Are You an Austrian?

Ludwig von Mises Institute ^

[logician2u]

Are You an Austrian?

Take the following quiz of 25 questions on economic issues (or go to truncated 10-question version). Click on the answer that most describes your view. You must answer all 25. Submit your quiz, and get your score emailed to you. There will be no follow up emails. (Q&A prepared with the assistance of Randall Holcombe, Peter G. Klein, Robert Murphy, D.W. MacKenzie, Joseph Stromberg, and Mark Thornton&?none of whom bear final responsibility for the answers.)

The method and scoring of the quiz will be revealed once you submit your answers. Essential sources for understanding the Austrian School intellectual framework are the Ten Must Haves from the Mises Institute catalog and the Austrian Study Guide. (Professors who want to use a version of this quiz in their classroom can email quiz manager.)

[logician2u]

As I say, I don't fully agree with most of the options, which makes it slow going.

As I said, "Many answers will seem reasonable to the average person, so read them all carefully and look for (sometimes subtle) differences."

As I should have added, "Many FReepers are way above the average person, so they will find many choices they don't agree with in every detail. Pick the one that's closest to what you believe is correct."

[logician2u]

As it happens, that was the question I had trouble on also.

After several read-throughs and still not comprehending, I finished the quiz and came back to it. " . . the government need not interfere with the market interest rate" seemed a little weak, so I went to Chicago -- a place I detest.

[Petronski]

I scored an 82, but upon review of my answers, I don't think I'd change a thing.

[logician2u]

Particularly interesting is that Keynesian and Socialist economic thought are only different to degrees.

There are some who would also contend that the so-called supply-siders are Keynesians turned inside out.

[Moonman62]

The idea of a quiz, I believe, is to awaken the latent Austrian in some of us who were otherwise unaware of the Austrian School.

Why should anyone associate with any particular school of thought, whether it is Austrian or Chicago? Ideology is one thing, but putting ideas into practice is another. There's a whole wealth of historical information on economic disasters and successes available for study. It's usually quite easy to see what went right and what went wrong, when one isn't tied to any particular school of thought. Different situations call for different reactions.

I almost never see anyone on FR identify themselves as Austrians or much less offer any type of economic solution for a particular situation. The best I can tell is that they would like to kill off half the population through some sort of economic catastrophe, so that the surviving, suposedly stronger and more capable half can live happily ever after. No wonder it appeals to the Libertarians.

Of course, if I'm wrong, you're going to provide an Austrian way to improve the economy without going through some extended period of human misery, right? The economic system we have now isn't perfect, but it does a pretty good job of providing opportunity and a comfortable life for those that live within it.

[logician2u]

It's getting late and I have other, more important things to do or I would be glad to respond to your ill-informed rant.

Perhaps another time.

[stck]

Great test!
Whether you agree with everything those economists stand for, or not, they do give reason to question certain economic answers deemed a given today..

They've already changed some of my views, and I'll continue to read myself into them.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

I never read anything about economics until after I retired.
Boring as hell for the most part, and unrelated to life's struggles. Heard of Friedman, as well as Mises, but no details on either. If I'm an Austrian, it's a natural homegrown opinion.

Free trade/Globalism "might" be a positive if all governments were like ours is supposed to be. (it's not)

What's happening currently appears to me that hostile nations are using the WTO and other treaties as weapons against us. I see whatever you want to call the current process as a very negative thing.

[KC Burke]

The Austrian school has many branches subsiquent to von Mises. The whole Chicago school of thought probably bears it as one parent. Hayek and Roepke, however, take that school as a basic starting point and then begin to show an economic theory that begins to dovetail to politics, morals, law, ethics, culture and society at large. Restricting oneself to classic Von Mises theory alone is probably not very thoughtful.

I know that bare bones libertarians hold him as a solitary source after Mill, but conservatives can still profit by looking at some of his thought.

Kirk held for Roepke, Reagan for Friedman, Thatcher for von Hayek and all in that list build upon von Mises basic theory.

But economic theory must mesh with principles of other disciplines as well and those that followed him took up that task. We aren't merely economic ciphers or units.

[MWS]

I scored a 96... thanks for the interesting quiz!

[AubreyHerbert]

Lew Rockwell is a national treasure and an American hero.

http://aubreyherbert.blogspot.com

[Liberal Classic]

Well, I, as a kick-ass-and-take-names libertarian, wouldn't go nearly that far. Soros can bite me.

[Eaker]

Place mark ping

[x]

Lew Rockwell is a national treasure and an American hero.

Looks like you've drunk the Kool Aid, and have probably paid for enough Mises Institute seminars that there's no point in arguing with you. But I do have to wonder about your choice of words. Rockwell's never seen a secessionist movement that he didn't like or a US foreign war that he did. How does a man who'd just as soon see the country dismembered and who has no objections to its being done violently qualify as a "national treasure"? How does a man who finds more to be said for our killing each other than for our defeating foreign enemies become an "American hero"?

I'm no fan of some of our foreign policies and wars, and I'm no expert on economics, but Rockwell is contemptable because of his "you can have it all" ideology. You can flirt with anarchy, yet pose as defenders of traditional values. You can deny the legitimacy of our government and advocate the break-up of our union, and nominate your leader as "a national treasure and an American hero." Government does indeed have consequences, so does having an army. Not all of these consequences are pleasant, and perhaps some can be avoided. But anarchy and "minarchy" and not having an army have consequences too, which may be equally bad or even worse, and Rockwell ignores such consequences. Sorry, but I'll pass on Dr. Rockwell's patent medicine feel-good cure-all.

[wideminded]

OK, I've never taken a course in economics and had no initial idea what the Austrian school was all about. At the risk of being permanently booted off of FR, I will admit my score: 50. I won't go into the breakdown except to state a point in my favor: I didn't select any of the "socialist" answers. :)

[solideogloria_em]

It was a very interesting & helpful quiz. I scored a 69 -- all Austrian & Chicago answers. I'm not studied as an economist, as my field is much more politics, but I'm interested in exploring the Austrian viewpoint, and I have friends who embrace this perspective. Some of the answers seemed to reflect a view more libertarian than conservative, hence my Chicago answers. Some questions did not have an option that accurately reflected my beliefs (which would fall somewhere between Chicago & Austrian) so I just picked the option that seemed closest to my viewpoint.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Ping

[xtra_terestrial]

I disagree with 2 of your thoughts. Subsidized research occurs through force. So, given that value is in the mind of the beholder (if you accepted that one) then regardless of the results that come from the research, the individual who was forced to support it will never value it more than what he would have used the resources taxed away from him. This also gets to the heart of what value is. And I would agree that one cannot put a number on value, only a greater/lesser relation holds. If I cannot quantify value, then how can I quantify what the results of this research are. The other part is the "what is seen and what is not seen". However much good might have resulted from sending men to the moon must be compared to what those resources might have been used for had people been able to choose freely.

Secondly, I do not value equality. To do so, would imply that the best of all worlds would be to clone me or you and have a world of identical people, with identical outcomes etc. Yes this is extreme, but I prefer everyone to be different. And the division of labor would seem to benefit by inequality.


I got 84 even though I could have scored 100, since I know the standard Austrian responses. I just don't entirely agree. I don't think that that postulate/theorm/proof logic is non-mathematical (and Austrians are always bad mouthing anything to do with math). And I especially don't trust a system where everything depends on the postulates. Since they are givens, they can be anything you want at all. They don't have to apply to anything. However, Austrians seem to take for granted that their postulates are the "right" ones for human action in the real world. But I do think they think pretty logicially, given the givens they begin with.

[Elliott Jackalope]

I got 84/100. I guess that makes me a subscriber to the Austrian school of economics.