Later this month is the fiftieth anniversary of the South Royalton, Vermont convention on Austrian economics. Liberty Fund requested Richard Ebeling, one of many attendees to put in writing the lengthy essay, after which two individuals who attended (Mario Rizzo and I) and one one who didn’t (Geoffrey Lea) wrote responses.
Right here’s an excerpt from my response:
Like Richard Ebeling, I used to be excited to attend the primary Austrian Economics convention in South Royalton, Vermont. My motivation was totally different from Richard’s. I didn’t regard myself as an Austrian economist, however I did discover Friedrich Hayek’s work on the socialist calculation debate, and Ludwig von Mises’ work extra usually, profoundly insightful and necessary. I used to be additionally a giant fan of Hayek’s The Street to Serfdom, the very first thing by Hayek that I had learn. I had learn Hayek and Mises within the late Nineteen Sixties once I was a younger undergraduate arithmetic main on the College of Winnipeg. I by no means took a course in Austrian economics: all of my studying was alone. Within the fall of 1971, once I utilized for the Ph.D. program at UCLA, I knew loads about UCLA’s robust free-market orientation and was wanting ahead to taking lessons from Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, and Sam Peltzman, the three UCLA economists whose work I had learn. Whereas I knew that none of them was an Austrian economist, I hoped that a few of them could be sympathetic. So I took an opportunity on my utility letter, writing, “I wish to be in a graduate program the place, if I discuss with Mises, folks don’t assume that I’m mispronouncing the identify of a childhood illness.” It labored, for those who decide by the result: I used to be supplied full tuition plus a 2-year instructing assistant place paying $440 monthly for a 9-month yr. That was greater than this child from rural Manitoba had imagined he may get and, extra related, greater than I used to be supplied at my second selection, the College of Chicago.
The one that had motivated me to get into economics was Harold Demsetz, whom I had met in January 1970, when he gave 3 talks on the College of Winnipeg. I used to be hooked on economics. Though I nearly all the time took Demsetz’s recommendation—he was my dissertation advisor and my mentor—on this case I went in opposition to his recommendation. I instructed him that I had acquired a suggestion to attend the South Royalton convention at another person’s expense, and this system appeared attention-grabbing. The three primary audio system have been Murray Rothbard, Israel Kirzner, and Ludwig Lachmann. I had learn, and been impressed with, a lot of Rothbard’s Man, Economic system, and State. Demsetz’s buddy and colleague Ben Klein had assigned Israel Kirzner’s Competitors and Entrepreneurship in his industrial group class earlier that yr. Whereas I don’t recall Klein saying why he preferred the e book, I feel one cause was that Kirzner rejected the concept good competitors had something to do with perfection. I do keep in mind that Ben preferred the thought of dynamic evolving competitors that Kirzner, and the Austrians typically, refreshingly delivered to the financial dialogue.
So I used to be stunned that Demsetz discouraged me from going to the South Royalton occasion. He instructed me that, now that my course work was accomplished, I needs to be digging into my dissertation instantly. However I wanted a break after two intense years, and this “busman’s vacation” appeared like what the physician ordered. I in all probability batted a thousand on Demsetz’s recommendation: taking it on each different difficulty and rejecting it on this one. The convention was effectively value it.
Don’t miss the half in my essay about Frances Hazlitt’s remark to Milton Friedman.
The folks within the photograph are, from left to proper, Harry Watson, Milton Friedman, Jerry O’Driscoll, Jack Excessive, and Richard Ebeling.
Private notice: I had a serious medical check yesterday. The outcomes have been detrimental; I by no means just like the phrase “detrimental” as a lot as I do once I hear it from docs. I used to be sweating the check on Monday and Tuesday morning and having the check Tuesday afternoon. Thus the absence of weblog posts Monday and Tuesday.
