On Austrian plumbers

In recent times, I have noticed an increasing frequency of solicitations for products and services, in which the sales pitch somehow embeds the words "Austrian economics" or "Austrian thinking" or just "anything-Austrian." It is an assorted and nauseating variety of gold coin dealers, newsletter peddlers, "How to become rich" authors, "How to stay rich" authors, self-appointed gurus with fancy websites, tax consultants, "the-world-is-coming-to-an-end" preachers, et cetera.  The salesmen are all American, invariably dabbling in libertarian ideas and, having discovered the Mises Institute, its sizable audience and the richness of its intellectual tradition, have all become born-again "Austrian thinkers".

And so it is that America, having discovered and resurrected the old liberal scholarship of Europe, and having successfully defended and added to its intellectual standing, is now turning it into a social club, a missionary organization and a mutual society of self-promoting plumbers, investment advisers, gold peddlers, doomsday preachers, and intellectual dabblers of all sorts.  They've all found a few choice quotes from Mises, Rothbard and Rockwell that they float about like membership credentials in a magic club of enlightened pedestrians living in a land bereft of intellectual vigor and in desperate need for identity.

A space creature just landing on earth would see this whole "Austrian" thing as confusing: on one hand, an extraordinary intellectual tradition in economic scholarship, and on the other, the  American passion for merchandising, snake-oil salesmanship and TV evangelism. It's a curious mix. Cocina Americana.

On the other hand, perhaps it's just the free market at work, no?

Comments

[civil westman]

If any real elements of Austrian economics - however dilute or attenuated - were to actually be put into practice here, it would be excellent and astonishing. The proclivity of the times, however is to just talk. As far as I can see, modern liberalism functions like a ratchet which turns only to the left.

It is another tradition here that (if politics is indeed a marketplace of ideas) retail politics is plied in the bargain sub-basement, and consists mainly of name-calling and character assassination.

We have sold our birthright and lost our American souls. An excellent description can be found in Samuel Huntington's last book, "Who Are We?"

[PO'ed American]

Civil Westman,

I agree, I was born in 1963 and the US that I remember growing up in the 1970's and early 80's is so distant from today that it is hardly recognizable. Hopefully something will change this like an economic collapse where people realize this social experiment has failed horribly. Otherwise I see nothing to control the spread of modern liberalism.

Here is my question. Have there been times like this in the past where the country is lost from its founding anchor and ideas and then the people realized it and recovered their bearings or are we now in a situation where there are so many people on the govt payroll, directly and indirectly, where there is no hope to gain back our anchor? Long question.