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Date: | Sun Oct 15 12:59:26 2006 |
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Pat Gunning wrote: "Menger, Mises, Hayek, Kirzner, and
Lachmann would have regarded themselves as
economists."
Let me testify that they are economists. I came to
think that they had depth and breadth of knowledge and
they had profound understanding. Their misfortune is
largely of their own making. They choose to make
themselves inaccessible to the ordinary readers by
their never-ending philibustering and ear-splitting
jargon, and served to alienate themselves by a
readiness to attack instead of to attract potential
recruits.
Having lost all faith in mainstream banality, I went
to NYU at the age of 33 with the hope of getting some
answers from the Austrian School, only to find a cult
atmosphere of some andh-bhakt (Hindi for blind
followers)who would not tolerate any questions. Ten
years later, I left. My dissertation reached an
Austrian conclusion (that new knowledge is the
necessary and sufficient condition for economic
development) from within a strictly noeclassical
format (Samuelson's 2x2x2 trade model), also exposing
the utter banality of Lewis, Becker, Todaro, Solow and
Lucas. I made plenty of enemies on both aisles by
marrying the odd couple.
The tragedy is that these authors have valid substance
but no form, so that nobody can readily see what it
is: it is amorphous. The neoclassical school has good
form but no substance. In my own little way, I tried
to pour the substance of Menger-Mises-Kirzner in a
bottle of Leontief, producing a concoction that
pleases nobody.
Shall we drink to that, no?
Mohammad Gani
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