On 5/20/2014 7:07 AM, Robert Leeson quoted:
> Austrians have framed Friedman ("fascist"), Pigou
> ("communist spy"), Phillips ("underground communist") and
> Keynes (a “Godhating, principle-hating, State-loving
> homosexual pervert”; Keynesians have “pushed the world
> into evil, and therefore toward God’s righteous
> judgment”).


Are you proposing Gary North as a representative "Austrian"?
I don't think his association with the Ludwig von Mises
Institute, however regrettable it might be, earns him that
honor.

I largely agree with Eloy: the posted project outline struck
my ears as a near-comical call for the promotion of ad
hominem and guilt by association, not like a proposal for
historical investigation.  Of course that may not be the
project's intent; it may just reflect a desire to present it in
a provocative and combative way.

I would like to stress that I am not suggesting that a project
that asks why cranks are attracted to certain kinds of ideas
need be without merit, as long as there is no presumption that
the attraction of cranks to an idea implies that it is
a crank idea.  I also think that it can be reasonable to
document the moral failings of a writer, especially one who
seems to attract hagiography.  So I would not suggest that
Hayek's involvement with Pinochet or von Mises brief praise
of fascism are not fair topics for discussion, as long as
the discussion acknowledges that lapses in moral judgment do
not immediately translate into general theoretical error.

Although I was mostly amused, I did find offensive the
apparent suggestion that historians of economics might be
qualified to diagnose mental disease, and the apparent
implication that such diagnoses could shed light on the
quality of theory produced by a mind.  It may be worth
recalling that a very well-deserved "Nobel Prize in
Economics" was awarded to a man whose struggles with serious
mental illness are a matter of record.

Cheers,
Alan Isaac