Reviving the Austrian School

0:00Well, Professor Rittner, it's a pleasure to have you here. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here, Jeff. You're here for the Austrian Scholars Conference. I am indeed. And you teach at Grove City College, a place with a great heritage in the Austrian tradition. That's right. And of course, most people, if they know of Grove City, know about Hans Sennholz, who was there for, oh goodness, from the 1950s, I think, retired in 1992 and established a great Austrian tradition there. Yeah. How many students are at Grove City? Right around 2,500.

0:46Okay. And most professors complain about their students. I've never heard you complain about yours. No, you have not. We're very pleased. Typically, we get really certainly bright students. And the econ majors that we get are not just bright but interested in economics, economics that is relevant for the real world, economics from a praxeological, Misesian perspective. And they just eat it up. We have four students, four economics majors here at the conference with us. Yeah. Well, actually, we didn't bring them with them. They decided they're going to have a road trip and come down themselves. When students enter as freshmen or maybe when they come to you as majors, as sophomores or juniors, are they already aware of the Misesian connections with Grove City?

1:35I would say most of them are. Not all of them. Some really don't – what they know about economics is what they learn in high school. And so they come and then are surprised that that economics can be this relevant and this real when you base it on human action. But a lot of them do. A lot of them come to Grove City. They sort of self-select. They want to come here. It's often that we talk to prospective students when they're still in high school. They call and ask for information about the econ program. They've heard we're Austrian. They want to know, are we really Austrian or are we just sort of Austrian in name? Yeah, funny. Interesting. And the connection to Mises is interesting. Margit, I guess, And they gave or sold the Mises' papers to Grove City. So you have a large collection of Mises' own papers, their original papers.

2:26That's exactly right. Yes, we've got the Mises archive that's housed in the library, and it's a treasure trove of, you know, his papers that were written in correspondence primarily during his time in America. Yes, right. So none of the German stuff, but which, you know, we have all the upstairs. I sometimes take visitors and they say that we want to see Mises' papers before he came to the United States. I show them what it is. It's this tiny little old world printing. It's, you know. Right. Yes. Yes. They don't spend a lot of time. It was nice to look at, but yeah. It was I don't really understand it. Apparently, only Guido Holtzman can read it. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Is Grove City still independent? Yes. Yes, fiercely so. In fact, there's the president is giving a sort of a hosting an event this next week on the Supreme Court case that sort of revolved around Grove City College not accepting government grants and or student loans so that we can remain fiercely

3:28independent and not have to, not be in danger of the level of government intervention and education that other schools that take government money would be under. Now, do you have any students from Grove City's program who are right now in graduate school? Yes. We have... Well, wait a minute. I don't know if we have... I don't know if we have any right now. We have some that are currently applying. We just have one that just recently graduated with a Ph.D. from Ohio State University, Lucas Engelhardt. He just finished, okay. And then we've had a number of students that have matriculated through master's programs. A lot of students that come, they end up in graduate school but they go to law school.

4:16That's sort of what they know that they want to do when they come through here. So we've had a pretty large number. In fact, interestingly enough, there's a student that I think he would have majored in economics if he had discovered economics until – before he was a junior in college. Now that time was sort of too late to get all the credits in, but he subsequently went on to Penn State, the law school at Penn State, and has written a law review article that got published dealing with applying the praxeology to inheritance law that is now in the legal literature. So that's pretty exciting. And I did an independent study with him on applying praxeology to the various legal theories

5:30I have a professor here, a professor there that's sort of interested in Austrian economics, but we have people that begin their theory classes in principles of micro, principles of macro, foundations of economics, beginning with human action, and we just teach, well, this is what economics is. And then we get into the ... I teach the intermediate micro and macro sequence, and there we look at the broader ... What is the broader profession of economics? What do they think about price theory? We talk about neoclassical price theory. We talk about the vast number of perspectives on macroeconomics, and so we learn them all, but we learn to evaluate them from the perspective of praxeological economics. And we don't have to try to sort of tack on a little bit of Misesian economics to sort of band-aid over this gaping wound of modern economics.

6:26The students come in understanding the way the economy really works. And so then, when they're presented with the Keynesian system or the monetarist system, they can immediately see, well, there's parts of this that just isn't right, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel every single class that we talk about. And then, of course, the myriad of other electives that we teach, from comparative economic systems to money and banking to American economic history or the history of economic thought, and the Austrian content just sort of permeates the entire curriculum. So if you're interested in Misesian economics, Grove City is a place to come for undergraduate economics for sure. Do people come up to you at this conference and say, Sean, you're living the dream? Not as many as should. I mean, I feel like it.

7:11I'm having a great time. They're paying me for doing what I love. We have good students and Grove City is a lovely town. It's small towny. actually when I first got the job I was a little bit later I think I'm going to Pennsylvania it's for you know quite a bit farther east but it really feels like a Midwestern it you know I for you forget how wide Pennsylvania is and by Midwestern you mean good exactly yes yes Midwestern in the in the good sense the way I was brought up in the Midwest and so you know so a small-towny neighborhood oriented hi how you doing that kind of thing right right now it wasn't too long I recall a while ago that you were a graduate student at Auburn University. Yes. I remember these days well. I do too. It was hard to see you go.

7:56But in a very quick period of time, you're at Grove City and I gather you're planning to stay there for a while. Yes. Yeah. I have no intention. That's Hans-Holstein Holtz did for so many years. Yes. Yes, indeed. He said he knew his time to retire only when he was getting students saying, you didn't teach my parents, but you taught my grandparents economics at Grove City. So, okay, that's it. I recall that Gary North once wrote, I think it was an article, maybe it was just a speech, where he talked about the way to leave a legacy is to find a place where you're going to make it a permanent home for yourself. Oh, I think there's something to that because there's part of the academic culture where there's a certain inertia. And so it takes a number of years to actually have some type of vision develop.

8:45Because in some sense, the reviving of the Austrian tradition didn't start with me. It really started in 97 when they hired Jeff Herbner. And then he contacted me and then I came on board. So he was there in 97. I came on board in 2001. And then it was another two or three years before we got the Austrian Student Scholars Conference going. So these things just take time. And if, let's say, I'm in one place for four years and somebody else for four years and somebody else for four years, you didn't have the time to really develop the sort of the institutional momentum, I guess. Trevor Burrus And the Austrian Student Scholars Conference occurred two weeks ago. Robert McLean Yes. Yeah, roughly. Yeah, two, three weeks ago. Trevor Burrus It's a kind of miniature version of this. Robert McLean Yes. That's right. I mean it's modeled after the Austrian Scholars Program designed for undergraduate and graduate students and it's been great. This is – I think it was the sixth or seventh conference we've had. It

9:41is the largest that we've had. We've had something like 30 – over 30 papers and we've had – we had people from many different countries that presented, from many different universities and colleges. It was just really, really, really great. And these things do have a momentum, don't they? They develop a reputation and start achieving a certain status and people aspire to give papers there and that sort of thing. Standards are always going up all the time. Oh, yes. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've been really pleased with how it's grown and Development. Well, you know, it's interesting. When I think about this, 20 years ago, something like an Austrian Student Scholars Conference was inconceivable. Now, it's... Oh, I know. It's like the industry standard. Yeah, the industry standard. That's right. Now, speaking of, you have a new book. Well, it's not quite new. It came out, I guess, last year.

10:32January 2010, yes. Yeah. And the title? The title is Foundations of Economics. And it's marketed mainly to a kind of private school, religious school market. Yeah, yeah. I was asked, I was sort of commissioned, if you will, by a successful Christian entrepreneur to write a free market economics text, introductory free market text from a Christian perspective that would then be likely to be adopted in mostly private, but Christian schools, colleges. High schools and colleges. Basically, colleges was sort of the initial vision. And so that's what I did. I wrote a principles text. The main goal is to teach students economics and then also have them understand that there's nothing in scripture that's contradictory with good economics. We don't have to be sort of hold it at arm's length, say, well, this is about worldly things, you know, that kind of stuff. So it took me—I think I was talking to somebody—it took me at least four and a half or five years to write the

11:36to Manuscript. No, but it's a gigantic book actually. That's 564 pages and you know, it's one of those things if he said—if he would have said upfront, said, I want you to write this book but it has to be 564 pages, I would have said, no, I don't think I'm your man. But you know, as it just sort of—you just start writing and you have this vision for what you would think a body of economics—an introductory body of economics would be and it just sort of—the size sort of determines itself. I'm not sure if I told you this but a number of people have mentioned to me who have read that they were impressed at the writing style and at the rigor of the logic and that everybody likes it a lot. Well, thank you. I'm gratified. Yeah. Do you know how it's doing? Is it being adopted?

12:21It's being adopted some. I don't have the most up-to-date figures. My temptation is to be sort of like the numbers hound, you know, every week calling, what are the numbers like this week? and the New York Times. What are the numbers like this week? Yeah, exactly. And I know that I will finally have made it when I get denounced by Paul Krugman on his blog. Of course, we can always dream. That's right. But it was doing okay. I think as of May, I mean I use it in my classes. Dr. Herbner used it in his classes. I get corresponded from other professors who use it in their classes or wanting copies of Money, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory of Money

13:31Contexts. So for one bright shining day, you know, I will always have Paris, you know. You're probably even ahead of Paul Krugman's books. I was on that day. That was fantastic. That was a great day. But yeah, it's clear that, you know, it's still getting sold and I should find out again. I mean, I just, I don't like, I don't want the publisher to think, oh, I'm the guy that always, you know, wants to know what the number is. So I sort of said, I'm not gonna call them, I'm gonna let them contact me and we'll see. But the impression I get is it's selling okay and especially given the fact that I haven't had time to really market it like I would like and they don't have the resources to market it like they would like. So I'm just sort of, you know, I have a blog and I talk to people and I've been on a few radio stations, radio programs. Well, it's also the kind of book that maybe it's not going to make a big splash up front.

14:19Right. Sure. But it's got some longevity to it. It's not tied to current events. not exactly meltdown or nullification, but you know, it's... You can write a new book every six weeks. Not me, not me. Oh, no. Okay. But you maintain a very rigorous schedule, too, of teaching. Oh, yeah. You have a lot of classes. Oh, sure, yeah. I teach four courses every semester. And once the semester gets going, it is just hard to find time to devote to writing, especially if you have to just start from scratch. But teaching is your calling, right? I think so. Although I find the two, as I've gotten older, as I've taught more classes, you just sort of, you learn more economics by teaching. And I'm at the point now where I do feel like I have things, after I've sort of let ideas percolate and theories sort of sit for a while, I'm at the point now where I do feel like I have things to say that I'm

15:17ready to start, you know, in a while, maybe start my next project. Maybe a research project, a writing project. I hope you'll consider the Mises Institute for that sort of thing. Well, I think I will. Well, there's a lot of things to write and a lot of things you could write about. I mean, you're very involved in the arts, for example. Yes, yes. And there's not enough material in the economics world on that. No, no. In fact, I mean, it's so frustrating. Every time they talk about, you know, cutting something. The next thing you know is you hear these studies about how, oh, you can't cut the arts Because they generate so much money for the economy, so much taxpayer dollars. I'm thinking this is Keynesian multiplier all over again. You've got a lot to say. Oh, it's so frustrating. And it's not like economists haven't pointed this out. And Bastiat points the problem with this thinking out in things that are seen and not seen.

16:05And so we've known this since at least the middle of the 1800s, but it's just like a minimum wage. It's like banging your head against the wall. Every generation has to relearn these truths. And I should say that you're very qualified to speak about this. There was a time when I was playing a piece on my car stereo that I thought was surely the most obscure piece of music ever. And you only heard a few notes and you said, well, sure, that's a Monte Verde magical. That's right. I do remember this. That was one of my great moments. Drove off the road. That's right. That's right. Yes. And you know, I actually, in my book, I reference When we talk about the not being able to compare utility, I have an example where two people are arguing over the musical value and the economic value of the music of Heinrich Schuetz.

16:58And I've had people ask me on campus, well, were you talking about one of the music professors on campus when you wrote this. I said, so no, it's actually about a good friend of mine that I met in graduate school. Okay, yeah. And I should credit you also for introducing me to Beethoven, which is an embarrassing to have to admit, but when you live in the world of Monteverdi and Schutz, you know, all your life, Beethoven's a revelation. Well, you know, it's one of those things. I appreciate that and I thank you for that, but you're right. I mean, it just takes time to really understand the composer and then start to, you know, branch out. Well, I hope you bring your two great interests, actually many great interests together, but you've got many years ahead and we're looking forward to great things. Thank you for being with us here today, Professor Rittenour.

17:45Well, thank you very much. It was a treat.

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