As a follow up to my post, Is the Austrian School of Economics a Cult?, a friend phoned me and told me a great story.
He once had a conversation with James Buchanan where Buchanan charged that Austrian economics is a cult. My friend asked on what basis he made this claim. Buchanan pointed to the Austrian school-leaning Mises Institute and said that any institute named after an individual was a cult. My friend replied, "So if an institute is ever named after you, it would be a cult?" Buchanan then stopped talking to my friend. But based on this Buchanan rule, can the GMU crowd be considered anything but multi-headed cultists?
Aside from the fact that George Mason University is named after, well George Mason, and the closely affiliated Cato Institute is named after Cato, GMU also has something called, get this, the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy at George Mason University.
Of course, in reality, none of this makes them cultists other than perhaps for those mindlessly following the thinking of Buchanan.
Completely wrong. James Buchanan defined himself as an austrian economist
ReplyDeleteProve it.
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DeleteAEN: Do you consider yourself an Austrian economist?
BUCHANAN: I certainly have a great deal of affinity with Austrian economics and I have no objections to being called an Austrian.
Link-> http://mises.org/journals/aen/aen9_1_1.asp
Thanks! Although he does not explicitly define himself as an Austrian; he merely states that he doesn't object to being called an Austrian. Big difference. Nevertheless, thanks.
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