Debate: It is Smart to Get a PhD in Economics | Block and North

well good evening I'm pleased to welcome you to what I think is the first-ever Mises University debate the subject as you see from your program is as follows resolved it is smart to get a PhD in economics arguing in favor of the resolution is walter block Walter you have already been introduced you've already been introduced to Walter earlier today he is the Harold E worth eminent scholar at Loyola University New Orleans and holds a PhD in economics from Columbia University so that would make him smart arguing against the resolution is Gary north gary is the proprietor of gary NORTHCOM and a prolific scholar [Applause] and gary holds a PhD in history from University of California at Riverside the game plan is to allow each speaker 15 minutes for an overview then each will get 10 minutes to offer a first rebuttal of the others comments and to offer additional comments and then each will have five minutes for a second rebuttal I will be moderating and keeping the time upfront and feel free to use catcalls and whistles if anyone tries to go over his allotted time so without further ado I turn the floor over to walter block this is an unusual debate for me I'm used to debating pinkos and commies and right-wingers and such like and I'm sure Gary has had a similar experience we're here Gary and I agree on ninety-nine point eight percent of everything and I'm not sure what the other two percent is except for this one issue so it's a strange kind of a debate more of a debate within the family then of contending philosophies because we agree pretty much on these things I'm not totally happy with it is smart to get a PhD in economics I guess I'd be more comfortable it's a good idea to get a PhD in economics more moderate or at least for some people certainly I don't think it's a great idea for everyone to get a PhD in economics I mean what about history or philosophy or something and and if everyone got a PhD in something what about plumbing and carpentry you know we'd be in trouble no food the comparative advantage and specialization would mitigate against everyone getting a PhD so as is my name Walter moderate block I'm taking a very moderate position and I'm disgusted with Gary I mean he's such an extremist I mean he's so disgustingly extreme and you know we need more moderation here I mean Gary doesn't want anyone to get a PhD in economics I think I'm not sure I'll have to let him to speak for himself but that based on my readings of his many many uh brilliant rewritten articles in Lew Rockwell com he'll correct me if I'm wrong but I think his position is you know no one should get a PhD economics and I can't go along with that I'm going to divide my comments into two sub sections one why it's a good idea to get a PhD in economics from the movements point of view the Ostrow libertarian movement how would how getting a PhD in economics will help us promote Liberty that will be one section of my talk on the other section of my talk will be from a personal point of view will it behoove you will it benefit you personally to go out and get a PhD in economics or not what are the positives and what are the negatives okay so with regard to the movement I want to say that getting a PhD in economics and people who have had PhDs in economics have made signal contributions to Liberty and this is not to say that there are people who have not got a PhD economics have not made a contribution to Liberty which is ridiculous and I made a list of people who don't have a PhD who have made contributions to either economics or Austrian ISM or libertarianism not all of the people I'm about to read off I agree with on every jot and tittle but I acknowledge that they have made contributions for example David Friedman has a PhD in physics and Riemannian Gordon Tullock who have made contributions the economics have law degrees Garry North has a PhD in history Tom Woods has a PhD in history Ron Ham oh and Ralph Reiko PhDs in history Elinor Ostrom with whom I don't agree but still I acknowledge she's made contributions the economics has a PhD in political science Laura Davidson who's made magnificent contributions to Austrian macro theory is an airline milah carl has has made contributions our own Lew Rockwell Doug French and Jeff Tucker of made contributions the economics without a PhD Charles Murray's got a PhD in political science the list goes on and on there are many many think tanks where people have a master's degree or not a PhD sometimes no degree at all a degree in economics is no guarantee of anything but on the other hand it is a help I contend Brian Doherty wrote a book radicals for capitalism and he picked five people who he said made contributions to our movement again I don't agree with all the five that he picked but four out of five have PhDs in economics Mises Hayek Roth Barton Friedman Milton Friedman all have PhDs in economics and have made some contributions again we don't have to agree with everything they've said but we can acknowledge that they've made contributions ran the Iran is the only one of the five the top five who have made contributions she doesn't have any degree at all if I had to add a sixth person to Brian Daugherty's list I had Ron Paul who again doesn't have a PhD in economics but does have some credential I mean he is a dr. Ludwig von Mises said everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others and no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction therefore everyone in his own interest must thrust themselves vigorously into the intellectual battle none can stand aside when unconcerned the interest of everyone hangs on the result whether he chooses or not every man is drawn into a great historical struggle the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us so we got to fight the power gotta fight the man how with a gun that's silly we have no comparative advantage and in any case ideas are more powerful than the gun the pen is mightier than the sword because the pen determines in which direction the sword is pointed so what we have to do and certainly what the Mises Institute does is tries to promote and discover and create new ideas in favor of Liberty and and sound Austrian economics so ideas are very important it doesn't you don't have to be an economics professor to promote and create ideas Hayek talked about second-hand dealers in ideas journalists clergy anyone whose day job it is to promote ideas would be wonderful I would encourage people to do that it was this movie Reds Warren Beatty played John Reed who was a commie journalist and the Lenin character said I'd give 50 professors for one John read well I tell you if fifty are you people in five or ten years had your PhDs and were professors of economics promoting Liberty I'd be very happy and perhaps fifty to one is the correct ratio I mean Wenning isn't wrong on everything he might be correct on this I'm a Leninist now so this is you know if we had one journalist of the giant what John we did for communism doing what what is being done on doing what could be done for liberty that would be great so I would encourage people to get into the intellectual debate to promote Liberty economics professor is a good journalist a good clergyman a good any any sort of activity working in a think-tank what-have-you let me give an inkling of my own career and what I'm now going to do is read off a list of former students of mine who have made some contributions to Liberty again I don't agree with everything that any all of them have done but I think that they have made some contributions to Liberty and what I'm going to say is that a PhD in economics is sufficient it can help not sufficient but it can certainly help although it's certainly not necessary when I taught at Rutgers in the 1970s Ritchie Fink was a student of mine and he is now an officer at the Koch foundation from Holy Cross where I was from 91 to 97 Edie Stringham is now the Hackley endowed chair for capitalism and free enterprise studies at the Fayetteville State University Andy young is now an associate professor at West Virginia University Billy costea's associate professor Cleveland State University Lionel bener PhD candidate in political science at Yale Ken garcina investment banker musicians - contributor from Loyola where I have been from 2001 to the present Dan D'Amico who was my former student again I don't take credit for these people many other influences influence these people but I had maybe some small a role in their development dan is now my colleague he's a an assistant professor at Loyola University Emily Schaefer assistant professor at San Jose State University Jenny Durham our assistant professor at Hampton Sydney University Loyola students of mine who are now in the midst of a ph.d program are Nick's no mark Melanson and Chris Fleming veteran MOOC another former student of mine is a senior editor with Doug Casey enterprises all making contributions all whoo I had some small part in in their development and I'm very delighted that I was able to do that and if some of you got PhDs in economics and got jobs teaching economics and had students of this sort I'm sure you'd be very grateful as well okay now I want to move to the second part of my talk where I said I wouldn't talk about the movement but I would talk about from an individual personal point of view does it make sense to go out and get a PhD in economics well let me talk about the bad the bad part of this is that math is been elevated into a restriction on entry almost the economics profession in the u.s. is hyper mathematical even in the least prestigious universities and in the most prestigious universities pretty much all you do is math sometimes my colleagues and I suggest to students that they not major major in economics as undergraduates rather major in math and maybe minor in economics so intense has math taken over yet I've had some luck in getting students through George Mason University there are some students here at Suffolk University are they in the room if they are would you or stand-up maybe they're downstairs there are people studying with ghido Holtzman in France where does the Soto in Spain SEMA in Poland if you are interested in knowing we can go and get a PhD in economics with some Austrian content not as much as you or I might like but some content email me and I will give you a list of places where you might go many of these places give you a full ride you get a full full scholarship no tuition and you'll get fifteen or twenty thousand bucks to keep your body and soul together so the only investment you're making or the big part of the investment you're making is the alternative costs of your time what you could have been earning had you not gone for a PhD also there are while I'm mentioning schools there are several schools where as undergraduates you might consider going or tell your younger siblings some of the schools where my students are now teaching such as San Jose hands in Sydney Grove City where Professor her burner speaks my own school these are places where you can get some Austrian economics okay in addition the reason I mention these schools is because they are the least mathematically inclined the ones in Europe all you need is a master's degree from a US school and to get a master's degree you don't really have to do this hyper math and then you go over to Europe and get a PhD mainly what you do is you write your dissertation but you'd have to ask IDO and these other people exactly what the details are and you can come back here and get a job Richard Eberling is my only case in point that my only one example that I know of who got a PhD in a European school that was not the London School of Economics or one of the most prestigious ones and he was the president of fee for a while and now he is a professor at Northwood University so that's not too shabby you can get a job and train students in Australia but Arianism in that way the other problem beside the hyper mathematic ality of the PhD in economics is that there's an academic bias toward the left but this means that economics is be the least susceptible to this the the leftist bias is much more heavily endowed in history law philosophy Poli Sci sociology than in economics there are some people here I think one of the the summer fellows was getting a PhD in sociology and I was amazed because you know most sociologists are not open to free enterprise and yet he seems to be prospering but I would recommend economics over sociology because sociology way worse than economics economics is not as good as it could be but it's infinitely better or way better than some of these other fields ok let me now talk about the good from a personal point of view why is it good to get a job not so much for the movements point of view but for your own personal economic self-interest take me for example I teach three courses a year 15 weeks times 3 hours 45 hours round to 50 hours for marking exams 150 hours my salary is 175 a year so every class hour I teach I get eleven hundred and sixty six dollars that's pretty good it's not as good as I'm making a killing in the market or something and you can make a lot more as an entrepreneur but eleven hundred and sixty six dollars per hour isn't too bad how about a new assistant professor like Dan D'Amico six courses a year fifteen weeks three hours a week 45 hours round 250 times six three hundred hours that means that his hourly salary is $75 an hour again not so bad you get if you double it for publishing and committee meetings and butt-kissing what you have to do is a non-tenured person well then your salary is 125 an hour not too bad vacations 22 weeks a year nine hours of work a week two or three days I mean you know you can't match that in the business world okay maybe you can't get a job as an assistant professor how about as an adjunct well as an adjunct all you do is you teach but if the salary per course is four thousand of course then that's eighty-eight dollars an hour if it's $3500 its seventy seven an hour and it's 3,000 at $66 an hour Gary talks about minimum wage jobs I don't know where he gets those figures but even an adjunct which I mean most people that get a PhD aren't adjuncts at least in economics because there are so many alternatives in economics whereas if you get a PhD in literature or poetry or something like that then you are more likely to get an adjunct thanks my time is up and he's bigger than me [Applause] [Music] this is a formal debate and any wise debater always asks himself before that debate begins who will the judges be and what criteria will they use to make the judgement when I propose this debate to Walter as a way of settling our distances on this issue I had a very definite group of judges in mind specifically college students perhaps the second semester the junior year first semester of the senior year I propose that we do it at Mises University at the Institute but at this particular session because there are more undergraduates here than say at the Austrian scholars conference I want most of all to get a video out of this or perhaps an mp3 file because on a permanent basis I want this to be available to students over a long period of time to help them make that judgement and so that is why I propose a debate that's why I'm very glad that I have an opportunity to make this this presentation now you have the problem here of getting advice from a 70 year old economist and a 69 year old historian who went through school a long long time ago under a very different set of conditions and facing quite frankly and there are careers very different conditions from what you are going to face in the next 10 or 15 years if we have Congress working full-time the way Congress has been working so what I'm saying is what you really need to do is make assessments of your own situation with some guidance but you do need to make the decisions based on what I believe our rational economic criteria so let's start with the basic economics where most of us have started in this movement of that is with hazlit's wonderful little book on economics and one lesson let's go to chapter 2 which is the famous story of the broken mirror or the broken glass that broke windowpane and the standard analysis would be that if that individual has to pay now to get it fixed to get it replaced to get it installed that's going to spend money into the economy and therefore there will be a boost of the local economy because of this original spending now that of course came from Basquiat as wonderful essay all those years ago in 1850 hazlit resurrected it and the answer to it is it's bad economics because you have to look at the alternative cost what would he have done with the money if he had not had his window broken and that's what he really wanted to do not this alternative the broken window I want to I want to rework this image I want to talk about the window that is not broken and the not broken window is the PhD economist who has tenure or is in a tenure-track position and you ask him is it a good idea to get this PhD in the fellow who has not broken his window says yes it's a great idea look at what I've done look at what I've been able to do over the years look at my situation what I want you to do is look at the shattered window the shattered glass and the problem with that is you can't get straight testimony on that because those who went through the experience and did not survive don't talk about it they don't leave records of it you can't get interviews with them so we have to make judgments about it and I want to say at the beginning I do not want you to join the fellowship of the shattered glass because it can be shattered dreams it can be shattered finances so before you get into this advanced program you have to count the costs now as good economists let's start with the basic costs that we all have to deal with inevitably and that is very simple out-of-pocket costs you have you have room board tuition textbooks if you go supreme universities one we all want to get into probably didn't the Ivy League schools you're talking fifty thousand dollars a year and then you have to figure out how many years you're going to be there now you may get a fellowship in this or of course you may get a teaching assistants suit but remember what that means you are going into a Keynesian University you are going to be an adjunct assistant to a Keynesian professor you're going to grade in terms of Keynesian standards you're going to subject your brain your mind your hopes your dreams for four to six years to Keynesian principles you're going to see cost curves going wildly up and demand curves going wildly down now if you're willing to do that yes you can get through the Ivy League school if not you go to a less prestigious school you may pay twenty five thousand a year you go to a State University you may even get out for even less but the point is there are out-of-pocket expenses but those are not the big ones let's go to the economic expenses the ones we know most that is the forfeited income dr. block has already mentioned one that is you could get a job that will generate income you will not get that income and that is a loss you have to count that as part of your loss the second thing you're going to miss is that for any career you need between 5,000 and 10,000 hours of really dedicated work to master the terms of that career to get the head start to get that real advantage that you need to be successful in the career if you spend four to six years in a program of the PhD in economics and you don't wind up in a field in which that would have been an advantage entrepreneurship whatever you want to go into then you have that problem especially if you don't get the degree now the third thing which I think is really vastly more important is this you lose the time in which you could have learned Austrian economics you have 400 books printed downstairs one book a week is going to take you some time you can master the basics of Austrian school economics in three to four years if you work at it on a disciplined basis if you're going to learn Austrian economics learn Austrian economics not Keynesian economics mathematical economics not Friedman in economics I think not even public choice economics why would you discipline yourself to learn something that Mises said is wrong conceptually philosophically wrong you're going to submit yourself for six years to a program in which you know you are presenting yourself as a sacrifice on an altar to a God you don't believe in now I'll give you some from my world which most of you don't know about how many six-day creationists would sign up for a ph.d program and paleontology at Harvard and say I'm a six-day creation you all want me Oh baby do they want you have the first sacrifice of the semester now the point is so it's it's the risk factor now I want to give you real-world judgment there are here are techniques you ought to use before you join any program you've got to do this if you have a nickels worth of cents you find out how many students enrolled in the program at the beginning of the previous year and you find out how many students were awarded the PhD and you and you see the attrition ratio and that's going to scare you and then the second thing you better find out is how many advanced to dissertation writing and how many finished because if you come out with the legendary abd all but dissertation you are unemployable and you better find out how many didn't make the cut at the dissertation level because if you don't do that you are really going into a very high-risk situation then you find out what's the median number of years for the average guy to finish in the program if it's three years as it four is at five you better find out before you go in Murray Rothbard took ten years do you want to do that now let's go to the next issue that I have alluded to that is submission to a system that you don't like the mathematics the statistics all of the rigmarole that are that are consistently opposed to what Austrian economics stands for and believes in why do you do it departments have goals a Parsa basic goal the department's keep enough students running through the system so that the salaries keep coming in that's your basic rule of every academic department let's talk about the basics four things one screen out the unbelievers to convert the unbelievers 3 persuade the unbelievers that value free economics and scientific economics leads to the conclusion that you need more government coercion and for to send that new recruit out to be an evangelist for the position that you have just run him through I don't see in at least if you do this know that that's what you're getting into the risks are really against you now career you get into a department if you get the PhD and you probably won't find out statistically if you got a shot but if you get the PhD and if you get a tenure-track position which is not as easy as you have been led to believe but if you get that then you're going to spend your time with professors who don't hold your view who regard you as some sort of an eccentric may regard you as a menace and certainly all things considered think you're the equivalent of the crazy aunt in the attic and the reason for that is because all of them know that you believe they are dupes of John Maynard Keynes which in fact they are so you're in a high-risk position from the moment you go through the system now textbooks you're not going to select the textbooks and I guarantee you this I don't care how good it is I mean even if it's a public choice textbook you get to the section on the Federal Reserve and you know what there's no analysis of the Federal Reserve in terms of what it is which is a cartel established by the government to expand the state there'll be no mention of any analysis from the chapter on cartels to apply to the Federal Reserve and that is not random that is the price of playing the game within the modern academic system you are going to be the odd man out for the remainder of your career this is if you get tenure and you probably won't because tenure tenure-track positions are hard to find not that many people get tenure now if you think that's wrong you better find out in the university that may give you that job where how many people have gotten tenure in the school that you want to teach in over the last say 20 years find out how many how many of them left how many are still doddering to class with their catheters attached because they're not leaving a hundred grand a year and if you get into the other system which he's already mentioned which is the adjunct professor you're getting into the Union you've heard analysis of Union earlier today the Union is if you get in you get the hundred grand a year and if you don't get in you get thirty five grand a year and you don't get retirement program and you don't get the medical care and you don't get any guarantees and how do you get the guarantees how do you get the guarantees that's so good above market you've heard about above market wages let me tell you how there's a guy with a badge and a gun and the gun is pointed at the belly of a taxpayer and the belly says I don't want to pay and the guy says you're going to pay you know my gut says I don't want to pay I got this gun I got this badge you're going to pay that state universities that's where most of the jobs are now you say well I don't want teaching state university I'll teach in a private university there you got the cartel system through accreditation another guy still got the gun still got the badge it says you can't call yourself a university unless you go through the hoops that's the rule yeah you get above market return because there's a guy with a badge and a gun do you want this for the rest of your life do you want that the basis of your income the badge and the gun in between you and the market you got to make that decision because someday there's going to be a bright young guy in the classroom who says professor I understand Austrian economics how come you're here and you better have an answer not an easy answer the benefit of course is great the greatest of the benefits was articulated by a colleague of mine in 1968 when we were in a graduate seminar and the professor asked the question why are you getting a PhD there was mumbling there was fumbling there was stumbling but Gordon Geddes had the answer and the answer was I want a job or somebody will pay me to read that's a great answer that's one of the great answers of all time the problem is the phd glut hit neither of us got our PhDs before the glut hit neat and he did not get the job spending the rest of his life being paid to read I did but I got it in the free market sense and had to work a lot harder than the hours that dr. block puts in what I do okay so the answer to it is count the cost look at the benefits make the decision in terms of your life as to whether you think you ought to get a PhD in economics I think area is absolutely right that our experience if I can speak for the both of us as students is very dated my experience in academia is not dated at all I've been in it for the last I don't know how many years forty years or so Gary's experience in academia is very dated and I think that his understanding of it is well let me just say it's very different than mine yes there are people who fail out of the program and every student that I've sent off to a graduate school and left the program I felt like I was kicked in the teeth I worked with these students these students were enthusiastic and they go to a school and then they leave I've had a lot of good luck with George Mason I don't think that what they teach there is good Austrian ISM it's sort of the first cousins of Austrian ISM as I see it but it's quasi demo semi Austrian ISM and one of the good things about it is that the kids that go there come out with PhDs not always there are wanted to that have not veteran vogue is one who is he's an abd or he's got a master's or something but it doesn't mean he's unemployable he's now working for Doug Casey yes not everybody who goes into the program comes out with a PhD gary is absolutely right in stressing that but there are schools where you can go and get the PhD and they've got a pretty good record of churning out people with PhDs Gary talks about the room and board 50,000 were going to a Ivy League school where you're in thrall to the keynesian 's and he's quite right that is a problem but the schools that I'm recommending and if you send me a request for this information I'll give you two you aren't like that Gary's information is either not is either dated or wrong or I'm not sure where he's getting his information from I'm certainly not advocating that people go to Berkeley and get a PhD there although Peter went there and uh seems to be okay and but if you go to Berkeley or Columbia where I went it's much more problematic now what Gary says is um you know you're going to go get a PhD and you'll do it at the cost of learning ostracism now this I I I had a full head of hair before I started this debate and look at me now I mean this is a hundred percent wrong or a hundred and eighty degrees wrong or whatever the right metaphor is you go and study with Guiteau Holtzman in Paris or not Paris in France somewhere on je and you tell me you're not going to learn Austrian economics you go study with where to desoto in Spain and you tell me you're not going to learn Austrian economics you're going to be in for all the Keynesian you go to SEMA in Poland or Matt McCoy who is now in Poland I'm not sure where all these guys are I'm confused as to which countries are in Europe they keep changing it but Matt macaé won the the proof wrong award two or three years ago he's now a professor he's not teaching Keynesianism or if he is teaching Keynesianism he's doing it the way you and I and other professors here do it teach it and then show the problems with it so a Geary's information is I don't know what made up or just made up out of the whole cloth I don't know where he's getting this from yes if you go to Harvard or Columbia with Stiglitz or Berkeley or these other places then he's absolutely right but you don't have to go to those places you can get reasonable jobs at places like where my former students are so I think Gary is 100% wrong on this you go to Suffolk we have to students are they here from Suffolk I don't see them maybe they're downstairs they're learning Austrian economics from Ben Powell they did one of the Manesh of one the proof Ron last year I think it was or the year before I'm no historian so I don't remember these things but but these are solid Austrian students so you can't tell me that you're going to be in thrall forever to Keynesianism yes you have to learn Keynesianism you have to know what's wrong with it if you don't so much as know it then you you're out there with a ship without a rudder but you can learn Keynesianism and the critiques of Keynesianism from the some of these people yes there's an attrition ratio not everybody who goes to graduate school comes down with the PhD but a biddies are not unemployable I usually they give you a masters if you don't finish your dissertation and you can get a job in any of these think tanks there are 50 states think tanks there are many beltway think tanks where having a master's degree would be an improvement over not having a master's degree um yes rothbard took 10 years but that was because Arthur burns and he was a Columbia he wasn't at any of these schools that I'm advocating what happened with poor Murray is when Arthur burns thank God for Nixon because would not when Nixon got off the burns down in Washington then Murray snuck in and got his PhD but as long as Arthur Burns was there he couldn't do it adjuncts adjuncts are a problem of historians for political scientists and economics there are so many alternatives to academia that all the students that I know of my own personal students they're not a hat chunks they've got the what he called assistant professor tenure track jobs some of them are too young to have gotten tenure but many people have gotten tenure so I don't see that I mean yes not everyone gets tenure in my own case I didn't get tenure because I was really mouthy I mean you know I accused him of extremism but truth be known I'm a bit of an extremist myself I couldn't keep my big Yap shut I kept wanting to debate my colleagues I should have shut up and got tenure but that's a whole other whole other area so Gary is right you know you don't get a hundred percent in and I think it's very salutary his contribution to this debate now this business of working in a state university here Gary and I have a philosophical disagreement I've worked in state universities and I don't see anything wrong with that I think it's a virtue I think it's a mitzvah to take money from the goddamn government because they stole it from us in the first place look if if Gary if Gary is is a little unhappy with the prospect of taking money from a guy with a badge and a gun through coercion how did he get here he got here on a prod on a on a private road no on a government Road Gary shouldn't be on the government roads if he's going to be logically consistent gary has fiat currency in his wallet not enough but he's got some I [Applause] like to say that we don't really get much accomplished at the Mises University but at least we have fun and we do have fun and actually we do get some stuff accomplished look again Gary is falling into the trap of our friends on the Left our friends on the Left say we're hypocrites because we're against parks and museums and fiat currency in the post office and public roads and yet we use them so they say we're hypocrites no those left these are the hypocrites you look at a lefty who's in egalitarian look him in the eye and if he's got two eyes he's a hypocrite because he should have given up one of those eyes I mean if he followed his views now Gary is falling into that trap he's saying that if you were if you go on a public street and I see no difference between a public street and a public university that both public anything Gary can say about the university I can say about the roads or the parks of the museums or post office there's a man with a badge and a gun in all of these places so what Gary is really saying the logical implication for that is either be a Herman or commit suicide and this is not a tenable inable view so Gary is falling into this trap with the lefties criticize us for being hypocrites no no we're not hypocrites it's quite all right Ragnar Danish cold my man from Atlas Shrugged was forever going the government places and grabbing their money the no problem with that they stole the money from us gary is absolutely right here he irr percent in agreement that the state is is an abomination it's evil it's stealing money but it's good to make money from them and if they'll give it to you for teaching in a public university that's great so don't be ashamed when you you know I feel like Malcolm X when he first started they were saying throw away your hair straighteners don't be ashamed of being black and I think this was magnificent I'm a big fan of the Malcolm X well I say throw away your views that you shouldn't teach in a public university and throw away your views you shouldn't use the public roads I think Gary is leading you astray leading you down the garden path here he is accepting the the charge against us now this PhD the last point that I want to criticize a Gary on is this PhD glut yes there's a PhD got for poets and for other people who are driving cabs and stuff but it's not true in economics so I I think Gary makes some good points but but his views are very dated yes things are different now than when we were both students mainly because it's much more heavily mathematical eyes and statistical eyes if I can use that as a word but I'm basing my information on students that got their PhD or a year or two ago that you can't get more recent than that thank [Applause] one of the fundamental positions in politics and I found in virtually every other field is the old rule that you can't beat something with nothing I have come out and I've said I don't think the pursuit of the PhD is not wrong for everybody but it's a high-risk position you got to think through it occur flee as to what you're really submitting to what you're committing to for the rest of your life and the system as it presently exists and is likely to exist in the future a four hundred and thirty billion dollar a year oligopoly which is established by the government protected by the government and exists at the behest of the government in order to strengthen the government I think you have to think very carefully about committing the rest of your life to that organization so I'm going to talk about alternative going to talk about five four things first of all the position in Malcolm Gladwell's book outliers which i think is a magnificent book that you need but proximately 10,000 hours of hard work to become a virtuoso it doesn't mean you're going to be a virtuoso if you invest 10,000 hours but if you don't invest 10,000 hours you're not going to be a virtuoso for basic real competency of mastery of a field about five thousand hours now from my position is 50 hours a week for about two years that will give you at least mastery you can do that either as a master's program learning Keynesian economics and mathematics or you can do it on your own through the materials that are available through Mises Institute and you can become a real master of Austrian economic theory I think that is a wise way to go and certainly a reasonable way in terms of what most of us want to do with our lives if you have to get a job fine you work 40 hours a week in the job you put 20 hours a week in whatever time you're going to invest in in mastering Austrian economics and it takes five years instead of two years if you want to be a virtuoso it's going to take ten years so you be 30 31 something like that when you really have a demonstrated competency real performance ability in the field of Austrian economics and you can do it while getting paid a regular salary by a regular organization that is not I believe compromised by the state now there's another point I want to go on to which is there's a much broader audience than college students and that audience is enormous and it's growing very rapidly and Ron Paul is one of the reason why it's growing so rapidly we have a market that is immense today compared with as recently as four years ago and it's growing rapidly and we got we got Congress working hard we got Congress working hard to grow it even more rapidly so this is a trip we're on the right side of the transaction between the government and us because they're going to screw it up and we're going to profit from it in terms of of once again coming down to the public and saying the Magnificent phrase that we all love we told you so okay and and more important we told you why we told you why and Mises told us why so your market is growing very very rapidly compared to a few students in a classroom who are going through to get their their tickets punch most of them in undergraduate classes unless you get a tenured position those students going through getting their ticket punched are not there to get Austrian economics they're getting their tickets punched in the department that is Keynesian or freed Manion they're not there for you they're there for them and the quid pro quo is we run ourselves through a system that is an opposition to Austrian economics and by the way if you got on the faculty in most schools that's the game you got to play the textbooks are going to be non Austrian and you got no say in the matter you're going to teach them what you don't believe is true for the rest of your life and they don't care and they won't remember you and they won't probably learn Austrian economics from you at least the undergraduate level now you may if you get tenure but that's way down the track what I'm saying is go to the people who want Austrian economic go to the market that is interested in it and go to it now now how do you do it third point the Internet and now I'm going to get into what I do and have done what Mises Institute does better than any other organization in the world with the possible exception of Lew Rockwell comm and I'm going to tell you how it's done first you get your own YouTube channel and you get it before the end of the week and if you don't know how to get it you go to my site Gary NORTHCOM and you can find a free section of videotapes on or not videotapes boy am i dating myself of videos of digital videos on how to start a YouTube channel simple free next thing you do start a wordpress.com blog site and you can start more than one right on a regular basis get your ideas in front of yourself why do I write why does any right or right to find out what I believe and that's the truth now you better get it clear before you click the thing that says post okay get that clear first but you write and the discipline of writing you get better and better like any other skill that's what I did the most important skill I got out of graduate school was how to sell the Fremen an article and that put me through graduate school and it opened up my first career that I wrote my way into this movement because I needed the money and because I believed in the system you can you've got to get wordpress.com then you get your own website at some point using wordpress.org software which is free you get yourself a microphone for 20 bucks is all it takes is an external mic you begin screencasting you get Kindle Kindle now for any book under 10 bucks they'll give you 70% of the money that comes through the door if you've got something to say put it on Kindle and sell the thing so you go to the website you go to video editing software you get a webcam and you do the talking head with a lav allaire mic where they can hear it and understand it wouldn't you like to abend the guys who did the Hayek versus Kay rap video three and a half million hits dwarfing any professor who's run through here in terms of impact that's my strong opinion now only a few guys can do it but it can be done it's free and it's powerful and it stays up virtually forever right for Lew Rockwell comm right for Mises get your Spurs doing productive writing for an audience that wants to listen to what you have to say and finally if you really are any good if you're really any good teach on Mises Academy and make a decent living on the side if you got something to say that anybody is willing to pay for you don't need accreditation you don't join the cartel you go to people and offer what you have got to sell based on what they want to buy and Mises sits in the middle with the software and enables you to do that and finally let me get to the fourth point how good are you if you are really any good you don't need a PhD you don't need a PhD if you know what you're doing and if you're really good like Henry Hazlitt you don't even need to go to college okay look the point being how competent are you you can go through the hoops if you're really not very good or if you you're after that lifetime income that you think you're going to get you can go through the hoops the Keynesian hoops the bureaucratic hoops which proves that you can go through academic bureaucratic hoops to which I say hoop-dee-doo what you got to do is master the field and produce which is videos audios books articles if you've got it do it if you don't have it then you may have to find a different approach but my approach has been go to the market and I'm very grateful that Mises and Lew Rockwell did this on my behalf and on behalf of the millions of people who wind up reading these materials because I can write one article on Lew Rockwell calm and reach more people than a professor can reach through his entire academic career and if you write two or three articles all the better so the so my basic point is this if you can speak if you can write if you can think if you are disciplined if you if you do the hard work that you need to do to master a field if you put in the ten thousand hours on what's true and not on what is false if there's a market you can make money and if there's no market get out of the field how do we determine who wins this debate if we determine it on the basis of spontaneous applause and laughter he wins he's magnificent I mean he's really a good public speaker but if we determine it on a different basis he loses and I wanna I I want to offer three criteria for judging this on the basis of which he loses first of all it seems to me that if you go 180 degrees off of your initial position if you are converted by the other guy goddamnit you lose now you read the stuff he's been writing on Lou Rococo Lew Rockwell calm about this stuff and he isn't saying anything like don't I don't say you shouldn't get your PhD that's my quote of what he just said rather just be careful it's a high risk well that's my position namely right before your eyes he changed his his views now I call that losing the debate don't believe me go and read what he's written on this subject he never said anything in those articles that I criticized the bound oh well I don't say no one should get a PhD just be careful he didn't say that at all and yet he said that five minutes ago or two minutes ago whenever it was he changed his views that means you lose the debate and that's very important because the the future of our movement is is involved here and if he keeps convincing people not to go and get a PhD our movement will be greatly weakened I don't know why is trying to undermine our movement in this way and I think it's horrible okay so that's one criteria of winning a debate if you change your views you lose the debate the second one is all you responsive to the other guy now I've taken notes on what he said and I've tried to been responsive to what he said and he's not being responsive to what I said now for example he's talking about Keynesianism in mathematics he said that again that if you go and get a PhD you're going to be have Keynesianism mathematics shoved down your throat I'm putting it in my own words but that's what he said go talk to Gaeta Holtzman ask him if he's shoving keynesian and mathematics down his students throats go talk to Ben Powell I talked to Ben Powell students who were here and asked them if they are getting this stuff shoved down their throats now I said that I criticized it and in his last debate he ignores it well if you ignore the other guy's statements you lose the debate you're supposed to be responsive he's not again he's repeating this this nonsense about not being compromised by the state says if you go teach and I hear I agree with him most of the places you're going to go except for Grove City in Hillsdale are going to be public universities and he goes on and on any waxes eloquent about how horrible it is to be in a public university but he is not responsive to my point if if that were true then you shouldn't be using the public Rose and you shouldn't be using fiat currency then you shouldn't be going to public parks museums whatever he doesn't respond to that he ignores that you lose the debate it seems to me if you don't respond to these things laughter and applause will not win you the debate and that's what he's got here but when it comes to the substance of it he ignores it he ignores the the opposite point of view and he gets you to laugh and applaud which is all well and good and I wish I could do it myself I I can't but I'll be content with just the substance this business of working 40 hours a week and then studying 20 hours a week on your own come on give me a break if you work 40 hours a week in a bank or an insurance company you're tired compare that with going to graduate school and study with Geeta Holtzman or or Ben Powell or the Pete Becky who i don't agree with on much but he turns out those people there you're spending 60 hours a week learning economics not all of it austrian economics yes but you have to learn the Keynesian crap and I stand I stand next to no one in terms of my revulsion at cane is in but you have to learn it you can't just learn Austrian ISM you have to learn the other stuff too and then this other point if you're really good come on most of us are mediocre and I include myself now seriously most of us but not Henry hazlit's most of us are not Ludwig von Mises is most of us are not Murray Rothbard goddammit we're we're just mediocre we're just trying our best to promote liberty and poor economic understanding so this is leading you down the garden path you don't have to be excellent you don't have to be a Murray Rothbard you can just be a mediocre person like myself and others and enter your best and and you can earn a living at this but but he's right with he says you don't need a PhD well it PhD helps it gives you a credential yes yeah [Applause] never tell the debater who has the final second response that he didn't make a response or I've been saving this and for those listening on the video you must get to substantiate what I'm saying a copy of dr. blocks speech on unemployment he made an eloquent case against the trade unions he made I think a moral case against the trade unions the moral corruption of using government guns and badges to keep people out of a field to create a cartel by violence and the threat of violence to create whole industries based on violence and guns and badges now if he's going to believe his own position on the evils of the trade unions and the moral evil of using violence to keep people out of a field to keep them from teaching to teach them from offering competitive services to create unemployment to lock good people out because they did not conform to the rules of the trade unit if he believes that one more time why are you teaching in a university at a hundred and seventy thousand dollars a year why and that ain't funny that's a moral question I'll tell you when my model was and he's been my model for thirty five years and that was Dominic R Montano now he said he'd never go into a state university taught the University of art and I thought that was a strong position but the bottom line is if you go into academia it is a government cartel has taken four hundred and thirty billion dollars a year out of the American economy to sell overpriced goods to students who are running running up now twenty four thousand dollars of debt and parents running up bigger quantities paying overpriced cartelized crisis for third-rate products and if you ever break the cartel you're going to see the production of what really needs to be done is Walmart University because I got no choice I don't sell my soul to the devil to get his pay that's why Walter and that's not funny but that's the truth do not sell your soul to the system that you say you don't believe in and that your economics say is wrong when that system is a government established cartel and they're all there are alternatives there is Mises Academy there are private schools that are not regulated by the state there are homeschool programs there's a way to make a living without joining the labor union of the modern academic system yes you can profit if you get on the right side of the trade if you leap the high barrier and get across and get that tenure position yeah it's profitable but every time you hear the story about above market wages you got to look for the question where's the gun where's the badge and who's being left out of the system that's what we do as an Austrian school economist who wins who loses when you got winners look for the losers and if there's a guy with a gun and a badge standing between the loser and success I say don't be associated with the gun or the badge [Applause] well let's please join me once more in thanking both of our participants [Applause] you

Channel: misesmedia

Views: 52,915

Rating: 4.7867527 out of 5

Keywords: Economics, PhD, Education, Ludwig, von, Mises, Institute, University, 2011, Walter, Block, Gary, North, Austrian, Liberty, Property, Peace

Id: NwWoY3OuBYA

Length: 60min 41sec (3641 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 09 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/giraffepussy]

1. Why is Jon Hunstman moderating

2. The conflict was never resolved in my opinion. If anything (and this is what I'm planning on doing) it seems best to go and study with Guido or Jesus in Europe but to take that knowledge to the private sphere. In other words, Block was right in saying that learning under a legit Austrian would be best for your understanding of the philosophy, but North was right in saying that the government-subsidized schools you'd be working for supply you with immoral force.