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‘Free’-Market ‘Knowledge’: Seven Suggested Research Topics

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Hayek: A Collaborative Biography

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Abstract

This chapter highlights a number of issues that require further investigation. What, for example, is the numerator and the denominator of the Austrian tax dependency ratio (X/Y), where X is the millions (or billions?) of dollars that Austrians have appropriated, and Y is their ‘research’ output? It would be useful to have a metrics-based examination of what type of producer-sovereignty students of Austrian economics have been exposed to; what ‘free’ market donors believe they are funding; plus a systematic study of Mises’ influence over the anti-democratic spectrum—including those who funded Hitler. Most if not all of those ‘scholars’ who promote the ‘free’ market are on the payroll of the Tobacco, Obesity and Fossil Fuel industries. It would be useful to examine the cluster of behavioural characteristics of those who put ‘financial considerations’ ahead of their ‘professional’ reputation. What would be revealed by a Mises-inspired examination of ‘life history by the psycho-analytical method’ (or any other method) of those who assert that ‘Waking and dreaming man’s wishes turn upon sex’?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.madisonhs.org/domain/66.

  2. 2.

    http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/cv/block_cv.pdf.

  3. 3.

    Or more precisely, Hayek’s third appointed biographer, himself gay, referred to him as a ‘gay dwarf’ (Cubitt 2006, 265).

  4. 4.

    Mises’ (1985 [1927], 44) next sentence—‘The only consideration that can be decisive is one that bases itself on the fundamental argument in favor of democracy’—should be taken in the context of Mises’ anti-democratic contempt for the lower orders, and Hayek’s (1978) statement: ‘I believe in democracy as a system of peaceful change of government; but that’s all its whole advantage is, no other. It just makes it possible to get rid of what government we dislike.’ Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Leo Rosten 15 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  5. 5.

    According to Clark (1964, 57), the Freikorps consisted of three elements: ‘soldiers, mainly young soldiers, from the frontline who preferred to go on soldiering, youthful idealists of the aristocratic and professional classes who had experience of local bolshevisants, and frank adventurers.’

  6. 6.

    Accessed 10 March 2016.

  7. 7.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Thomas Hazlett 12 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  8. 8.

    http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/114609 Hayek Papers Box 27.6.

  9. 9.

    Hayek (1956) added: ‘But since, as I must mention in my own excuse, I was rushing through an abridged postwar course in law and did not spend all my spare time on economics, I had not profited from that opportunity as much as I might have.’

  10. 10.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Earlene Craver date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  11. 11.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Earlene Craver date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  12. 12.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Bork 4 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  13. 13.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by James Buchanan 28 October 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  14. 14.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Axel Leijonhufvud date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  15. 15.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Earlene Craver date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  16. 16.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Armen Alchian 11 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  17. 17.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Bork 4 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  18. 18.

    William Bennett resigned as head of Hillsdale’s search committee for Roche’s replacement because he suspected a cover-up: ‘There’s a dead woman here. No, it is not over. Not until they tell us the truth’ (cited by Frey 1999).

  19. 19.

    The SAT criteria were changed slightly in 1994.

  20. 20.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Chitester date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  21. 21.

    http://www.citadel.edu/root/images/Business_Administration/2016_Faculty_CVs/ebeling_cv_2016.doc.pdf.

  22. 22.

    http://www.humanevents.com/2008/02/28/bill-buckley-and-me-a-true-story/.http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/houstonchronicle/obituary.aspx?pid=168459476#sthash.fBuTwjbh.dpuf.

  23. 23.

    http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1994sep-00001.

  24. 24.

    http://wwii-pows.mooseroots.com/l/13569/Frederick-G-Boettke.

  25. 25.

    Some Austrians have non-Austrian qualifications—which raises questions about other styles of ‘free’ market religion.

  26. 26.

    Hayek (5 March 1975) to Neil McLeod at the Liberty Fund. Hayek Papers Box 34.17.

  27. 27.

    http://www.coordinationproblem.org/2005/09/nobel_time_agai.html.

  28. 28.

    Why did Don Patinkin launch his largely misinformed but intensely personal attack on Friedman shortly after the announcement (Leeson 2003a, b)?

  29. 29.

    Machlup (19 November 1974) to Hayek. Hayek Papers Box 36.18.

  30. 30.

    Hansjörg Klausinger (2010, 227; 2012, 172, n10), the editor of Business Cycles, the seventh volume of Hayek’s Collected Works, confirmed: ‘there is no textual evidence for Hayek predicting it as a concrete event in time and place’: we lack ‘convincing evidence of a prediction that conformed to what Robbins suggested in his foreword.’

  31. 31.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Armen Alchian 11 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  32. 32.

    http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1974/press.html.

  33. 33.

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo201.html.

  34. 34.

    The 2016 US Republican Presidential candidate embraced Austrian-style ‘knowledge’ about his opponent, Hillary Clinton: ‘I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, if you wanna know the truth’ (cited by Johnson 2016).

  35. 35.

    http://www2.gcc.edu/sports/Cheerleaders/photographs.htm.

  36. 36.

    According to Boettke (2010a, 58), ‘everyone at Grove was exposed to Sennholz’s wonderful lectures and a few times every year’ (compulsory sixteen-per-semester) ‘morning church obligation.’

  37. 37.

    Hayek (2 February 1984) to William Johnson. Hayek Papers Box 29.38.

  38. 38.

    Seminar notes (16 February 1993). J. Herbert Fürth Papers Hoover Institution Box 12.

  39. 39.

    Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Chitester date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).

  40. 40.

    https://www.clemson.edu/business/about/profiles/RTOLLIS.

  41. 41.

    http://mason.gmu.edu/~rwagner/Vitae.pdf.

  42. 42.

    http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/pboettke/cv.html.

  43. 43.

    https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=yqxm0123.

  44. 44.

    https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=lgkc0081.

  45. 45.

    In 2013, the top 1% of household income was calculated to be $450,000+ per annum. http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/income-rank/.

  46. 46.

    It’s not clear whether or not any of Boettke’s op-ed pieces (if written) were published. http://sciencecorruption.com/ATN166/01477.html.

  47. 47.

    Those who feel they have been unfairly treated are invited to contribute a chapter to a future volume. Any errors of fact or interpretation in the Fall of Austria document should be corrected (Kirzner declined to respond to a request for clarification).

References

Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics (and Related Projects)

  • Leeson, R. (Ed.). (2003a). Keynes, Chicago and Friedman (Vol. 1). London: Chatto & Windus.

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  • Leeson, R. (Ed.). (2003b). Keynes, Chicago and Friedman (Vol. 2). London: Chatto & Windus.

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  • Leeson, R. (Ed.). (2015a). Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part II Austria, America and the Rise of Hitler, 1899–1933. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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  • Leeson, R. (Ed.). (2015b). Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part IV England, the Ordinal Revolution and the Road to Serfdom, 1931–1950. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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  • Leeson, R. (2017). Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part VII ‘Market Free Play with an Audience’: Hayek’s Encounters with Fifty Knowledge Communities. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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  • Leeson, R. (2018). Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part XII Liberalism in the Classical Tradition, Austrian Versus British. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Leeson, R. (2019). ‘Free’-Market ‘Knowledge’: Seven Suggested Research Topics. In: Hayek: A Collaborative Biography. Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78069-6_6

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