Almost Classical

English: Murray Rothbard in the 90's (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) One of the questions I've been asked is how I can reconcile drawing bits and pieces of my personal views on economics and politics from individuals with disagreements. The answer is simple: we each create a personal philosophy drawing from experiences and those thoughts to which we are exposed. We embrace some ideas and reject others, even the ideas of someone we admire. Some of the ideas and views expressed by thinkers I admire deserve to be rejected — that's true in economics, philosophy, and other disciplines. I lean towards Austrian economic theories, but not without skepticism. A name that comes up when I mention Austrian economics is Murray Rothbard . He's dismissed in the same way some dismiss Ayn Rand . (Rothbard quickly rejected Rand as a "cult" leader.) "Rothbard was a fascist, racist, conservative." I'm paraphrasing, but that's the charge against him. ...

One of the challenges I face as an advocate for Austrian / libertarian / classical liberal economic and politic ideals is that many of my students — and even some colleagues in the humanities — mistakenly assume that there are three basic economic models, represented by the icons Marx, Keynes, and Friedman. Sadly, most people don't know the Austrian School of economics, and when they do know a little the assumption is that Austrian adherents represent something of an outer ring around the Chicago School. Milton Friedman, thanks to his books and a PBS series, is the best known of the "supply-side" economists and the Chicago School. He came to represent the rejection of Keynesian economics to right-leaning politicians in the United States. Of course, the entire left/right and liberal/conservative dichotomy is false, since in many ways left-leaning politicians had become the defenders of the status quo — the welfare state. True innovation seemed to belong to the "rig...