Wednesday, October 21, 2015

New Trends in Teaching "Austrian" Economics (Kochconomics)



A friend familiar with Austrian school economics sends along the following tentative syllabus for a course on "Austrian economics" taught by Daniel Smith, an associate professor of economics at Troy University and an associate director of the Koch-funded, Troy affiliated, Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy.

Smith received his Masters and PhD from the Koch-funded economics department at George Masom University,

His course ECO6661 Austrian Economics will in Week 5 cover Natural Disasters and Recovery, Week 6 covers Prisons Gangs.

Notes an observer: There is no coverage of price theory, capital theory, product theory or the theory of entrepreneurship.

There are no assigned readings of Mises, Rothbard or even Kirzner.

 -RW

UPDATE

Prof. Smith messages via tweet:



9 comments:

  1. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There is some Hayek. I also received my masters from GMU, with semester in Madrid with Huerta de Soto., I would recommend the exact same for anyone and you will get plenty of Mises, Rothbard some Kirzner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's not good. It is a misdirection as to what Austrian economics is about.

      The syllabus also lists assigned reading from Selgin, who has shown to be far from Austrian in his monetary policy thinking.

      Delete
    2. So a class on Austrian Economics is not good? I think it's a least a step in the right direction. I agree there should be Mises, but again let's not have the perfect (subjective) be the enemy of the good.

      Delete
  2. The question is, is Austrian economics what really will be taught?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rothbard and Hayek went off in different directions from Mises, but I definitely think Mises should be taught in any free market class. I wonder who the course does teach? Menger and Bohm-Bawerk?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Can we link to the syllabus? What is linked is the professor's c.v.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes there are some obvious glaring omissions here, but it is pretty damn great to see competing currencies are discussed in the "alternatives to the federal reserve system" section.

    Overall, compared to other courses in the college system, this is a barn burner. But compared to the course we'd like to see- Mises, rothbard, etc, it's meh.

    Step in the right direction for sure. Glad some of this is being taught in undergrad!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey, kids. The Austrian Literature review is due at noon. Show up or keep speculating.

    ReplyDelete