 Well, Professor Rittner, it's a pleasure to have you here. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here, Jeff. You're here for the Austrian Scholars Conference. I am indeed. And you teach at Grove City College, a place with great heritage in the Austrian tradition. That's right, that's right. Of course, most people, if they know of Grove City, know about Hans Sennholz, who was there for, oh goodness, from the 1950s, I think, retired in 1992 and established a great Austrian tradition there. Yeah. How many students are at Grove City? Oh, right, around 2,500. OK, and most professors complain about their students. I've never heard you complain about yours. No, no, you have not. No, I'm very pleased. Typically, we get really certainly bright students. And the econ majors that we get are not just bright, but interested in economics, economics that is relevant for the real world, economics from a praxeological, messesian perspective. And they just eat it up. We have four students, four economics majors, here at the conference with us. Oh, I had to come here to talk to you. Yeah, well, actually, we didn't bring them with them. They decided they're going to have a road trip and come down themselves. When students enter as freshmen, or maybe when they come to you as majors, as sophomores or juniors, are they already aware of the messesian connections with Grove City? I would say most of them are, not all of them. Some really don't. What they know about economics is what they learn in high school. And so they come and then are surprised that economics can be this relevant and this real when you base it on human action. But a lot of them do. A lot of them come to Grove City. They sort of self-select. They want to come here. It's often that we talk to prospective students when they're still in high school. They call and ask for information about the econ program. They've heard we're Austrian. They want to know are we really Austrian or are we just sort of Austrian in name? Yeah, funny. Interesting. And the connection to Mises is interesting. Margaret, I guess, gave or sold the Mises' papers to Grove City. So you have a large collection of Mises' own papers, the original papers. That's exactly right. Yes, we've got the Mises archive that's housed in the library. And it's a treasure trove of his papers that were written and corresponded primarily during his time in America. Yes, right. None of the German stuff, but which we have all the upstairs. I sometimes take visitors, and they say that we want to see Mises' papers before he came to the United States. I show them what it is. It's this tiny little old world pentane. Right, yes, yes. They don't spend a lot of time looking. It was nice to look at, but yeah. I don't really understand it. Apparently, only Guido Holtzman can read it. That's right, yes. Is Grove City still independent? Yes, yes, fiercely so. In fact, the president is giving a hosting an event this next week on the Supreme Court case. It's sort of revolved around Grove City College not accepting government grants and or student loans so that we can remain fiercely independent and not be in danger of the level of government intervention and education that other schools that take government money would be under. Now, do you have any students from Grove City's program who are right now in graduate school? Yes, we have, well, wait a minute. I don't know if we have any right now. We have some that are currently applying. We just have one that just recently graduated with a PhD from Ohio State University, Lucas Engelhardt. He just finished, OK. And then we've had a number of students that have matriculated through master's programs. A lot of students that come, they end up in graduate school, but they go to law school. They know that they want to do when they come through here. So we've had a pretty large number. In fact, interestingly enough, there's a student that I think he would have majored in economics if he would have discovered economics before he was a junior in college. By that time, it was too late to get all the credits in. But he subsequently went on to Penn State, the law school at Penn State, and has written a law review article that got published dealing with applying the praxeology to inheritance law that is now in illegal literature. So that's pretty exciting. And I did an independent study with him on applying praxeology to the various legal theories that are alive and kicking in the contemporary legal field. So it was really exciting to see that sort of come to fruition. And you have some good colleagues there, Jeffrey Herbner, of course. Yeah, he's fantastic. Yes. So is it a sort of place that should be recommended for people to consider for school? Oh, by all means. Yes, I think especially if you're interested in economics from an assessing perspective, I think that we don't just have a professor here, a professor there that's sort of interested in Austrian economics. But we have people that begin their theory classes in Principles of Micro, Principles of Micro, Foundations of Economics, beginning with human action. And we just teach, well, this is what economics is. And then we get into the, I teach the intermediate micro and macro sequence. And there we look at the broader, what is the broader profession of economics? What do they think about price theory? We talk about neoclassical price theory. We talk about the vast number of perspectives on macroeconomics. And so we learn them all. But we learn them from the, we learn to evaluate them from the perspective of praxeological economics. And we don't have to try to sort of tack on a little bit of a necessity in economics to sort of band aid over this gaping wound of modern economics. We can, the students come in understanding the way the economy really works. And so then when they're presented with the Keynesian system or the monetary system, they can immediately see, well, there's parts of this that just isn't right. And you don't have to reinvent the wheel every single class that we talk about. And then, of course, the myriad of other electives that we teach from comparative economic systems to money in banking to American economic history or the history of economic thought. The Austrian content just permeates the entire curriculum. So if you're interested in assessing economics, that growth city is a place to come for undergraduate economics. Do people come up to you at this conference to say, Sean, you're living the dream? Not as many as should. I mean, I feel like it. I'm having a great time. They're paying me for doing what I love. I have good students. Things are, and growth city is a lovely town. It's small town-y. It's actually, when I first got the job, I was a little bit later. I think I'm going to Pennsylvania. It's quite a bit farther east. But it really feels like a Midwestern. You forget how wide Pennsylvania is. And by Midwestern, you mean good. Exactly. Yes, yes. Midwestern in the good sense. The way I was brought up in the Midwest. And so small town-y, neighborhood-oriented, high how you're doing, that kind of thing. Right, right. Now, it wasn't too long ago that you were a graduate student at Auburn University. Yes. I remember these days well. I do, too. It was great fun. Sorry to see you go, but in a very quick period of time, you've already, you're at growth city, and I gather you're planning to stay there for a while. Yes. Yeah, I have no intention. That's on Hanson. Hanson hosted it for so many years. Yes, yes, indeed. He said it was time to retire only when he was getting students saying, you didn't teach my parents, but you taught my grandparents economics of growth cities. Well, OK, that's it. I recall that Gary North once wrote, I think it was an article, maybe it was just a speech, where he talked about the way to leave a legacy is to find a place where you're going to make it a permanent home for yourself. Oh, I think there's something to that, because there is, there's some, there's a part of the academic culture where you, you know, there's a certain inertia. And so it takes a number of years to actually have some type of vision develop, you know? I mean, because I sort of the, in some sense, the reviving of the Austrian tradition didn't start with me. It really started in 97 when they hired Jeff Herbner. Yes. And then he contacted me and then I came on board from, so he was there in 97. I came on board in 2001. And then it was another two or three years before we got the Austrian student scholars conference going. So, you know, these things just take time. And if, if let's say I'm in one place for four years and somebody else for four years and someplace else for years, you didn't have the time to really develop the sort of the institutional momentum, I guess. And the Austrian student scholars conference occurred two weeks ago? Yes. Yeah, roughly, yeah, two, three weeks ago. And it's a kind of miniature version of this. Yes, I mean, it's modeled after the Austrian scholars program designed for undergraduate and graduate students and it's been, it's been great. This is, I think it was either the sixth or seventh conference we've had, it was the largest we've had. We've had some like 30, over 30 papers. And we've had, we had people from many different countries that presented, from many different universities and colleges, it was just really, really, really great. And these things do have a momentum, don't they? They develop a reputation and start achieving a certain status and people aspire to give papers there. And standards are always going up all the time. Oh yes, yeah, I think so. I mean, I've been really pleased with how it's, how it's grown and developed. Well, you know, it's interesting when I think about, about this 20 years ago, something like, you know, an Austrian student scholars conference was inconceivable. Now it's, it's probably, yeah. It's, it's like the industry standard. Yeah, the industry standard, that's right. Now, speaking of, you have a new book. Well, it's not quite new. It came out, I guess, last year. January 2010, yes. And the title. Title is Foundations of Economics. And it's marketed mainly to a kind of private school, religious school market. Yeah, yeah, I was asked, I was sort of commissioned, if you will, by a successful Christian entrepreneur to write a free market economics text, introductory free market text from a Christian perspective that would then be likely to be adopted in mostly private, but Christian schools, colleges. High schools and colleges. Basically colleges was sort of the initial vision. And so that's what I did. I wrote, I wrote what I, I wrote a principal's text. The main goal is to teach students economics and then also have them understand that there's nothing in scripture that's contradictory with good economics. That we don't have to be sort of hold it, you know, hold it at arm's length. Say, well, this is about worldly things. Right. You know, that kind of stuff. So it took me, you know, I think I was talking about somebody took me at least like four and a half or five years to write the manuscript. Oh, but it's a gigantic book actually. That's five hundred and sixty-four pages. And, you know, it's one of those things if he said, if he would have said up front, said I want you to write this book, but it has to be five hundred and sixty-four pages. I would have said, no, I don't think I'm your man. But, you know, as it just sort of, you just start writing and you have this vision for what you would think a body of economics, an introductory body of economics would be, and it just sort of, the size sort of determines itself. And I'm not sure if I told you this, but a number of people have mentioned to me who have read it that they were impressed at the writing style and at the rigor of the logic and that everybody likes it. Oh, thank you. I'm gratified. Yeah. Do you know how it's doing? Is it being adopted? It's being adopted some. I don't have the most up-to-date figures. I, my temptation is to be sort of like the numbers hound. Every week calling, what are the numbers like this week? What are the numbers like this week? Watching the New York Times. Yeah, exactly. And I know that I will finally have made it when I get denounced by Paul Krugman on his blog. Of course, we can always dream. That's right. But it was doing okay. I think, as of May, I mean, I use it in my classes. Dr. Herbner used it in his classes. I get correspondent from other professors who use it in their classes or wanting copies of our supplemental materials like the student study guide, the instructor's manual and that kind of thing. And then, so I know that it's being adopted and I do watch from time to time sort of the Amazon, you know, numbers. And the, I think it was the day after I had a piece, either it's the one I published at mesis.org or lurockwell.com, my sales ranking was up in the 2000s which was fantastic. I mean, it was like I was in the top 50 popular e-contexts. So for one bright shining day, I will always have Paris, you know. You're probably even ahead of Paul Krugman's books. I was on that day. That was fantastic. That was a great day. But it's clear that, you know, it's still getting sold and I should find out again. I mean, I just, I don't like, I don't want to publish and think, oh, I'm the guy that always wants to know what the numbers are. So I sort of say, I'm not gonna call them. I'm gonna let them contact me and we'll see. But the impression I get, it's selling okay. And especially given the fact that I haven't had time to really market it like I would like and they don't have the resources to market it like they would like. So I'm just sort of, you know, I have a blog and I talk to people and I've been on a few radio station, your radio programs. So it's kind of a book that maybe it's not gonna make a big splash up front. Right, sure. But it's got some longevity to it. It's not tied to current events. Not exactly meltdown or, you know, nullification, but it's... You can't write a new book every six weeks. Not me, not me, I don't know. Okay. But you maintain a very rigorous schedule too of teaching. You have a lot of classes. Oh, sure, yeah, we teach four courses every semester. And once the semester gets going, it is just hard to find time to devote to writing, especially if you have to just start from scratch. But teaching is your calling, right? I think so. Although I find the two that as I've gotten older, as I've taught more classes, you just sort of, you learn more economics by teaching. Sure. And I'm at the point now where I do feel like I have things, after I've sort of let ideas percolate and theories sort of sit for a while, I'm at the point now where I do feel like I have things to say that I'm ready to start, you know, in a while maybe start my next project. Yeah, maybe a research project and a writing and a writing project. I hope you'll consider the Mises Institute here for that sort of thing. Well, I think I will. Well, there's a lot of things to write and a lot of things you could write about. I mean, you're very involved in the arts, for example. Yes, yes. And there's not enough material in the economics world on that. No, no, in fact, I mean, it's so frustrating. Every time they talk about, you know, cutting something, the next thing you know is you hear these studies about how, oh, you can't cut the arts because they generate so much money for the economy, so much taxpayer dollars. I'm thinking this is Keynesian multiplier all over again. You've got a lot to say. Oh, it's so frustrating. And it's like, it's not like they, it's not like economists haven't pointed this out. And you know, Bastiat points this, the problem with this thinking out in things that are seen and not seen. And so, you know, we've known this since at least, you know, the middle of the 1800s, but it's just like a minimum wage. You know, it's like banging your head against the wall. Every generation has to relearn these truths. And I should say that you're very qualified to speak about this. There was a time when I was, I recall, playing the piece on my car stereo that I thought was surely the most obscure piece of music ever. And you only heard a few notes and you said, well, sure, that's a Monteverdi article. You remember that. I do remember this. That was one of my great moments. Drove off the road. How did you know? That's right, that's right. That's right, yes. And you know, I actually, in my book, I referenced here, when we talk about the not being able to compare utility, I have an example where two people are arguing over the musical value and the economic value of the music of Heinrich Schuetz. Oh, yeah. And I've had people- Oh, Schuetz. Yes, yes. I've had people ask me on campus, well, is, you know, were you talking about one of the music professors on campus when you wrote this? And so no, it's actually about a good friend of mine that I met in graduate school. Okay, yeah. And I should credit you also for introducing me to Beethoven, which is an embarrassing to have to admit, but when you live in the world of Monteverdi and Schuetz, you know, all your life, Beethoven's a revelation. Well, you know, it's one of those things. I appreciate that, and I thank you for that. But you're right, I mean, it just takes time to really understand a composer and then start to, you know, branch out. Yeah, well, I hope you bring your two great interests, actually many great interests together. But you've got many years ahead and we're looking forward to great things. Thank you for being with us here today, Professor Rittenauer. Well, thank you very much. It was a treat.