Every once in a while I get this sudden urge to smash my fist into a nestfull of Rothbardian hornets, as I did with my last blog, causing a cloud of them from the EconPolicyJournal.com hive to rush to the defense of the Queen Wasp. As the venom of vespa rothbardbro has a curious molecular struture that may interest students of economic entomology, I here offer some samples from among those I garnered by means of my brave sacrifice to the cause of science:
“George Selgin has the mind of a child. I am almost embarrassed for him. It comes from hiding in a University environment where you don’t ever have to grow up and be an adult in the real world so you can spend your life as a freakish governemnt (aka, mommy-n-daddy) worshiper. It sometimes is appealing…Especially with the young coeds.”
“Rothbard’s writings are as popular as ever, and we can all learn from them. Friedman’s book sales are pretty much limited to required readings that appear on reading lists of Keynesian [!] economics professors.”
“Selgin is dealing in the never, never land where accurate price indexes and productivity levels can apparently be determined with the snap of a finger. In other words, Selgin’s monetary policy prescription can’t be executed in the real world. It is fairy tale stuff.”
“Check out that blog of Selgin’s. Fractional Banking. IP-socialism. Attacks on LRC “cult”. Attacks on Rothbard and Rockwell. Koch economists.”
“Here is Selgins’s “sophisticated” and “non-naive” version of the “Austrian” credit cycle theory: ‘many Keynesians might accept the framework of monetary equilibrium offered by me. Those who do not regard liquidity trap as important factual possibility would probably accept it as entirely adequate’ (Theory of Free Banking, p. 59).”
“There are no “policies” in a free market. Readjust your premises.”
“Your criticism of Rothbard is desperate and reeks of nothing but mindless antagonism.”
“Did you know that your name is constantly used as a straw man by anti-Austrian Keynesians and other statists who say things like “Even George Selgin agrees with me.”? It’s people like you who are hampering change for the better. You compromising fools perpetuate the very systems you claim to be against, and you don’t even know it, because you’re too busy worrying about tenure and being accepted by the establishment.”
“Someone who manages to tell you in line one that he was debating “Lord xyz…” and in his concluding lines disses you and the blog with the condescension befitting one who banters with the British upper-crust, should maybe know the difference between elicit and illicit?” (NB: I did indeed type “illicited” in my original post. You can’t be too careful.)
Being only a field researcher I must leave it to others to determine the precise damage done to me by all this poison. But for whatever the amateur observation may be worth, I’m feeling perfectly chipper.
Addendum. I somehow overlooked the following barb, which deserves a place of honor among the others:
“I knew Selgin was a fruit loop when he denied Austrian methodology and epistemology by ignoring inevitable unintended consequences and the violation of subjective value theory with his central bank efficiency policy recommendations.”
I’m not sure just how I violated subjective value theory, but if I did I hope that the right sort of counseling will help it to recover from the trauma.
