Yesterday at the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University, an overflow crowd gathered to celebrate Jim Buchanan‘s 90th birthday.
My colleague Pete Boettke encouraged me to publish my brief remarks — delivered at yesterday’s event — at our Department’s website. Here they are.
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I am embarrassed to say that I have never read Mr. Buchanan, that will change very soon.
Not having read Buchanan, and only exposed to his thought through your brief comments of late, are you saying that Buchanan’s great insight was that there is a market for products in which money is exchanged; as well as a thing that can be called, seems to function in the same way as, a market in such arenas as emotions, relations, ideas, associations, the sum total of human activities?
So “Vernon Smith showed that economists can indeed productively do controlled experiments.”
In his dreams. For you cannot control human beings in a laboratory the way you can control animals, or inanimate physical and chemical forces.
So Buchanan uncovered “the root motivation of ‘public servants.’”
That’s fine, but it isn’t economics. For economics deals not with the motivations of action but with action itself, asking not why men act as they do but whether or not their actions bring about the desired results.
So Hayek discovered that the market marshals “the fragmented and dispersed knowledge of millions of people.”
Does that mean that he discovered the price system?
How would Hayek himself have ranked his own contributions?
Since he considered the issue of redistribution the most crucial, it is there that, by his standards, you would find the measure of an economist.
How do Hayek and all your other great contributors measure up, by that standard?
RE: “In his dreams. For you cannot control human beings in a laboratory the way you can control animals, or inanimate physical and chemical forces.”
Of course you can, and Vernon Smith does a fantasatic job at it. You’re limited in how you can control them, but of course you can. Why not? Or are you just asserting things again?
Lord Kuehns.
I’m still waiting for you to give me an example of mathematical economics, and I suppose I’ll have to wait as long for you to give me an example of controlling human beings in a laboratory.
People like Vernon Smith can afford to waste their time on such frivolous pursuits only because the rest of us, supporting them, don’t.
And, if they had to support themselves, they wouldn’t either.
http://people.virginia.edu/~cah2k/cgexp.pdf
Here’s one example. Having been a subject in a controlled experiment on human beings in an experimental economics laboratory at George Mason (Bart Wilson ran it, for those of you familiar with the GMU department), and having run one myself in the William and Mary experimental economics lab I can tell you from experience it’s possible to learn about the economic decision making by human beings in a controlled laboratory setting.
You dodged every single example of mathematical economics – arguing that it wasn’t valid because you said it wasn’t valid. I don’t expect you to take this seriously either.
But at least with mathematical economics you had some semblance of an argument for your position. I’m curious – why don’t you think it’s possible to have controlled experiments? You’re just asserting it – you’re not giving anyone a reason to take you seriously.
Buchanan did not say that Vernon Smith “controlled” human beings in a laboratory. He said that Vernon Smith did “controlled experiments.” Totally different.
Buchanan did not say that Vernon Smith “controlled” human beings in a laboratory. He said that Vernon Smith did “controlled experiments.” Totally different.
Buchanan did not say that Vernon Smith “controlled” human beings in a laboratory. He said that Vernon Smith did “controlled experiments.” Totally different.
Buchanan did not say that Vernon Smith “controlled” human beings in a laboratory. He said that Vernon Smith did “controlled experiments.” Totally different.
The IE construct & modern capital theory have their direct roots in Hayek’s macro. See my “Quotes on Hayek” page.
And by the way, your Lordship, you’ve just been demoted to No Account.
Daniel,
I broke my own rule, followed your link, and got just what I expected, the usual impenetrable mish mash.
Economics is simple, and, when it isn’t simple, it isn’t economics.
“No laboratory experiments can be performed with regard to human action. We are never in a position to observe the change in one element only, all other conditions of the event remaining unchanged…The report that Professor X on February 20, 1945, performed a certain experiment in his laboratory is an account of a historical event…The (reporter of the event) believes that he is right in abstracting from the person of the experimenter and the date and place of the experiment. He relates only those circumstances which, in his opinion, are relevant for the production of the result achieved and, when repeated, will produce the same result again. He transforms the historical event into a fact of the empirical natural sciences. He disregards the active interference of the experimenter and tries to imagine him as an indifferent observor and relater of unadulterated reality.” Ludwig von Mises
And by the way, I was very interested to learn that I lost all of our debates about mathematical economics. I wasn’t aware of that.