 This is Mises Weekends with your host, Jeff Dice. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Once again, it's Mises Weekends time. We're joined, as you can see, by our good friend, Dr. Richard Ebeling, who I'm sure is familiar to many of you. He's a longtime stalwart of both the Austrian and libertarian movements. He's one of the few people who can straddle different eras of Austrian economics in that, like Joe Salerno, he was present at the famous South Royalton Conference in the 1970s. He had personal relationships with people like Murray Rothbard and Israel Kursner. So he's someone who straddles sort of two eras and can connect some of the dots between younger scholars today and some of the older Austrians. Now, Richard, I assume at some point you met or knew Hayek as well. Yes, I had a great honor and privilege to actually spend a good part of mostly two summers in his company. The Institute for Humane Studies, as you mentioned, enabled about 40 young scholars of which Joe Salerno, myself, were to go to that first Austrian economics conference in June of 1974 in South Royalton, Vermont, where Murray Rothbard, Israel Kursner and Ludwig Lachman gave the key addresses. But the next two summers, well, 1975 and 1977, I was very fortunate. IHS invited me and some other young scholars to be summer fellows at their headquarters when they were still out in Menlo Park, California. And for both of those summers, 75 and 77, Hayek was there as a senior resident scholar. Now, I have to say, I was in my 20s at the time and he was in his late 70s. Now, in my 20s, the 70s seemed like ancient. I figured he was going to die any second. He might not show up tomorrow. Of course, like me says, he lived into his 90s. So I would go in since his office was only one or two doors down from mine. Every day that he was in, I would go into his office and for about an hour and a half bug him because I would want to get the old Vienna stories, his battles with the Keynesians and the socialists over economic calculation and so on. And he was a delightful individual. We can praise him as an Austrian as a scholar, just as a good economist, of course. But personally, he was like the epitome of what you think a Nobel laureate should be. Gracious, friendly, patient, open. And I'm sure that there were questions I asked him that he had heard a thousand times during his career, treated it as if he was hearing it for the first time. I view that as a great honor to have had that opportunity to interact with him for those two summers. Well, as Austrians or Austrian friendly people, we often look at South Royalton as kind of a rebirth or a renaissance of the Austrian school. And at this most recent Mises University, one of the things we were talking to the young people about, especially those who are interested in becoming PhDs or academics, was that, hey, things are a lot better now. You have a lot more opportunities as an Austrian friendly economist than the Salerno's and the Ebelings had in the 70s and 80s because the universe has expanded. But let me ask you this as devil's advocate, the population's expanded, the internet's expanded, lots of things have expanded. Do you think Austrianism is in better hands and better shape than it was at the time of South Royalton or are we still swimming upriver, so to speak? If I can begin the answer to that by the opening line from Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities, who is the best of times and it was the worst of times. It's the best of times because when I think back, when I got interested in these ideas, if I can mention them, when I was in my teens, I first found out about this free market, classical liberal Austrian literature when I was like 16, 17 years old. I knew I wanted to major in economics before I even got to college and had a shock when my first economics class was taught by a Keynesian using Paul Samuelson's economics book. This is not the Mises Hayek and Henry Haslett I've been reading on my own. Except for, for example, the Foundation for Economic Education, which of course was always fostering and cultivating an interest in Austrian ideas besides libertarianism in general. There were very few outlets. There was Murray Rothbard's Libertarian Forum. There was human events that would re-print Henry Haslett's Newsweek or Los Angeles Times columns when he was working for them. But I used to pride myself that I could read everything coming out from the right broadly defined. But that's because there were like three books a year and three magazines. Even a slow reader with dyslexia can get through that. Today, if you think of the fact that there is this groundswell over the last several decades of general libertarian ideas and then of course as a subset of that, those interested in Austrian economics, the websites, the blogs, the print publications, the electronic media, videos such as you put on and other institutions that sponsor these types of videos on YouTube and other places. This is a sea change of interest and availability of these free market ideas. If I can just give one more comparison of this. But when I first met Ludwig Lachman at that first Austrian conference in June of 1974, I would take little walks around the town square with him. And he mentioned, which he had done several times before, that he thought that he was going to be the last of the Austrian economists. In other words, the school had died out and Mises had recently passed away. Hayek was obviously more into political philosophy or in fact, not writing much at all at that time before the Nobel Prize. And he felt that he was going to be the last Austrian. That was the impression. Today, we have multiple website organizations, think tanks and intellectual movements such as yours. And I'm saying this not because you have graciously invited me to be a guest. The Mises Institute has done Yeoman's work in advancing the ideas of liberty in general and fostering the ideas of the Austrian school. And of course, Mises in particular, the online book presence, the availability of reprints of otherwise long lost volumes and articles. Your daily stream of material, programs like the one that you've kindly had me come on to today. This is a sea change, so that in spite of the appearance, particularly in academia or in the political arena, we seem to be losing, where's the advance? This is a groundswell of a renaissance for liberty in general and Austrian economics in particular. And again, if I can just mention, Jeff, one more point on this. Let's recall Hayek's article from 1948 on the intellectuals and socialism in which he said, if you think you're gonna change the politics of today from its status trends, you're not gonna have much success because the politics of today reflects the political and ideological and philosophical currents of several decades ago. It's sort of like a lagging indicator. The politics of today is a lagging indicator of the intellectual currents of the past. What we have to be doing, what you're doing, what in my small way, I try to do in the avenues I have and I know Joe Solano and all the others is cultivating the intellectual environment that in spite of how dark and pessimistic it can seem right now for a variety of reasons, we can be setting the groundswell for a change in the politics and the economics of this country and the world, not today, but 20 years from now, 30 years now, 40 years from now. Just to make one more point on this, when Ludwig von Mises put out the second edition of socialism in 1932, the German language edition, he ends the forward for that 32 edition by saying, I know how difficult it is to change the minds of socialists and how they are not open to reason, but this book is written for the next generation who will approach these issues with clear minds and open minds. It's for them that I'm presenting these ideas. That's what we're fighting for. The future for not only ourselves, but our children and our grandchildren so that by the end of the 21st century, we can look back on and say, Liberty has triumphed. I agree in the sense that there's so many more outlets now for Austrian thought, but what I worry about is on a per capita basis, how are we doing? And you mentioned your Keynesian professor. Let's dial back for a second and talk about economics more broadly as a profession in the mainstream. The public's perception of economics is probably that it's pretty useless and there's the Paul Krugman's and the Picates out there giving cover to let government do what it wants to do. Is economics as a profession doing any good? Is it serving humanity at this point in your view? I find myself torn and that is I'm an economist by profession and I like to think vocation and I believe in the power and impact of understanding economics. It's why I never get tired of teaching the principles of economics class to introduce young people who've never heard these ideas and may never hear them again to understand this economic way of thinking. But in the profession as a whole, unfortunately, the mainstream is sometimes referred to. The neoclassical, general, equilibrium, mathematical approach, the still dominant Keynesian aggregate approach to macroeconomics, regardless of the different names of the schools of thought, it's all the grandchildren of that Keynesian framework. They're defunct, they're irrelevant. They don't speak to the nature of man, society and reality. They don't have an explanation of why the world works the way it really does. So unfortunately they are at a dead end as far as I'm concerned. But that is what makes so much more important than these other avenues and these subgroups of which the Austrian school is as we talk about much larger than it was in 1974. Important because we're able to articulate ideas that explain and are consistent with the reality. We don't make these rarefied assumptions, these unrealistic postulates. We talk about man as he is, an acting, willing, intentional being who has less than perfect knowledge and is interacting with his fellow men for mutual improvement. And how can we think of a society that has both evolved and can be reformed to have the institutional basis that can take men with their limits and imperfections but enable us to have a society of both liberty and prosperity by using what men have for each one to pursue their self-interest as Adam Smith talked about but through the institutional invisible hand of right incentives and the institutional abilities of economic calculation and others so all may benefit from what others know for a mutual benefit. That is what classical liberalism and libertarianism has given the world for 300 years, however imperfectly through a glass darkly. Well, when we look at economics today, maybe we fall into this trap, we think of it as influenced by left to right or capitalist or socials. Maybe the real divide in economics today is really methodology. It's viewing people as human beings and who go out and do crazy irrational things sometimes or viewing them as atoms that need to be empirically tested. Is methodology still the thing that separates Austrianism from heterodox or I'm sorry, orthodox economics? To a great extent, I think you're absolutely right. I think that what conclusions you reach is dependent upon the way you theorize, conceptualize about how the world works. What is the nature of man? What are his qualities and characteristics? How does he interact with others? How does he respond in different situations? So the assumptions that we make about how we proceed with our analysis greatly influences the logic of the conclusions we reach and the policy implications they have. The advantage of the Austrians compared to the mainstream neoclassical approach is that starting with Karl Manger and of course through Mises, the idea was let us ask what is it that man is? He is an intentional conscious willing being. He acts through time and he evaluates time. He has less than perfect knowledge and has to form expectations based upon experience but does not have the ability to predict with the imagery of the natural scientist in the laboratory about what the future holds in store. And that if we think about him this way we can explain the logic of human decision making, the way he forms his decisions under scarcity, what happens when individuals interact and the processes that emerge with property rights for the formation of prices, economic calculation and the ordering of society through competition and entrepreneurship. If we approach it this way, I think that that is not only successful but it's so much more appealing. I mean, I'm a professor of economics and I'm sure people like Joe, who can tell the same story since he's been teaching truly as long as I have is that if you ask many students who have taken a mainstream course, they either got turned on because they just like that mindset or they said, you know, I hated the class. You know, it was all math, it was all graphs, it was all these unrealistic assumptions. I didn't feel as if it was helping me understand anything. That is our comparative advantage. Not only the fact that we're dealing with the reality of man in the world but we have the comparative advantage that we have a way of explaining it to the young people that is common sensical because it captures itself. Mises would always emphasize that there is the logic of human action and we discovered by looking into the workings of our own mind because the logic of our thought guide the logic of our action. So when we try to explain this to young people, in a sense, we're just asking people, look within yourself and ask yourself, how do you make choices? How do you make decisions? How do you make trade-offs? How do you view your relationships to others and the possibilities for mutual trade and you build on that basis and there's a sense of, as some Austrian said, it's confirmed within yourself because that's where it begins and that gives us a comparative advantage that we need to work upon. Well, I'd like to touch on this link which is a double-edged sword between Austrianism and libertarianism, two different things. Do you think we're sometimes equally guilty of trying to use economics as intellectual cover for our preferred policy prescriptions rather than treating it as the objective social science it's supposed to be? Well, I think that our lead in this can be Manger and Mises. Manger himself back in the 1880s during his methodological disputes with his opponents of the time would accuse them of blurring what they said was their science with their policy as a method of subterfuge to bring in their leftist and status tendencies of that time of the late 19th century. And Manger went out of his way to say that a science such as economics is concerned with analyzing what is and explaining what develops from it and the logic by which it proceeds. Mises, too, said this. He said that he is a scientist attempting to understand the logic of how markets work. And if he speaks of interventionism, he isn't making an accusation or a challenge. He's merely saying that if certain policies are implemented these are the consequences to which they are likely to lead which will either be opposite of what the intervener desired or will in fact come nowhere near to achieve the goal that was hoped for. Now, there is a logic of economics. There is a sense of understanding the world as it is of which man is the essential component for a social science like ours. But you have to ask yourself what is it that man attempts to achieve? And there are implicitly certain value judgments that should be articulated and made clear. Mises would say this. He would say such things as if you believe that people should have freedom, if you believe that prosperity is better than poverty, if you believe that health is better than illness then if you take those broad conceptions that if you do a survey practically all human beings everywhere would agree with what institutional setting will assure the most likely improvement of virtually all men over time. So that is the link. We study how this institutional alternatives work and we then ask the question what is it that man want to achieve? And if men are interested in this then those value judgments must lead to the conclusion that this set of institutions is more likely to bring those results about than another one. Capitalism enables the institutional means for men to interact rationally to see that they use their activities on the supply side to achieve their goals on the demand side. Socialism abrogates that. So there is no way to achieve those ends with the institutional means of a socialist system. That's the relationship between the is and the ought as I understand it. And one that follows logically as I said from Menger through Mises. Well when we think about these concepts obviously one of our most important tasks is to animate some of the young people. You're teaching at the Citadel in South Carolina we almost think of it as a military service academy but it's not. Tell us about some of the young people in your principles class or your macro classes. Do you feel like you're reaching some of them? Does this stuff resonate? Well actually yes. As you were saying the Citadel is called the military college of South Carolina. And before the Civil War it was South Carolina's version of West Point. You know you'd be commissioned as an officer. Some viewers and listeners may have heard the South lost the Civil War. As a consequence of this it was shut down. So I believe in the 1890s it was reopened was still the outward aura of a military environment. The students wear uniforms to class they're called cadets. I wear a uniform as a full-time tenured faculty member. I have the honorific title of Lieutenant Colonel. But I told them that I take the job but I refuse to change my name to Beauregard. I'm sorry. Well you were born in New York after all. Exactly. But the students are actually a place like the Citadel means they're very self-selecting. They're more serious. They're more interested in learning. They're more open to these ideas. And in the sense that I think that is consistent with most ideas of libertarianism and classical liberalism they have a sense of being proud to be an American and a sense properly understood of patriotism. The American ideals of freedom, limited government, the autonomy of the person. And so as a consequence they may come very ignorant of economics into my principles classes micro, macro, but they want to learn and understand because they live in a world where they hear a lot of things outside the classroom. And so I find that they're very receptive to this. In fact, I hold a BB&T chair at the Citadel. And as part of that, the chair obligations, I hold a reading group every semester with the students. And this is basically done jointly with the libertarian student group. We have thousands of students who come to this every other week to read classics. We did the law, Bastiat's the law, we did Hayek's wrote to serve them, we've done things by Mises as well as others. And they're open and receptive to this. And so these young minds are leaving there better informed to whatever career track that they pursue. But with the philosophical background in the back of their mind that there are these essential ways of understanding the market economy. And without which they as future businessmen because economics is taught at the Citadel in the school of business. As future businessmen, they will not have the chance for all that they could achieve as enterprises and they could easily be sucked into crony capitalism if they don't understand the dangers of that as well. Dr. Eberling final question. Obviously universities are changing rapidly. The campus climates deteriorated. A lot of young people come to the Mises Institute through libertarian conferences, organizations and stuff. They're thinking about economics as a profession or becoming an academic. You've been in the business a long time. You've taught at various colleges at Hillsdale. You've taught overseas. You're now teaching at the Citadel. Would you caution people about going out and getting a PhD in economics and trying to become a tenured faculty member somewhere? Or would you encourage them or would it be somewhere in the middle? I would say in the middle but for the following reasons. If you get interested in economics because you have begun with an interest in Austrian economics, a value normative view of sympathy with the philosophical principles of liberty, you're going to be following what can be a difficult path. Most graduate programs in economics remain highly-mathematized and the professors highly, not necessarily always aggressive but certainly sympathetic towards intervention as well for state policies. Compared to if you go to a handful of places, there are free market professors at Auburn where the Mises Institute is geographically located, Troy University, George Mason University, a few others. But the fact is that you will have to be in an environment that is not particularly friendly to the Austrian theme or even the classical liberal thing. But if you feel really strong that this is a calling that you're called upon because you value these ideas and you think it's important to cultivate them in yourself and as a scholar, as a professor, as a writer, if this is the path you want, then there's the hurdles and the barriers and the mountains to go over but with dedication and determination, you can get through, get your union card as it said and then pursue it. But don't expect to get a job at Harvard or Yale or Princeton or Stanford. But if that isn't the image that you have that would only make an economics degree worthwhile, then be ready for the hurdles but proceed to pursue it. Many are called but few are chosen but it is greatly rewarding. It's been over 40 years now since I was an undergraduate and I've had no regrets. I've had ups and downs as all of us in life. Bad times and some good times, frustrations and disappointments but I've never had any regret the path I've chosen because of the truth of Austrian economics and the value of liberty and for me then to have the academic platforms that I've been lucky enough to have to help advance those ideas but as a logical, serious scholar who doesn't bend reality to serve my own biases but to see that reality rightly understood helps a compliment to the achievement of liberty. Well, I'll leave with this thought because you're an Austrian in your perspective, you are in fact more famous and well-known and better read than if you were just sort of a standard econ professor at some state, you. I mean, that is true. That is true. I've been very fortunate through my writings and my lecturing to have people who have very kindly told me that they have learned things or had insights from things that I've written or lectured about. For example, I was just down this past week at Francisco Marikin University in Guatemala which as you know is dedicated to those free market and Austrian oriented principles. Their library there is called the Mises Library. Every student is required to take courses in the social philosophy of Mises and Hayek. Even the students in their dental school and their school of medicine they very graciously because I do have a bit of reputation in the United States. In the last 12 months, second time, graciously invited me down there to lecture on Austrian economics. So yes, you do have those opportunities with filling that niche in the intellectual goal of advancing these ideas. Well, for those of us who aren't academics, I'm gonna recommend Richard's new book, Austrian Economics and Public Policy. It was produced and published by the future Freedom Foundation with which Richard's had a long time association, Jacob Hornberger's organization. We will link to it. We're gonna encourage people to read. It's very lay friendly. It not only will teach you, I'm only about a third of the way through it, but it not only will teach you a lot about Austrian economics, it also teach you a lot about the school itself and some of the personalities involved in some of the history because as Ben Powell told me, I think last summer it is now possible, unfortunately you get a PhD in economics knowing nothing about the history of economic thought. You can be completely oblivious to how we got where we are today. So with that, Dr. Ebeling, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed speaking with you. Ladies and gentlemen, have a great weekend. Subscribe to Mises Weekends via iTunes U, Stitcher and SoundCloud, or listen on Mises.org and YouTube.