Monday, December 19, 2005

The Birth of AngloAustria

Hello, and welcome to my personal blog covering all matters Austrian, from an English perspective. I'm hoping that this blog could evolve into some sort of staging post for those of us on this side of the pond, who feel a little isolated from the mainstream Austrian school in the US. My inspiration is Ludwig von Mises, and his Institute founded by Lew Rockwell, at http://www.mises.org. My main influences are Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Though for light entertainment I'll occasionally try a little Hayek, with a few water biscuits, some Stilton, and a glass of port. Not too much, you understand, because he was of course, a socialist. Though not as much of a socialist as his great friend, Karl "Piece-meal" Popper. Welcome to AngloAustria. Auf wieder hören.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Splendid... duly added to our sidebar.

Anonymous said...

As a fellow Anglo-Austrian I duly welcome your arrival, but I have to ask: if Rand, Rothbard and Hoppe are your biggest influences then why claim "Misesian views"?

Jack Maturin said...

What? You mean there's two of us? Thank the Lord. I thought I was the only one, amongst 60 million. It's good to know one is not alone, at least in the non-Descartesian sense. I'll get your site up on the Blogroll, before you can 'Javascript'.

If in the future you feel like writing anything Anglo-Austrian which is out of line with your blog's themes, please don't hesitate to consider sending it here, especially if it fits squarely within our guidelines.

Economic articles on the financial phenomenon of Wayne Rooney, and his importance to British state power via his influence on English Nationalism (i.e. England winning the next World Cup), would be particularly welcomed.

if Rand, Rothbard and Hoppe are your biggest influences then why claim "Misesian views"

If I contributed towards a religious blog and then claimed that my biggest influences were Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and Thomas More, which other major historical figure would you assume I held to be above these three, without my needing to state it explicitly?

a) Christ
b) Mohammed
c) Buddha

To me Mises fits into the same kind of category as someone above needing to be mentioned, however, my views are not identical to his, in the way that my views would be identical to Ayn Rand's, if I was one of her Objectivists. Which is why, I think, we have to explain exactly what kind of Misesian we are, by explaining our major influences.

Thankfully, the difference between cultist religion and Misesian Austrianism, is that valid criticisms of the work of revered figures such as Mises, are welcomed, to help develop Austrianism further towards the goal of truth. Like the evenly rotating economy, we will probably never reach the final truth, unless like Buddha we approach some kind of transcendental Nirvana, but the main reason I am an Austrian is because I feel it is closer to the truth than any other way of thinking, and unlike most other ways of thinking, e.g. Marxism, is always striving to reach closer to that truth.

Which is something I always find peculiar about the Marxists. They accept the idea of the Hegelian dialectic, as a route to the truth, but in a magnificent example of doublethink assume the dialectic conflict process stopped with the emergence of Das Kapital. With all this mental incoherence they suffer from, it is no wonder they can't even keep the shops in potatoes, whenever we are foolish enough to let them be in charge.

Anonymous said...

But if Mises is Christ, then what of Carl Menger?

St John the Baptist, perhaps....

Jack Maturin said...

I think that would be stretching an analogy perhaps a little too far. Besides, I put Mises in the position of God, rather than a prophet of God, though not an uncritical position, as I said earlier. Actually I suppose we could use the Greek pantheon. So that makes Mises Zeus, which puts Menger into the position of Cronos. So where does that leave Boehm-Bawerk? I suppose he can be Zeus's elder brother, Hades, though this isn't nice and Hades' other name, Pluto the rich one, is plain silly so maybe we should make him the other elder brother, Poseidon, instead. What about Rothbard? Let's go for Apollo for Rothbard, a son of Zeus and the God of intellectual inquiry. And Hoppe? Hmmm. Tricky. Let's go for Hermes, the messenger of truth, another son of Zeus and a grandson of Atlas, which gets a nice Randian link in there, for fun. As for the Titans? Well, I'm sure we could squeeze John Locke and the Spanish Scholastics in there, if we needed to. Handy things classical Pantheons. Infinitely adaptable. Did you know Apollo started off as a miniscule mouse God, associated with healing, and then moved on to become the primary Sun God above all others? Fascinating story behind Apollo, perhaps the most interesting of all the Greek Gods, and certainly the most complicated.

Anonymous said...

Hi
Ever heard of the Anglo-Austrian Society?
www.angloaustrian.org.uk
let me know and maybe we can hook up links somehow
Are you in the USA?
figarosfancies@postmaster.co.uk