The Say Something Nice about Other Economist Thread

[AlexMerced]

We often damn anything any non-austrian economist saids, and even though their are some pretty big foundational differences in our perspective this doesn't mean that other economists can't contribute anything at all to the discussion.

So I thought in this thread we would give props to a non-austrian just to show we are more open minded

I will give props to Douglass C North and his work with the New Institutional Economics taking a look at the role of institutions in society as some very interesting work.

 

[GeorgiaAvenger]

I think Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and James Buchanan are great and I don't believe they are associated with the Austrian school.

 

[Demigod]

Karl Marx

 

[pcgame]

I think Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and James Buchanan are great and I don't believe they are associated with the Austrian school.

all of those people are associated with the austrian school

Demigod you gotta be kidding me if u appreciate anything about karl marx

 

[AlexMerced]

all of those people are associated with the austrian school

Demigod you gotta be kidding me if u appreciate anything about karl marx

While socialism and the work of Marx has been more trouble than it's worth, Marx had made some useful crities of the classical economist theories regarding prices and also was arguably the starting point for sociology, and while a lot of sociology is just socialist drivel, there is a lot to be said to look at how social institutions affect how people behave instead of looking at everything in a culture/institution free vacuum.

So Marx had some worthwhile contributions, but the vast majority of his work like Keynes created an intellectual underpinning for the undermining of individual liberty. Although if we say that Keynes and Marx had absolutely nothing to contribute we make ourselves look ideological hacks like when they try to say say the same about our guys.

 

[AlexMerced]

all of those people are associated with the austrian school

Demigod you gotta be kidding me if u appreciate anything about karl marx

I would by no stretch of the Imagination call Milton Friedman an Austrian Economist, he founded monetarism

Not sure how I'd classify Thomas Sowell

Walter Williams I'm pretty sure is fairly austrian

James Buchanan founded the Public Choice school

 

[TroySmith]

all of those people are associated with the austrian school

Demigod you gotta be kidding me if u appreciate anything about karl marx

Marx showed us exactly what NOT to do.

 

[trey4sports]

I really admire Milton Friedman.


(because he advocated legalizing drugs, not because of his supply side work.)

 

[No Free Beer]

i love krugman



so good...

 

[TheNcredibleEgg]

Props to Krugman.

If the aliens ever come - we'll owe his foresight a huge debt.

 

[chickensguys]

If Krugman worried about the overall economy after a bubble popped and not the people he would understand the need for deflation.

 

[Diurdi]

Keynes. The guy was smart and innovative, but wrong.

 

[FreeTraveler]

Marx got class theory almost right. He just misidentified the overbearing class as the capitalist class rather than the political class. Agorist theory recognizes this and corrects that misidentification as the root of agorist class theory.

Other that that, I've got nothing good to say about him. His failure of analysis negated the rest of his work.

 

[brandon]

Paul Krugman's articles usually don't contain very many grammatical errors.


Am I doing it right?

 

[brandon]

Honestly though, anyone who thinks there's any room for empiricism in macroeconomics is bound to fail at just about everything. I think I found a non-austrian that I agree with though. Frédéric Bastiat's writings of unintended consequences and the purpose of law in economics were dead on.

 

[AlexMerced]

Honestly though, anyone who thinks there's any room for empiricism in macroeconomics is bound to fail at just about everything. I could pick various things economists of the past were right on, but I don't see the point.

I don't think he issue is empiricism more than honest empiricism.

I don't mind someone presenting info, but be honest about methodology, data collection, and flaws in the data and have enough humility to be open to the data being meaningless.

I don't mind data to help build a narrative on the past, it when you use that data to model the future I get very concerned.

 

[AlexMerced]

Keynes. The guy was smart and innovative, but wrong.

Depends on what questions you think he was trying to answer. What I get, is that the question he was trying to answer is how do you improve employmet levels in the short run... which Is the questions politicians care about most, but in many ways the absolutley worst questions to answer as the answer can sometimes undermine many other more important economic outcomes.

I don't think Keynesians got the wrong answers, I think they are answering the wrong question

The question I like, In what environment can individuals best coordinate?

 

[Working Poor]

all of those people are associated with the austrian school

Demigod you gotta be kidding me if u appreciate anything about karl marx

I am pretty sure not Milton Friedman but, I am a big fan of his.

 

[musicmax]

Keynes. The guy was smart and innovative, but wrong.

Except about inflation:

"By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft."

 

[Watch]

You have to give credit to the Neo-Classical schools to at least recognize the subjective theory of value.
I always feel frightened when I run into folks, online, telling me how technology will destroy the labor theory of value.
I always ask them if they would like to trade family photos and talk about value.