AERC 2024 Mises Institute

Recorded at the Austrian Economics Research Conference, 23 March 2024, in Auburn, Alabama.

The Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture. Sponsored by Yousif Almoayyed.
Recorded at the Austrian Economics Research Conference, 22 March 2024, in Auburn, Alabama. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno.

The Murray N. Rothbard Memorial Lecture. Sponsored by Steven and Cassandra Torello.
 
Recorded at the Austrian Economics Research Conference, 22 March 2024, in Auburn, Alabama. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno and an audience question and answer period. 

Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture. Sponsored by Shone and Brae Sadler.
Recorded at the Austrian Economics Research Conference, 22 March 2024, in Auburn, Alabama. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno.
Lecture Text: 
Thank you, Joseph, for your kind introduction and thank you, Shone and Brae Sadler, for your generous sponsorship in making this event possible. It is a pleasure and personal honor to be invited to deliver this Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture titled “Ayn Rand and the Austrian Economists” at the Mises Institute’s Austrian Economics Research Conference.
Henry Hazlitt is one of my favorite writers on economics and ethics. His thoughtful, incisive, and influential writings are marked by his clarity of style and logical analysis. Both Henry Hazlitt and Ayn Rand could really write. Hazlitt’s non-fiction books, Economics in One Lesson and Foundations of Morality, along with his novel, Time Will Run Back, complement Ayn Rand’s ideas in her books such as The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and Atlas Shrugged. In their philosophical, political, and economic views, Hazlitt and Rand largely agree, as they make the same points in different ways with respect to the virtue of the free market as the path to prosperity and happiness. Also, they were friends in their personal lives. In addition, Henry Hazlitt and I had a great friend in common in the late, well-respected and greatly-loved Austrian economist, Bill Peterson.
I am excited to be here to give this talk on Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard and how their ideas may be complementary to the essential ideas of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Perhaps I will be able to provide some new insights to you. We’ll see!
Like my recently deceased friend, Sam Bostaph, I have great admiration for the ideas of Carl Menger. I will begin by discussing some of Menger’s key ideas and comparing them with those of Ayn Rand. I will then repeat this process with the fundamental ideas of Mises and Rothbard. I will conclude with an overall assessment with respect to the potential compatibility of Austrian economics and Objectivism.
Carl Menger (1840-1921) began the modern period of economic thought and provided the foundation for the Austrian School of Economics in his two books, Principles of Economics (1871) and Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences with Special Reference to Economics (1883). In these books Menger destroyed the existing structure of economic science, including its theory and methodology, and put it on totally new foundations.
Menger was a realist who said that we could know the world through both common sense and scientific method. Menger was committed to finding exact laws of economics based on the direct analysis of concrete phenomena that can be observed and characterized with precision. He sought to find the necessary characteristics of economic phenomena and their relationships. He also heralded the advantages of verbal language over mathematical language in that the former can express the essences of economic phenomena, which is something that mathematical language cannot do.
Menger viewed exchange as the embodiment of the essential desire and search to satisfy individual human needs. It follows that the intersection between human needs and the availability of goods capable of satisfying those needs is at the root of economic activity. Emphasizing human uncertainty, error, and the time-consuming nature of economic processes, Menger was concerned with the information content of economic choices and the process of acquiring information in order to increase the well-being of economic actors.
As this talk will demonstrate, Carl Menger’s writings are the closest to Randian doctrines that have ever emanated from any economist. It will follow that we should read and reread his great books and share them with our friends and students.
Aristotelian philosophy was at the root of Menger’s framework

The Friedrich A. Hayek Memorial Lecture. Sponsored by Donald and Judy Rember. 
 
Recorded at the Austrian Economics Research Conference, 22 March 2024, in Auburn, Alabama. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno.