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Re: The road to Austrian school

EmbraceLiberty — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:41:53 GMT

Curious about housing bubble > found Ron Paul video predicting it > Austrian Economics

Re: The road to Austrian school

Kelvin Silva — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:50:43 GMT

interest in the shitty education system => Ron Paul => Milton Friedman => mises.org

Re: The road to Austrian school

tckb909 — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:09:47 GMT

Someone mentioned Tom Leykis. Funny, I sort of found libertarianism and AE because I was listening to Tom Leykis. I first remember him being against all the bail outs during the financial crises that was going on at the time, and that impressed me. He also told a caller that accused him of being a liberal that he was "not a liberal, but a Libertarian, you know, the stuff conservatives claim to believe in but really don't"...and that really impressed me...So I went home and typed libertarian into youtube search and began watching Milton Friedman then it led to Ron Paul which led to me reading his books and being interested in Austrian Economics. Looking back, Tom Leykis was very moderately libertarian, if at all maybe(?)...But it sure got me started, sense I always knew I didn't quite fit in the main stream -Left-Right- spectrum and disliked politicians..Libertarianism came very natural.

Re: The road to Austrian school

Anton — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:21:11 GMT

John James:

I was lucky enough to find the Mises Institute and the great works of our time quite early on in my journey, so that I didn't have to end up asking myself "why didn't I find out about this sooner"...thanks to the wonders of Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Mises.org (Although, I actually did end up asking myself that question...as I'm sure everyone else agrees these things should be taught from an early age...as opposed to one having to seek them out on his own).

Fully agree. I would add that besides economics there is another thing that should be taught as soon as possible: logic. Now, reading Elementary lessons in logic, I blame myself for not studying it back in school, as I began to realize how stupid it is to teach mathematics and do not even explain basic rules of logic.

An excerpt from the Preface:

IN preparing these Lessons I have attempted to show that Logic, even in its traditional form, can be made a highly useful subject of study, and a powerful means of mental exercise. \Vith this view I have avoided the use of superfluous technical terms, and have abstained from entering into questions of a purely speculative or metaphysical character. For the puerile illustrations too often found in works on Logic I have generally substituted exalnples drawn from the distinct objects and ideas treated in the natural and experimental sciences; and in this and other respects have aimed at rendering these Lessons a suitable companion to a series of science schoolbooks.

Logic is not only an exact science, but is the most simple and elementary of all sciences; it ought therefore undoubtedly to find some place in every course of education. The relations of propositions and the forms of argument present as precise a subject of instruction and as vigorous an exercise of thought, as the properties of geometrical figures, or the rules of Algebra. Yet every school-boy is made to learn mathematical problems which he will never employ in after life, and is left in total ignorance o£ those simple principles and forms of reasoning whichwill' enter into the thoughts of every hour. . Logic should· no longer be considered an elegant and learned accomplishment; it should take its place as an indispensable study for every well-informed person.

Re: The road to Austrian school

John James — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:39:50 GMT

Just read this and it reminded me of this thread, so I figured it would make for a good bump. A great article by Rockwell on Human Action begins by describing an intellectual journey that I think most of us can relate to:

"Everyone interested in ideas has surely had the following experience. You become curious about a certain topic. You start with periodicals, read a bit more deeply become engaged more broadly, and start to buy and check out book after book. Pretty soon you have a good-sized library developing. You speak the language. You know the players. You apply the ideas to understanding the world. But there are still gaps, and you dig and dig to fill them.

Then one day you run across something completely different: a book that not only incorporates all that you learned so far, but surpasses them all in breadth and depth. You marvel at how much time and energy you might have saved had you run across this earlier. The mind behind the book is so impressive that it makes all the other authors seem like bit players.

What's more, the author makes available to you something you sought but could never find and didn't even know existed: a rigorously defended theoretical structure that turns scattered bits of knowledge into a bulletproof edifice of thought."

I was lucky enough to find the Mises Institute and the great works of our time quite early on in my journey, so that I didn't have to end up asking myself "why didn't I find out about this sooner"...thanks to the wonders of Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Mises.org (Although, I actually did end up asking myself that question...as I'm sure everyone else agrees these things should be taught from an early age...as opposed to one having to seek them out on his own).

Re: The road to Austrian school

Anton — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:30:04 GMT

Oh, I got it.

Re: The road to Austrian school

Live_Free_Or_Die — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:58:30 GMT

I don't understand connection between young age and Ron Paul.

The internet because a lot of 2007 Ron Paul supporters are in the generation that did not grow up with the internet, but built it into what it is today.

Re: The road to Austrian school

Isaac "Izzy" Marmolejo — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:36:00 GMT

@Anton

The vast majority of Ron Paul's popularity is from the internet...

but his policies even appeal to young people..for example, the issue of social security. Ron Paul understands that young people today should not be paying for SS if there is going to be a high probalility that we aren't going to have it in the future...

Re: The road to Austrian school

Anton — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:57:46 GMT

Daniel James Sanchez:
I'm a bit older than most here (33), so I'm probably one of the few people here whose discovery of liberalism and Austrian Economics had nothing to do with Ron Paul.

I don't understand connection between young age and Ron Paul.

Re: The road to Austrian school

liberty student — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:12:06 GMT

Ron Paul ain't just for young people! I'm in my mid-30s. :)

Re: The road to Austrian school

Daniel James Sanchez — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:03:24 GMT

UC Berkeley public policy class => The Economist magazine => free market economics => libertarian web wites in general => Mises.org => Austrian Economics

I'm a bit older than most here (33), so I'm probably one of the few people here whose discovery of liberalism and Austrian Economics had nothing to do with Ron Paul.

Re: The road to Austrian school

freeradicals — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:18:58 GMT

Using liberty student's operators:

Co-Worker and Ron Paul supporter => Ron Paul => Mises.org

Re: The road to Austrian school

Isaac "Izzy" Marmolejo — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:50:28 GMT

I was introduced to Austrian Econ by Ron Paul, but I do not remember how I came across Ron Paul. Ron Paul mentioned Austrian Econ in one of his congressional hearing, I typed Austrian Econ in youtube, I saw the Economics in One Lesson video series, then I read Economics in one lesson, and bam, I was converted! After reading Hazlitt's book, I changed my major from nuclear engineering to Economics.

Re: The road to Austrian school

Jim Object — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:17:37 GMT

Rand, Hazlitt, Rothbard

Re: The road to Austrian school

John Beckwith — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:55:22 GMT

To begin with, some background: I attended a private middle school somehow managed by a bunch of hippies. It's in Woodstock, and though the festival never actually took place there, anything there almost invariably reeks of hippie-ness. Naturally, attending there meant being annoyed by the self-righteous and incoherent prattling of said hippies, especially the case because I was Mr. Socially Awkward Nerd Kid. The "officially accepted" reaction to this is neoconnishness, so I spent my late middle school years as a sort of mainstream spouter of generic GOP talking points.

I was actually browsing PortalOfEvil one day at age 13, a site that had links to bizarre sites that were usually hilarious and easy to mock (fat men wearing skirts, sites made by clearly mentally ill individuals rattling about how certain films are prophetic pertaining to their personal lives, etc.). One of the sites listed, though, was LewRockwell.com - it was ostensibly "kooky" and "neo-Confederate." I looked at it, and was intrigued by the take on the Civil War that several of the front page articles (one of which was by Thomas Woods and the other by Tom DiLorenzo, if I recall correctly) had - I already knew that Lincoln wasn't a perfect demigod from a passing comment (literally just about one sentence) by my middle school history teacher that he held some racist viewpoints, but I didn't understand why negative aspects about the man were just about never discussed by anyone, and didn't know quite how bad he was. I then bought The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, and somehow (I forget exactly how) found Scott Horton's radio archives of The Weekend Interview Show and the even older Philip Dru Interviews, continuing to browse LewRockwell.com as well (which, of course, inevitably led me to Rothbard's articles, giving me my first knowledge of the Austrian School). The links on Scott Horton's sites led me to Mises.org, which I've been browsing for years. I just now decided to actually join the forum.