[edit] Timing of Principles and Das Kapital "Untenable"? Just because Marx was writing Das Kapital at the same time that Menger was working on Principles, does NOT mean that Marx's economic theories were not already in circulation. He and Engels had already published numerous articles. --xzy —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.91.126.231 (talk • contribs) 1 Sep 2003 (UTC) [edit] Deduction vs. induction "...the paradigmatic assumption that economics should rest on induction from principles rather than deduction from observation has been largely rejected." It should be the other way around; you deduce from principles or induce from observation. I changed it. --Nebbons —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.64.101.17 (talk • contribs) 14 Aug 2004 (UTC) [edit] Influence The following qualification to Greenspan's comments seemed entirely out of place given it's detail and its leap of logic, hence I removed it. - (though Greenspan would later, in 2008, express “shocked disbelief” regarding the lack of protection of shareholders by lending institutions).[1]:
[edit] Miss people Fritz Machlup and Walter Eucken and Schumpeter. these are 3 persons we cannot miss in this article. - Thanks. Please be bold and add information about them. Thanks, -Willmcw 18:20, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
While Shumpeter was Austrian by nationality, he is not (usually?) considered to having been a supporter of the views of the Austrian school. I will remove his name from the list for now, until this can be resolved. [edit] Utility theory "The first primary area of contention between neoclassical theory and the Austrian school is over the possibility of consumer indifference — neoclassical theory says it is possible, whereas Mises rejected it as being “impossible to observe in practice”. The second major dispute arose when Mises and his students argued that utility functions are ordinal, and not cardinal; that is, the Austrians contend that one can only rank preferences and cannot measure their intensity, in direct opposition to the neoclassical view" This is misrepresentation of the neoclassical view. Neoclassical economics does not belive in cardinal utility. While jeveons and marshal may have done post-pareto (1906) economics holds that there is no subjective measure of utility only an ordering of preferences. This is the heart of neoclasical economics and as such this paragraph is incorrect.
[edit] Greenspan's shocked disbelief There's a bit in the "influence" section that goes: "The former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, speaking of the originators of the School, said in 2000, “the Austrian school have reached far into the future from when most of them practiced and have had a profound and, in my judgment, probably an irreversible effect on how most mainstream economists think in this country”,[24] although he would later express “shocked disbelief” at the lack of protection for shareholders by major lending institutions.[25]" A sock of a banned user removed the "although he would later express “shocked disbelief” at the lack of protection for shareholders by major lending institutions" clause, and it's been reinserted. I have to agree in this instance that the clause doesn't belong. It's a pretty serious bit of synthesis, since there's a lot of missing connective tissue in identifying why the shocked disbelief deserves an "although", and the cited article doesn't provide the connection to Austrian economics. I think it should be re-removed. CRETOG8(t/c) 09:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC) - Done. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
[edit] renewed interest In the lead is the sentence, "However, some assertions of Austrian School economists have been interpreted by some as warnings about the 2007-2009 financial crisis, which has in turn led to renewed interest in the School's theories.". This is referenced to this NYT article. BigK HeX has argued the source doesn't the support the sentence, and it looks to me as if they're right. In the NYT article, it says that "some Austrian School devotees", including Ron Paul, have claimed to have predicted the crisis. And one economic historian, David Colander says the Austrians should get more attention (particularly in contrast to Kondratieff). Neither of these really says the crisis has led to renewed interest in the school's theories. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the sentence is correct, but the source doesn't support it, so another one would need to be found. Complicating things further, shouldn't the sentence from the lead be referring to something in the main article? It's not clear it does. Unfortunately, the closest thing in the main article is the sentence, "The global economic crisis of 2008 represents, according to some pundits, an example of the Austrian business cycle theory's dependability." This sentence is ref'd by a link to a no-longer-available article, which I've only found mirrored at this blog ("Paulson's scheme"). So that's not a good ref either. Ick. CRETOG8(t/c) 06:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC) - Thanks for re-verifying the contested portion. BigK HeX (talk) 07:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
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- Agree with Cretog's observation. Unfortunately, many seem to think that it's valid to add to the lead without working on the article. I would like to reiterate the principle that the lead should summarize the body of the article, in proportion to the weight of the ideas therein. LK (talk) 13:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
This edit removed the reference, but left the material it supposedly supported. The sentence is "However, some assertions of Austrian School economists have been interpreted by some as warnings about the 2007-2009 financial crisis,[2] which has in turn led to renewed interest in the School's theories and a questioning of the usefulness and efficacy of mainstream economics, even by those within the mainstream itself." The underlined clause is now unsupported by the ref, but is ref'd to this Krugman piece, which doesn't mention the Austrians. Without mentioning the Austrians, I think it's too tangential for inclusion there, and so the underlined clause should be removed as partly unref'd and otherwise irrelevant. CRETOG8(t/c) 03:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC) -
- Probably not. Besides that can be written differently rather than ditching the ref/note if needed. Krugman is saying mainstream questions what is happening. It does not have to refer specifically to any group whether Libertarians or Other. It is saying that mainstream is questioned, and that is enough. Obviously Krugman is 'mainstream'. And mainstream is questioning itself currently. skip sievert (talk) 03:50, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- I don't follow the reasoning of "probably not". Feel free to re-word it, and maybe that will resolve my issues. I'm not going to pull the Krugman ref, but it really seems out of place in the lead of an article when his piece doesn't talk about the subject of this article. CRETOG8(t/c) 04:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Probably not means the next most probable is probably not going to be what you were thinking in regard to the reference not being good anymore, because as said it is a descriptor of mainstream questioning itself and does not need to be a part of libertarian or Austrian or what ever, as to connecting with the sentiment of questioning itself. skip sievert (talk) 04:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] James M. Buchanan I noticed that NYT article talks about James M. Buchanan as a member of the Austrian School. This isn't first time that I have encountered this claim. For example, according to this site he belongs to the fourth generation of Austrian theorists. Should Buchanan be mentioned in this article? -- Vision Thing -- 19:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC) - Seems he's classified in the Chicago School to me. BigK HeX (talk) 23:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
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- There's a quote from Buchanan on this issue in the talk archives somewhere, where in an interview for Mises Inst., he says something like he doesn't object to being called one, but some Austrians may object to calling him one. Anyways, he's not a Misean praxeologist for sure. His papers are filled with math modelling. Also, his entry at the Library of Economics and Liberty, a libertarian leaning website, does not mention Austrian school. LK (talk) 02:47, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
- Here is the relevant quote from the interview: "I certainly have a great deal of affinity with Austrian economics and I have no objections to being called an Austrian. Hayek and Mises might consider me an Austrian but, surely some of the others would not." [1] He should probably be mentioned in the 'Influence' section but nothing more. -- Vision Thing -- 07:49, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
- In Cost and Choice, Buchanan presented himself as a student of a tradition whose lineage he saw as running through the Austrian School, but then being developed by thinkers at LSE in the era of Robbins and by Frank Knight at UChicago. Of course, that was Buchanan then, and his sense of his affinities has probably evolved and may still be evolving. —SlamDiego←T 06:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Criticisms section A number of the criticism were being presented as if simply valid, whereas some of them are overly broad, and one of them is down-right mathematically incompetent. While what neoclassical economists call “ordinal utility” is only very weakly quantified, it has been demonstrated with formal mathematics (by an Austrian School economist, in spite of claims that none of us are mathematical!) that there are economically rational preferences to which no quantification, however weak, can be fit. (See “The Austrian Theory of the Marginal Use and of Ordinal Marginal Utility”, to which I referred in correcting the section.) Thus, these weak quantifications are not purely ordinal, as they impose structure beyond total ordering. Essentially a supposition has transitioned to a mainstream dogma, in spite of a complete lack of anything resembling a proof — which proof never arrived because the supposition was false. —SlamDiego←T 01:09, 27 September 2009 (UTC) McCulloch's paper, BTW, nicely illustrates the distinction between a claim of the mainstream and verifiable claim. —SlamDiego←T 03:23, 27 September 2009 (UTC) - The current article presents the Austrian assertions as it were the truth, and the Mainstream viewpoint as if it were proven wrong. I point this out in the hopes that it will be fixed and balanced. LK (talk) 16:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
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- As to the article as a whole, I've not reviewed it. That doesn't change the fact that the “Criticism” section wasn't neutral, and at a point where a mainstream article of faith has indeed been verifiably proved wrong, it was instead being treated as plainly true. (This is a matter of pure math, not of interpretation of data.) Balance is not found in lending any credence to popular fallacy. —SlamDiego←T 23:49, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
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- A claim has been made in a paper written by proponents of a heterodox school that the mainstream orthodox framework is lacking. The article uses this to support a plain statement that mainstream microeconomics methodology has been proven wrong. The paper in question was not published in a major mainstream journal, nor was it peer-reviewed by anyone except proponents of the heterodox school. Wikipedia should not use this to present as a fact, that orthodox mainstream methodology has been proven wrong. I ask that you (or another editor) balance the presentation in that section. LK (talk) 08:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Utterly wrong. Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie is a well-established mainstream journal, amongst those published the highly respected Springer-Verlag. (Nowadays, it is better known by the name “Journal of Economics”, but in 1977 it was still using its original name.) It has never been a journal of any school, and the peer-review there was and is no more likely to be by heterodox economists than that at any other mainstream journal. (McCulloch himself, BTW, was from September 1983 to September 1991 the editor of the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.)
- You are confusing your own grossly uninformed conjecture with plain fact. Time to back off. —SlamDiego←T 08:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- I stand corrected. Given that the link given was to mises.org (and that the title had 'Austrian' in it), I assumed that it was from one of the journals sponsored by them. I have just gone through the paper (albeit rather quickly). I don't see how it supports your contention that Caplan's view (which is essentially the mainstream view) is somehow proven wrong by the paper. Caplan's assertion is that the AS criticism of the mainstream for using cardinal utility is incorrect, because the AS criticism ignores the mainstream methodology of checking that theorems hold true for monotonic transformations. He argues that this methodology means that the mainstream view and the AS view concerning utility are actually not that different, and the AS proponents overstate the difference. As far as I can tell, the McCulloch paper shows that there is a difference between merely specifying a choice ordering, and looking at all possible monotonic transformations of a cardinal utility function. I don't see how this disproves Caplan's assertion. LK (talk) 09:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- And the answer is that the weak quantifications are plainly not purely ordinal, as Caplan apparently claims (I trust that you have not misrepresented Caplan); and the parenthetical note does no more than to note that they are not. The parenthetical note does not claim that any other criticism by any member of the Austrian School on the issue of ordinality v. cardinality is fully vindicated, let alone that every such criticism is vindicated. Unfortunately, I am unaware of any “reliable” source that carefully walks through the actually very different notions inconsistently labelled “ordinal” and “cardinal” just amongst mainstream authors, let alone one that then breaks-down just where and how various Austrian School economists get some things right and some things very wrong with respect to these different notions; absenting that, we'd be awash in original synthesis if we handled this issue in an otherwise proper way. Economics — both mainstream and Austrian School — desperately needs a proper critique. But Wikipedia itself cannot provide it for anyone (until it is provided by a “reliable” source).
- As to the title having “Austrian” in it, one should suspect original synthesis if it didn't. (In fact, McCulloch's article is an adaptation of work in a paper from Kraft, Pratt, and Seidenberg, and so, were original synthesis here permissible, Caplan's claim could be refuted even had McCulloch never written his.) And, as to the link to mises.org, it is well established that some of material that they provide is peer-reviewed &c. —SlamDiego←T 10:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Thank you for pointing out why I shouldn't have assumed that the paper was from a mises.org sponsored journal. LK (talk) 10:28, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- BTW, the Mises Institute didn't come into existence until 1982; you can take it as a given that they didn't sponsor the publication of anything before then. —SlamDiego←T 10:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
I've just had a quick glance though Caplan's essay, some of Rothbard, and the paper in question. Caplan's point is that Rothbard accuses mainstream microeconomists of basing their models on Cardinal utility, and rejects mainstream micoreconomics based (in large part) on that objection; and that Rothbard's objection ignores the fact that results are usually checked for all monotonic transformations, and are hence based on Ordinal utility. The term Ordinal utility here is used as per the mainstream definition, that is, a theorem holds for Ordinal utility, if it holds for the set of all utility functions that can be obtained by all possible monotonic transformations of the utility function in question. The point of McCulloch's article is that this definition of Ordinal utility is not exactly the same as the concept of 'choice orderings' which is the definition of Ordinal utility used by Austrian economists. This does not mean that the conception of Ordinal utility as used by mainstream economics is incorrect, nor does it show that Rothbard's objection to mainstream microeconomics is correct. It just shows that there is some basis for disagreement between Austrian and standard theory, as the two start with different assumptions about what is reasonable to assume about utility theory. LK (talk) 05:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC) - Your analysis here is fallacious. What shows the mainstream incorrect is (as that parenthetical edit noted) that there are economically rational choice orderings to which even a weak quantification cannot be fit. (Which is shown by McCulloch as well as showing that there is difference between the notions of the two schools.) The economic mainstream has made a guess about the mathematics, which guess is incorrect.
- (It wasn't even a good guess. Mathematicians should have been expected to long ago have noted that total ordering were sufficient for quantification if such were true.)
- Certainly the weak quantifications could be supported by some assumption other than the falsified assumption that total ordering were sufficient. But such assumptions need to be clearly acknowledged and would subject the mainstream to a line of Ockhamistic critique. (And of course persisting use of the term “ordinal” would become a source of embarassment, a reminder of an earlier confusion, regardless of any prerogative to redefine words.)
- As I stated above, “I trust that you have not misrepresented Caplan”. If Caplan's criticisms were more modest — declared to be a response to the specific views of Murray Rothbard rather than to the Austrian School more generally — then the section needs to be rewritten and may not be appropriate to this particular article.
- As to whether Rothbard were correct, you ought to have read more carefully what I wrote earlier. As I noted, “various Austrian School economists get some things right and some things very wrong with respect to these different notions” and “Economics — both mainstream and Austrian School — desperately needs a proper critique”, but we lack a “reliable” source here, and “absenting that, we'd be awash in original synthesis if we handled this issue in an otherwise proper way”.
- I will say (on this Talk page rather than in the article) that the general tendency is for the mainstream to think that they are making weaker assumptions than they are, and for the Austrian School to think that the mainstream is making stronger assumptions than it is. —SlamDiego←T 23:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
- BTW, I do not regularly follow this article or its talk page, so if someone wants a timely response from me then he or she should wave me down on my own talk page. —SlamDiego←T 03:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
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- As I read the McCulloch article, it showed that there are economically sensible (I'll avoid "rational") preferences to which even a weak quantification cannot be fit. Once you actually look at the kinds of choices those preferences induce, they appear to be the same thing you'd get out of a standard quasiconcave utility function. I'm not sure if that's just McCulloch's illustrations, but I'm far from convinced there's any implications of this more roundabout-but-mathematically-pure way of modeling things. Diving into this would be WP:OR of course, so I think we need to stick to a "he said"/"he said" approach. (From my point of view arguments about how nice it is to avoid cardinality are pretty silly if you adopt cardinality wholesale once uncertainty enters the picture.) CRETOG8(t/c) 03:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
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- (I'm using “economically rational” as per the standard definition. Frankly, I wish that this weren't the standard term, it only works as a name, and not as a description. The assumption(s) that distinguish(es) it from rationality more generally is/are not peculiarly economic. The problem with “economically sensible” is that it isn't a standard name, and isn't very helpful as a description.)
- The fact that many major results are the same with and without quantification is to be expected; were that not so, then one of the schools would have fallen earlier, and distinction would have been plainer to the neoclassicals sooner. But there are other results of quantification that are less subject to potential empirical falsification, and overlooking assumptions as such leaves one unaware that there has already been a stretch before some further or stronger assumption is made.
- Indeed, to whatever degree quantification is jointly adopted later, to deal with uncertainty or for some other purpose, arguments over it at an earlier stage would seem to be moot. But, on the other hand, not everyone accepts something such as EU maximization. (In particular, EU maximization, which is the mainstream model of choice under uncertainty, does not fit the behavior of real persons, and runs into major difficulties as a normative theory.) And I would not think it advisable to call the level of quantification then required wholesale “cardinality”, as some mainstream sources thus call this degree of quantification “ordinal”, as does not need quantification unique beyond an affine transformation, and isn't sufficient for interpersonal comparison. (Really, the neoclassicals have totally clobbered-up the nomenclature here.) —SlamDiego←T 04:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Problems with reversions I notice that one editor with a couple of others has done much reverting on this article of sourced material and referred to socks very often as a catchall to reverting sourced information. Whether or not socks are involved is an issue, but they may be or may not be. Before getting revert happy in a pov sort of way as this self described expert editor is doing, I suggest that if a sock is suspected then it be brought to an investigation, because it could well be just another editor that does not endorse or consider themselves a proponent of mainstream as Lawrence Khwoo does according to his user page as to wanting to present mainstream views. This is just pointing about editing issues here in a Wikipedia:Call a spade a spade way, though recently L.K. has accused me of making personal attacks on him which I have not done. There is a difference as to pointing something out. WP:Wikilawyering about socks can quickly get caught in meaningless loops of muddle which only slow things down (whatever the hoped for outcome). With editors still fixated on notions of "mainstream," as ever, there is nothing in Wikipedia policy that says articles are meant or need to put forth a "mainstream" outlook. What some editors don't understand is that readers (often the kind who check out what WP has to say on a topic) aren't fooled for long by articles with oddly narrow outlooks and sourcing but rather, more often than not, it only stirs them up to look elsewhere. If there is an ax grinding and limiting aspect in articles that is not good, and if people removed good sourced information because they disagree with it, that is not good either. Crusading aspects of truth giving is not good. skip sievert (talk) 16:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC) - I assume Skip is talking about this reversion by LK. Skip and I then went back and forth on reversions ourselves and, as of this writing, it's back to the version by the suspected sock. There is a particular banned user who makes a habit of creating socks and editing these articles. LK has, as near as I can tell, been very good about recognizing and reverting those socks. He placed a tag on the talk page of the suspected sock puppet. He explained the reversion in the edit summary. All of this seems in order to me, and has nothing to do with the POV of LK or the suspected sock.
- Skip also nearly accused me of being a meat puppet.
- Skip, if you like the changes, you can certainly restore them, and then they are your edits rather than the suspected sock's. If LK's suspicions turn out to be wrong, the accused sock can certainly complain. If you think LK is abusing the sock identification, you can ask an admin for help.
- So, there are various courses of action: You can claim an edit as your own, or you can formally request someone stop LK's use of sock identification. I think reverting a banned user's contributions makes perfect sense, and I've been impressed with LK's ability to identify this particular banned editor so far.
- What you shouldn't do is accuse LK and myself of editing in bad faith. CRETOG8(t/c) 21:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
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- I don't really care about your faith, good or bad. Skip and I then went back and forth on reversions ourselves and, as of this writing, it's back to the version by the suspected sock. No it is my version. There is a particular banned user who makes a habit of creating socks and editing these articles. LK has, as near as I can tell, been very good about recognizing and reverting those socks. He placed a tag on the talk page of the suspected sock puppet. He explained the reversion in the edit summary. All of this seems in order to me, and has nothing to do with the POV of LK or the suspected sock.... that may be.. but when I reverted I did claim the edit. So your argument does not really make sense. Also if a supporter of mainstream is constantly getting rid of criticism of mainstream it is bound to bring up questions. Also, if L.K. suspects socks, then it is probably a good idea to start an investigation, instead of depending on whether you think he is good at identifying socks or not. Also when two editors work together in a pattern of reverts it seems logical that conclusions may be drawn as to acting together pov wise. skip sievert (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Regarding the version. here's the diff from before LK's revert to after your revert. There is no difference, so what I wrote is correct. Now, if in your edit summary, you had written "I like these edits, restoring them" or something like that to claim them as your own, I would not have gotten involved. Instead you wrote "Tossing around sock too much. If so prove please. Otherwise stop reverting." in reverting LK and "No more tandem editing please by mainstream proponents. That is a no no." in reverting me. These edit summaries read very clearly as not being about the content of the article, but rather about what you characterize as misbehavior on our parts. CRETOG8(t/c) 01:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Let's just accept those edits as Skip's edits, and leave it at that, since he likes them so much that he is willing to essentially edit war over them. That's not to say that they will stay up forever. As I noted before, the lead is in serious need of trimming. LK (talk) 02:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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- I trimmed a large section of lead that did not really go anywhere or do anything in particular, and also got rid of a disputed citation/ref, and also copy edited the lead for clarity. Lets not use the term edit war. That is not good. skip sievert (talk) 03:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
The lead/was should/not be so long and rambling as to critical perspective of mainstream as regards Austrian. I removed a mainstream critique which is a pov from the lead as not pertinent here. Putting in the weight of mainstream is not called for in the lead. This article is about Austrian economics and the focus can be about the subject in the lead and not a view about critical points so prominent right up front. It was almost like putting a disclaimer in the lead about the whole subject. skip sievert (talk) 16:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC) - I note that your recent edit did not properly balance the lead. According to the Manual of Style, the lead should summarize the body. Please include in the lead the main themes from the body according to the weight they have in the body. Please remove from the lead anything not mentioned with enough weight in the body. LK (talk) 05:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- There is no point in making the lead into a critique of the subject from the view point of so called mainstream, except by a sentence maybe. Also you wholesale revert editors, with no authority recently and in the past on this article. A topic ban of editing economic articles may be in order. If you are serious about investigating socks then do it but do NOT use this as an editing tool. Wikipedia is NOT a battleground.skip sievert (talk) 13:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- The article is about the Austrian School, not Austrian school (criticism), it shouldn't be a WP:Coatrack for criticisms of the Austrian school, nor should the MoS be used as a means to make that happen. Morever, there is nothing in en.Wikipedia policy that says articles should carry a "mainstream outlook": The only way I've seen the fuzzy, overwrought, almost meaningless word mainstream brought up in policy is at Wikipedia:RS, which only talks about a topic being notable if it has been noted in "mainstream academic discourse" along with "mainstream sources" as being reliable, which are not at all the same things. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- NPV demands that the majority viewpoint and all reasonable sourced criticisms of the minority viewpoint appear on the page. See the 'Undue weight' and 'Giving equal validity' sections in the WP:NPV policy page. A relevant paragraph is:
- In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, the views may receive more attention and space. However, such pages should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view, and that it is in fact a minority view. The majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader may understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding parts of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained.
- Additionally, the MOS specifies that the lead reflects the body. Currently, it does not. There are things that appear in the lead that are not in the body, those should be moved to the body. And there are issues raised in the article that are not summarized in the lead. These need to be included. This includes the mainstream majority viewpoint about Austrian school theories.
- LK (talk) 14:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Try putting any sourced criticisms in their own section, summarizing that with a sentence or two in the lead. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:41, 6 October 2009 (UTC) - I gave it one sentence with a ref/note and citation as to that now in the lead. Since you are a proponent (L.K.) according to your user page of mainstream economics and its portrayal, and seem to edit with a pov that affirms that conflict of interest on articles that relate to or are related to economics, and also use editing tools in my view wrongly, and make false edit summaries such as socks for an excuse to maintain certain pov edits (without knowing if that is the case) on certain pages such as this one, I do believe that a topic ban on editing economics related articles may be in order, at least for a time, as you show no slow up in that regard. It is noted that mainstream carries no weight. R.s. carry weight as does neutral pov. Trying to make articles into other topics is not called for. Making an article about Austrian economics into a review and critique to a pov about mainstream or Keynes versions of economics with that large section in the lead is disruptive, it has been pointed out as such, and continuing to call other edits socks is not suggested unless under investigation, they turn out to be. skip sievert (talk) 14:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- The above is a personal attack. You have just accused me of placing my own interests above that of Wikipedia, of abusing my rollback privileges, of knowingly mis-identifying as a sock an innocent user, of lying in my edit summaries, of pushing a POV and of disruptive editing. I ask again that you stop your personal attacks. Note that the username of User:KeynesianLeninistCensors gives him away as a KiK sock. Also note this, his second edit on Wikipedia. It is implausible that a new editor will leave as an edit comment, an insult about another editor that he has purportedly never interacted with. That this is a KiK sock should be obvious to anyone who makes a cursory review. I would like an apology Skip, or at least an admission that you were wrong. LK (talk) 15:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Sorry, but I do see a pattern and Wikipedia:Call a spade a spade is allowed. Users often cite policies, like our policy against personal attacks and our policy against incivility, not to protect themselves from personal attacks, but to protect their edits from review. I am now trying to kindly inform you of that. skip sievert (talk) 15:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- (edit conflict) Good faith assertions that an editor has gone beyond the bounds of policy and guidelines are not personal attacks. Please don't call them personal attacks.
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- As for the socking, there is no need to put up with it at all and LK is within policy when he reverts straightforward socks, but editors should be aware, a) they can restore the edits if they themselves are willing to stand by them and b) single purpose socking like that is so disruptive, it can and often does come from the other side of the PoV towards which it edits, as a sneaky way to "discredit" that very PoV. I've seen this happen time and again on controversial/contested topics.
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- Try a criticims section, put them all there and summarize that in the lead. There's nothing untowards about doing this and it skirts a lot of muddle. Again, the article is about the Austrian school, the article is not about its critics. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Now that he is presented with evidence, I would like an admission from Skip that he was wrong about the accusation he made against me. LK (talk) 15:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Evidence of what? I suggest you go to the sock review area and ask them what they think Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. I did not make an accusation, I tried to point out behavior according to my opinion. Would it not be appropriate to report people you believe are socks instead of just thinking they are or using that as an editing tool as in reverting? skip sievert (talk) 16:13, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
- I do think a CU on all these socks would be fitting. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- Given the obviousness in this case, I doubt if they would humor us. LK (talk) 18:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
- What do you mean? Gwen Gale (talk) 18:46, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
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- I mean that, because check user takes time and effort, it's only supposed to be used when there is some ambiguity over whether the accused in sock in question is actually a sock – usually when the accused sock protests that he/she is unrelated, and wants to continue editing. In this case, the evidence is already pretty overwhelming. LK (talk) 05:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] semi-protected I've semi-protected this article owing to the ongoing sockpuppetry. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC) - This is insane. Could you at least correct the obvious typo? Comma at the end of the intro should (obviously) be a full stop. Such obvious corrections should (obviously) not be reverted. At least by those without OCD issues, robotically applying revert rules without actually understanding WP policy in such cases. But then again, this kind of robotic thinking is the very reason why we're in the current economic mess, so it's hardly surprising such robotic editing occurs by mainstreamers on the AS page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.54.141 (talk) 12:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
- Begone. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:02, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
- Happy to do so - if you correct the typo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.54.141 (talk) 13:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
- Spare me and begone now. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Utility Gibberish Having read the bit about utility, I suggest removing or replacing the link "Why I am not an Austrian Economics", as it is a disservice to the wikipedia reader. That link sounds like illogical gibberish: "Rothbard [denies that] "...the ratio of the marginal utilities of the various goods equals the ratio of their prices..."... [he says] utilities are not quantities and therefore cannot be divided."[6] [Rothbard] does not understand the position he is attacking. The utility function approach is based ... squarely on ordinal utility" Either utilities are cardinal quantities (1.0, 2.718, 3.14, etc.) and one can divide by them, or they are ordinal rankings (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) and one cannot divide by them. One cannot meaningfully divide by a number when it is freely subjected to arbitrary monotonic transformations. Doubledork (talk) 18:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC) - Agreed. But mainstreamers are grabbing anything to throw at Rothbard and von Mises, and this is the best they've got. Try to delete it and see what happens.-TheMakianDistribution (talk) 09:34, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
- Just because you fail to understand the utility function concept, doesn't make it gibberish. (Even if you have someone who comes in to agree with you.) Caplan does not claim that mainstream economists endeavor to produce cardinal utilities, as you seem to assume. BigK HeX (talk) 22:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Boettke abandons "Austrian School" This post [2] on what was the "Austrian economists' web site announces that Boettke and his co-bloggers including Peter Leeson and Steve Horwitz, have abandoned the "Austrian School" description, saying "The name Austrian economics has been lost as a focal point for a tradition of economic scholarship, and is now a focal point for something else. We have to let it go." That means there is now no significant academic presence of self-identified Austrian economists. For the moment, I've added a sentence to the lead, but this event will require a fairly substantial reorientation of the article. JQ (talk) 03:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC) - Or it requires a more reliable source than a single blog post. Bastin 12:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
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- A blog post is a reliable source for the views of its author(s).JQ (talk) 11:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
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- But not for the claim above about "no significant academic presence of self-identified Austrian economists". I removed it from the lead-far too much weight for such an insignificant reference. Claim can be reworked if and when a WP:RS is produced to warrant discussing it in this article. Professor marginalia (talk) 17:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
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- The point about "no significant academic presence of self-identified Austrian economists" would need a WP:RS, which is why I didn't include it in the text I added to the article, but it is clearly true. GMU was the only economics department of any significance with a self-identified Austrian presence, and now it's gone. Deletion of the reliably sourced announcement by the GMU group that they've abandoned the term leaves the article (which relies heavily on them, and on their presence in the profession) in contradiction with the facts.JQ (talk) 18:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- This change in the name of the blog occurred just a few days ago. It isn't altogether clear that they've "abandoned the term" or whether they, in terms of their own academic work, have decided to "abandon the label". Most of these bloggers aren't on the GMU faculty-they're 5 of the more than 50 scholars associated with GMU affiliated Mercatus Center, a research center. Their views may signal the end of Austrian school economics in academia, but we are forced to wait for reliable sources to make such a pronouncement before we give it any weight here. It's an overstatement to say that this article makes any claims at all about the importance to give to the presence, influence, or self-identified affiliations of these bloggers to the overall status of Austrian school economics today. I will change the allusion to Boettke as an Austrian school economist-given the context of the statement, his affiliation isn't really relevant to the claim attributed to him there.Professor marginalia (talk) 19:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- Fair enough. I've also deleted references to GMU as a centre of Austrian economics until the situation is clearer. I added Auburn, which obviously is a significant centre for Austrians.JQ (talk) 06:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Analytical framework section The following statements are obviously not part of the Austrian analytical framework, but usual opinion of members, reasonable policy consequences of the theory, comparisons to other schools, or even open criticism. "However, Austrian economists often make policy recommendations that call for the elimination of government ... or laissez-faire liberal, fiscal conservative, and Objectivist groups for support." "Mainstream economists hold that conclusions that can be reached by pure logical deduction are limited and weak.[32]" "In this, their views do not differ far from those of the Chicago school." "Mainstream economists point out that this does not mean that society as a whole benefits, as there may be externalities that affect third parties not directly involved in the original transaction." "Critics of the Austrian school contend that by rejecting mathematics and econometrics, it has failed to contribute significantly to modern economics. Additionally, they contend that its methods currently consist of post-hoc analysis and do not generate testable implications; therefore, they fail the test of falsifiability.[5]" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krisztián Pintér (talk • contribs) 23:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC) - Unless the claims are faithfully sourced, they should come out. Any analysis that isn't explicitly furnished in the source doesn't belong.Professor marginalia (talk) 23:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
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- Unsourced controversial statements should be removed. However, remember the rule of Parity of Sources and NPV. When removing statements because they are unsourced or poorly sourced, make sure to remove all similarly unsourced statements, and not to bias the removal to favour any particular viewpoint. LK (talk) 15:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
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- i still believe that under the section describing the theory itself, criticism and comparisons are unwelcome. they have their own sections. it is like we said "hey, look, it is all crazy, but we must tell, so we do some funny faces while doing so". Krisztián Pintér (talk) 18:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
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- Perhaps that depends on how editors interpret guidelines, like this one:
- "In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, the views may receive more attention and space. However, such pages should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite content strictly from the perspective of the minority view....Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view."
- BigK HeX (talk) 21:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
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- it is very true about articles, but i'm talkig about a section. this article has a criticism section. my point is not the amount of criticism, nor its quality, but merely its placement. in an article about the USA, one may include that USA is criticized, by some, on its ongoing military involvement. but surely not in the "early history" or "culture" section. Krisztián Pintér (talk) 22:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
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- one more point: we are now talking about criticism, but my original point was broader. the section also contains comparisons, policy recommendations that are "often made", and other unrelated issues. 80.98.110.243 (talk) 23:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
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- Sounds like your concerns could easily be alleviated by changing the Title of that section from "Analytical Framework" into something more appropriate, which encompasses the current content. BigK HeX (talk) 00:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- I've changed it now. BigK HeX (talk) 00:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
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- well, i believe the article would be clearer and more well organized if not the title was changed to fit to the mixed content, but the content was improved to match the title. Krisztián Pintér (talk) 19:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Inflation, sound money I believe it would be good to add the definition of a sound money, as put by Murray Rothbard: generally marketable (non-monetary value), divisible, high value per unit weight, fairly stable value, durable, recognizable and homogenous. Gold satisfies all of these, and that is why Austrians usually prefer it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krisztián Pintér (talk • contribs) 23:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC) - I don't think that it's the most salient example of the Austrian school's push for "sound money"-these qualities gold has as a medium of exchange aren't as significant as the Austrian school's distrust of government and the risks it sees posed by government control over money supply. In other words, "sound money" in the Austrian school is concerned about government's power to print money, fractional reserve banking, etc than it is about the advantages of gold over other commodities like beads, shells, or copper. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
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- there are two things about gold standard: why not paper, and why gold. why not paper is what you are saying here. it is not satisfying the "fairly stable" requirement. but it leaves open the question why gold, and not something more modern. here i feel the need to clarify that Austrians do not have Gold Fetish, but actually have a rationale. More to that, they are open to other sound moneys, or the competition of currencies, as proposed by Ron Paul for example. Krisztián Pintér (talk) 22:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- Well currencies often can be more stable than gold prices, can't they? It depends - in any event, as the article is currently written, and what you've mentioned, is about the Austrians advocating a gold standard, which still uses a paper currency, does it not? So I think the focus on gold's durability over paper is missing the key point, which is that the Austrians don't like tying the money supply to the govts and central banks credit/debt creation etc. Am I wrong? Professor marginalia (talk) 04:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- no, theoretically paper can be more stable than gold, but we never saw such a case. if gold price fluctuates, it is most likely the paper that fluctuates, and so the relative price of gold. and no, in gold standard, the papers are just represents the gold, which is the actual currency. and of course yes, the point is that gold can not be created upon govt demand, only slowly, with hard work. so inflation is almost impossible to create. durability is minor issue, i'm not talking about that. Krisztián Pintér (talk) 19:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
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- "the Austrian school is concerned about government's power to print money, fractional reserve banking"
- Well ... that concern is pretty contradictory. One of the ironies of Austrian thinking... BigK HeX (talk) 20:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
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