Message from discussion To David Friedman: Antitrust

From: "Vincent Cook" <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]>
Subject: Re: To David Friedman: Antitrust
Date: 1998/05/13
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Gordon Sollars wrote:

>I enjoy reading Rothbard in high dudgeon as much as the next libertarian, but
>I would suggest that it is a mistake to confuse this aspect of his writing
>with good scholarship.

This is more polite than Friedman characterizing Rothbard's work as a
hatchet job, but it suffers from the same problem - unsupported attacks
against Rothbard do not add up to a refutation of his analysis.

>> As for the "what if" scenario in your second question, it is
>> impossible to speculate intelligently about the outcome.  For all we
>> know, both men might have pursued some completely different interest
>> than writing about economics.
>>
>But you find no difficulty in speculating about what detailed policies the
>Physiocrats would have supported, based upon some knowledge of their theory?

I think it is easier to work out the logical implications of a theory 
and to investigate how committed a theorist was in acting 
on their ideas than it is to invent facts that are contrary to 
history and use that as the basis for judging people.

>Is there more than one economist who hangs out here?  :-)  Perhaps you mean
>"students of Economics".  ;-)

Well, I'm not that fussy about academic titles and positions, so I 
sometimes treat people as experts in a field even when they don't 
have a state-approved degree declaring them as such.  I can think of 
at least a couple of other h.p.o. regulars who have a strong 
background in economics (though not necessarily the Austrian theories 
I am interested in) and are in jobs that require the use of their 
economics training.  And who knows - maybe somebody like Greenspan 
happens to have gone under very deep cover and secretly lurks 
hereabouts.
-- 
Vincent Cook <xyzepicu...@xyzcreative.net> Remove the xyz's
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