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Article about GMU Economics
The focus of the article is on Robin, Alex, Bryan, myself, Peter Leeson, and also Ilia Rainer, who plays straight man very very well. I've put the part about myself in the first comment below. But read the whole story! It is very insightful.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 26, 2008 at 03:31 PM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
“[Robin] comes from a physics background,” said Tyler Cowen in his Arlington office, filled with Latin American and Caribbean paintings in the naïve style, “and I’m much more from the humanities, so I’m more of a pluralist. He tends to think in terms of very simple theories like physics or biology, and I tend to think things are very complicated, and that a good explanation will look messy. When he hears a messy explanation, he tends to think something’s wrong. I tend to think that it’s fruitful.”
Cowen’s dignified carriage distinguishes him from his colleagues who sometimes seem to run over with fizz, but his most distinctive feature is his unusual voice, for which I’ve flipped through my rolodex of adjectives and settled on “fey.”
“He’s [Hanson] more of a Darwinian,” Cowen continues, “It’s not that I think the theory of evolution is wrong, but I don’t think Darwin is the way to approach every social science problem.”
All of Cowen’s degrees are in economics despite his passion for fiction and music: “For me, it was always reading first. I knew I was going to do reading for life, and then economics was one way of settling on how to do that. But economics was in that way a secondary commitment. Reading was the prior commitment.”
Did he select economics as a way of deciding what to read? “Yeah, it’s way of organizing what you read. It’s also a way of getting a job. I thought of being a philosopher, which I still enjoy, but you’re paid less. It’s hard to get a job at all; you have fewer other opportunities.”
His goal, however, has never been to develop a theory of aesthetics, a way to separate the good from the bad. If someone offers a principle of aesthetics, he said, “I think it’s pretty much always wrong.”
“Aesthetics is a big mystery, and I try not to get too metaphysical about it. I just try to be practical, like ‘How can I enjoy this story?’ I think it’s a more useful question. But they ask, ‘What really makes this beautiful?’ I’m not sure we’ll ever answer that other question.”
His policy is to read a review only up to the moment when he decides whether he wants to read the book. “Maybe I’m busy, but it’s not just that I’m busy, it’s that I want to read the book fresh,” he explained, “So I don’t really give reviewers a chance. They have a chance to convince me I want to read it, and then I dispense with them.” His favorite critics, he said, are the reviewers on Amazon.com.
This doesn’t mean that all individual judgments have equal value. “If someone didn’t like Beethoven or Mozart or Haydn or Chopin at all, I would think something is going on. I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, it’s subjective taste.’ Now you might have someone who would say, ‘Well, I recognize Mozart as great but for emotional reasons, I’m going to listen to country and western music.’ That to me is a bit more of a subjective difference, but if someone actually thinks, ‘No, this is not likeable music’ -- I think that’s a mistake, almost like saying two and two equals five.”
He qualified this pronouncement, though, regarding single works. “Like if someone says, ‘Well, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: It reached too far. The chorus doesn’t work. To me it feels overblown.’ While I don’t agree, there I would just think that’s a different point of view. There’s no way I’m going to prove they’re wrong and I’m right. If someone just says of Beethoven, ‘He was trash,’ I think that’s just wrong.”
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Feb 26, 2008 3:34:36 PM
Evidently, "insightful" means not doing any background research, and relying wholly on what your interviewees say. There is more to be said, for example at my web site.
Criticisms of George Mason U. Economics (and Mercatus)
"The Economics department of George Mason University has been strongly shaped by tens of millions of dollars of donations by the libertarian Koch Foundations of the billionaire Koch brothers. Most, if not all, of the staff is affiliated with the Koch-financed Mercatus Center, a libertarian pro-corporatist think-tank. The result is a propaganda mill with academic credentials."
Posted by: Mike Huben at Feb 26, 2008 4:12:02 PM
I'm pretty sure that's spelled "Cowen", Mike Huben. You might want to fix that.
Posted by: Mike at Feb 26, 2008 4:49:58 PM
"There is more to be said, for example at my web site."
And yet, among the things said at the link you provide, not a single one is a substantive criticism of the quality of GMU scholarship. Just innuendo and ad hominem.
Posted by: anon. at Feb 26, 2008 4:56:17 PM
anon,
I already surmised as much based on past track record, and therefore I didn't bother checking out his link. But thanks for the confirmation.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Feb 26, 2008 5:58:06 PM
It doesn't really deserve the side track, but two quick things to note about Mike Huben's comments.
(1) Most departments receive funding from somebody. You can claim that it shapes their work, but you can also research what work the profs were doing before they applied for those grants. Usually the bias comes before the funding-- and every department has some bias or other. Its only bias, of course, when you disagree with it. Otherwise its just sensible.
(2) This is funny "libertarian pro-corporatist think-tank." How can you be libertarian and pro-corporatist? Possibly Mike Huben needs to learn what corporatism is.
Posted by: liberty at Feb 26, 2008 6:12:12 PM
Oh, and also he uses a GMU prof to try to undermine GMU economics... (Caplan re: Austrianism)
Posted by: liberty at Feb 26, 2008 6:20:57 PM
Hey I had no idea that Koch was such a supporter of GMU. That's really cool. I've been a fan of both for a while!
Posted by: Michael Martin at Feb 26, 2008 7:01:09 PM
Cowen’s dignified carriage distinguishes him from his colleagues who sometimes seem to run over with fizz, but his most distinctive feature is his unusual voice, for which I’ve flipped through my rolodex of adjectives and settled on “fey.”
Man, I spit all over my monitor.
Posted by: guy in the veal calf office at Feb 26, 2008 8:39:13 PM
liberty apparently doesn't read the posts here. These are people who think borrowers are worthy of the bulk of the blame for the current credit crisis (for example).
That turned out to be nicely alliterative.
Posted by: meter at Feb 26, 2008 9:05:56 PM
Mike not-Huben, re: Cowan/Cowen spelling --
Apparently Mike Huben didn't fact-check very well.
Posted by: apotheon at Feb 26, 2008 9:44:33 PM
Now I am looking up 3-letter words:
From Merriam's website:
adjective
Etymology: Middle English feye, from Old English fǣge; akin to Old High German feigi doomed and perhaps to Old English fāh hostile, outlawed — more at foe
Date: before 12th century
1 achiefly Scottish : fated to die : doomed b: marked by a foreboding of death or calamity
2 a: able to see into the future : visionary b: marked by an otherworldly air or attitude c: crazy, touched
3 a: excessively refined : precious b: quaintly unconventional : campy
Well that narrows it down...
Posted by: Pitt at Feb 26, 2008 9:51:20 PM
Robin Hanson has a blog??
Posted by: Mark N. at Feb 26, 2008 10:51:50 PM
I imagine it's tough being Mike Huben. Devoting one's life to discrediting an entire philosophical/political/economic system and yet influencing absolutely no one.
I think Huben is secretly a libertarian who just likes getting attention from libertarian bloggers.
Posted by: Robert S. Porter at Feb 26, 2008 11:02:46 PM
Unfortunately, Mike Huben's site is having trouble--I can't follow his link--so I can't comment on the quality of his arguments, but I've often been surprised at the kind of inane or rabidly conservative opinions Alex (usually) and Tyler (sometimes) endorse--either through linking, quoting or writing it themselves. My least favorites are:
1. There was no housing bubble
2. The rich pay for the federal government
(Sorry Tyler, I don't have a post of yours in the list above, but you once linked to a conservative opinion that you basically recanted after posting. I was still surprised it had even passed your sniff test. It was the first time I noticed that your political biases.)
Basically, unless you're a rabid, died-in-the-wool-Republican libertarian, keep your critical thinking hat on when you read this site. Actually, keep it on even if you are a died-in-the-wool-Republican libertarian. And even if you're not reading this site. :-)
Posted by: MostlyAPragmatist at Feb 27, 2008 6:23:14 AM
I lined my thinking cap with tin foil...but I think that blocks the thinking powers....or beams them up to the aliens.
Posted by: shawn at Feb 27, 2008 8:22:11 AM
re "the rich pay for the federal government":
It is not biased, but just recounting facts, to point out that the bottom 50% of people filing taxes don't actually pay any net taxes through their tax forms, and conversely the top few percent pay the vast majority. This figure doesn't count payroll taxes, if I recall correctly, but note that many of these people do collect "benefits" associated with payroll taxes paid - so net taxes would be reduced by the amount (net taxes may be quite negative).
That, of course, doesn't count other kinds of taxes like sales taxes (but those don't support the federal government) and "inflation taxes" and regulatory burdens which reduce wages, and so forth. However, the vast majority of the federal government's pocket change does come from the wealthiest Americans.
Posted by: liberty at Feb 27, 2008 8:57:19 AM
On Beethoven my busines partner says he was great for his time but music has evolved to better state today. Any thoughts on his idea?
Posted by: Floccina at Feb 27, 2008 9:40:56 AM
Oh- I forgot [federally imposed] sin taxes and gas tax (is that a sin tax too?) but I don't think that would change the outcome by very much.
Those taxes take a larger bite out of the budget of the poor person, but they don't add up to enough in dollars, even across all poor people, to change the fact that the rich support the federal government (and rich people buy gas too- like for their private jets).
Posted by: liberty at Feb 27, 2008 9:51:19 AM
I congratulate the author of this article for making reference to, or interviewing, people at GMU whose work I find REALLY, REALLY interesting (to say the least) - Tyler Cowen, Bryan Caplan, Peter Leeson, to mention only a few names - which excludes the self-proclaimed great economist Peter Boe....
Posted by: Ray at Feb 27, 2008 10:17:56 AM
"Think it possible that you may be wrong" is my touchstone for judging schools of thought (and websites). These guys at GMU not only think it possible - give them a nickel and they will organise a betting market on whether they are wrong (or not).
That said, I particulauly agree with the penulitimate piece of advice from MostlyaPragmatist. I need to keep my thinking hat on here because there is too much here which fits with ideas I have already formed. To put that in context (I'm British), I have never voted Conservative nor advised anyone to vote either Republican or Conservative.
Posted by: David Heigham at Feb 27, 2008 10:45:16 AM
Funny that anyone would call Tyler Cowen an ideologue. If anyone on here has not read one of his books on culture ("Creative Destruction" and "In Praise of Commercial Culture"), I recommend you get one of them and read it asap--for fun. Brilliant, thoughtful, insightful because he did his background research. And liberal in the best intellectual sense of the word.
Posted by: James Hanley at Feb 27, 2008 11:14:32 AM
Mike Huben is an ideologue. He's not even an interesting ideologue.
Posted by: J. at Feb 27, 2008 1:34:47 PM
