrian School for me; however, Eustace Mullins should be embraced by the Austrians, imo. While he was a historian rather than an economist, he did long for telling the truth. When the powers-that-be relentlessly attacked him throughout his life, he did not commit suicide as many have, but I do believe that they distracted him somewhat from his goals. They effectively labeled him as an anti-Semite, they almost bankrupted him by burning 10k of his books, and they kept him from effectively marketing his works for 30 years, or more. I do not blame him for feeling like he was plagiarized. Nonetheless, he left us with a legacy of research that is valuable for us to learn.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Founders because I have studied them more, but I appreciate the Austrian economists and know the principles.

 

[JohnRego]

Hamilton ;-)

 

[Xenophage]

Considering that Austrian economics owes so much to enlightenment thinking, this is an impossible question to answer. Wherever Austrians depart from purely economic theorizing, they essentially borrow enlightenment philosophy and expound upon it.

Looking at it from a 'personal growth' point of view, however, I'd have to say that enlightenment philosophy and the Founders influenced my broader philosophic thinking first, and Austrians have more or less honed certain parts of it in.

However, Ayn Rand has influenced my general philosophy far more than either the Austrians or the Founders. I've adopted her positions on human rights, ethics, and epistemology - which, at the risk of oversimplifying, confirm the philosophy of the Founders while providing a more solid, consistently logical framework for those ideas. While Rothbard and Rand rarely got along and simultaneously agreed on mostly everything, Mises was Rand's favorite economist.

 

[Andrew-Austin]

Austro-libertarian thinkers know more than the lot that came a couple hundred years before them.

It would be kind of weird if philosophy hadn't advanced any since the founding fathers. But since it has, I selected the later thinkers in the poll.

 

[RileyE104]

With the Founders... I like Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry as well as Jefferson minus the slaves and John Adams minus the Alien and Sedition Acts.

With the Austrians... I like von Mises, Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, and Rothbard as well as Frederick Bastiat if he counts.

But I guess if I absolutely had to pick, I'd go with the Founding Fathers. I mean, without the Founders I don't think there would have been an Austrian School of economics.

 

[White Bear Lake]

I really learned a lot from the Anti-Federalist papers. Patrick Henry in particular is amazing to read. Obviously I've learned a lot from the Austrians as well. I think I'll call it a wash.

 

[MaxPower]

The Founding Fathers influenced me more, largely because of their much-greater cultural prominence. They helped to get me interested in the principles of liberty at a time when I had never heard of Ludwig Von Mises or Friederic Hayek.

 

[KingRobbStark]

A better question is: Whats the difference? Both wanted limited government and economic freedom.

 

[ProIndividual]

I voted Austrian. I can't help but wonder...whatever could the choice of phrasing mean?

One is a school of economics...the other a complete body of conflicting ideas. I mean which founders? I liked Jefferson, but Hamilton was an economic dunce. I liked the one party, but not the other. Freedom, that's cool...slavery, that's a no go.

I cannot simply say "the founders", as I disagreed with them all on certain issues, and with half on another whole host of issues. This means I'm less than 50% influenced by the founders, no matter how you look at it.

I voted Austrian, because it was something I don't have a problem with overall. I may disagree with Hoppe's immigration analysis, or some explanation for lack of spending by those with reserve capital in a economic downturn (they largely say tentativeness by investors due to insecurity or unsureness in taxes a and regulation that may or may not be forthcoming, whereas I see differential accumulation and monetary circuit theory at work which keep credit markets tight and encourage low risk by large market share holders in order to monopolize with the least risk involved), but overall, it's harder to criticize than slavery, women's treatment, and mercantilism (and therefore oligarchy).

Maybe asking founders or the western philosophers...or Austrians or Keynesians (or Hamiltonians, cough cough, John Hay fans) might be better...