George Mason University, however, enjoys one of the few largely-libertarian economics departments that I've actually found to be decent. I'm a big fan of Tyler Cowen, who, unlike most libertarian economists, is quite modest and fair-minded, in my experience -- taking issues like Keynesian/Monetarist intervention, for example. Alex Tabarrok, Cowen's partner-in-crime over at Marginal Revolution, isn't bad either. (I should note, in the interest of full disclosure, that my uncle wrote the foreword to Tabarrok's book. They're friends, so I'm biased on your-friends-are-my-friends grounds here, although I do genuinely enjoy Tabarrok's blogging.) I'd submit, though, that Mason is a fairly open-minded school. If I had kids, I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist over their attending it.
The big-dog professors at Mason don't tend publish on the big topics (business cycles and the related macroeconomic issues), though, so they tend to serve me more as entertainment than education.
The Auburn University crowd is the one to keep an eye on, even though the Mises Institute has technically been purged as an official arm of the school. They're simply insane (racist, xenophobic, incapable of divorcing themselves from the thoroughly-discredited theories of the 1910s), as I can say after dealing with some of their disciples at Florida State.
Not everyone at Cato is a true believer, so far as I can tell, and I've been reading Cato publications (along with Brookings, going back to my undergraduate public policy classes) for the better part of the last five years. Their Social Security scheme was a joke, but mainly because of the outright lies about the state of the current system. The actual policy was, in my opinion, mediocre, but it would've deserved to die even if it were spectacular because of the fact that they attempted to sell it with obvious falsehoods.
(That is, for the record, the main reason for why I'm not all about John Edwards's candidacy, like some here. I can take a certain amount of lying and arrogance from politicians, but Edwards's refusal to speak to how he plans to pay for all of his proposals is incredibly offensive to me, bordering on Bush-caliber horseshit. He could accomplish all of those things, and without a lot of pain, but he needs to tell people the truth.)
I disagree about funding sources automatically discrediting people. Policies should be examined for what they are. Funding sources should simply provide for a greater degree of skepticism, where appropriate. If that's the bar each of our interest groups have to clear, everything is going to be discredited, because we're going to find that dirty money influences just about everything in the policymaking sector. It's always been that way, and it will, unfortunately, always be that way.
All that said, I think Brookings and the NBER are the only two think-tanks worth reading, so long as one avoids those two clowns who work on Iraq at the former. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
The Philosophy department is chock-a-block with people who take Ayn Rand seriously!
I tend to think that the old adage "he who pays the piper picks the tunes" applies in this case as well.
I traced some of the money and connections of the Marginal Revolution bloggers and summarized it in this essay: Charles Koch and Libertarianism - How to "Buy" a University
Your outlook is sympathetic to people like Cowen so you don't see the intellectually shoddy arguments he supplies. The most damning thing about the libertarian movement as a valid philosophical development is that it has failed to get adopted anywhere else in the world. In the US it is kept alive by the infusion of money from the wealthy backers. If it had something useful to contribute to human thought it wouldn't be on artificial life support.
The fact that it turned out to be useful to the plutocrats who run the US as a way to provide some intellectual veneer to a worldview based upon greed has allowed it to ally with the GOP and sustained it longer than would have happened otherwise. In countries where the plutocracy is not as strong there is no such movement.
On the other hand a real breakthrough like Jefferson's needs no wealthy (and secret) backers to resonate everywhere. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
I've learned from prior discussions that we will never agree on some things.
Yes, that's probably true.
I'd argue that the actual libertarian movement has failed to get much, if anything, accomplished even in the United States since the time of the Founders. Naomi Klein summarized themodern issue well last on Bill Maher's show -- this issue of libertarian rhetoric being used to promote corporatist policies. (I was impressed by her ability to recognize that we're dealing with corporatism and corporate welfare rather than pro-market policies. Many of her persuasion have a difficult time separating the two.) We hear libertarian rhetoric on economic issues -- but, of course, never social issues -- constantly, yet what we wind up with is nothing like what libertarians generally advocate.
Flat taxes are one basic premise, but we instead have a system of regressive taxation in many cases. Witness Warren Buffet discussing the fact that he pays 15% of his income to the government, while his $60k/year secretary pays about one-third of her income.
Deregulation is another, but, while regulations on energy prices and quality of service are often deregulated, to one degree or another, we often don't have deregulation of the government-provided monopoly rights. (This is a major issue with cable providers in Florida right now, as Comcast Cable obviously doesn't want to compete with superior services like Fios. It would, however, like to charge monopoly prices, of course.)
You're right about libertarian policymakers and talkingheads providing ammo (and cover) to the likes of the Bush administration, -- that's undeniably true -- but I hardly think that to be Tyler Cowen's fault. That would be a bit like blaming every socialist for Stalin -- although, granted, there was plenty of that at one time, too.
I'd also submit that Jefferson -- we're talking about Thomas Jefferson, I assume -- likely had quite a few wealthy and secret backers in his time. I'd also be curious to know of what political persuasion you'd think Jefferson to have been. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
