WEBVTT

NOTE Reviving the Austrian School

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Well, Professor Rittner, it's a pleasure to have you here.

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Oh, it's a pleasure to be here, Jeff.

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You're here for the Austrian Scholars Conference.

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I am indeed.

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And you teach at Grove City College, a place with a great heritage in the Austrian tradition.

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That's right.

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And of course, most people, if they know of Grove City, know about Hans Sennholz, who

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was there for, oh goodness, from the 1950s, I think, retired in 1992 and established a

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great Austrian tradition there.

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Yeah. How many students are at Grove City?

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Right around 2,500.

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Okay. And most professors complain about their students. I've never heard you complain about

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yours.

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No, you have not. We're very pleased. Typically, we get really certainly bright students. And

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the econ majors that we get are not just bright but interested in economics, economics that

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is relevant for the real world, economics from a praxeological, Misesian perspective.

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And they just eat it up. We have four students, four economics majors here at the conference

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with us.

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Yeah. Well, actually, we didn't bring them with them. They decided they're going to

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have a road trip and come down themselves.

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When students enter as freshmen or maybe when they come to you as majors, as sophomores

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or juniors, are they already aware of the Misesian connections with Grove City?

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I would say most of them are. Not all of them. Some really don't – what they know about

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economics is what they learn in high school. And so they come and then are surprised that

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that economics can be this relevant and this real when you base it on human action. But

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a lot of them do. A lot of them come to Grove City. They sort of self-select. They want

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to come here. It's often that we talk to prospective students when they're still in high school.

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They call and ask for information about the econ program. They've heard we're Austrian.

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They want to know, are we really Austrian or are we just sort of Austrian in name?

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Yeah, funny. Interesting. And the connection to Mises is interesting. Margit, I guess,

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And they gave or sold the Mises' papers to Grove City. So you have a large collection

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of Mises' own papers, their original papers.

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That's exactly right. Yes, we've got the Mises archive that's housed in the library,

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and it's a treasure trove of, you know, his papers that were written in correspondence

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primarily during his time in America.

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Yes, right. So none of the German stuff, but which, you know, we have all the upstairs.

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I sometimes take visitors and they say that we want to see Mises' papers before he came

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to the United States. I show them what it is. It's this tiny little old world printing.

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It's, you know.

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Right. Yes. Yes.

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They don't spend a lot of time. It was nice to look at, but yeah.

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It was I don't really understand it.

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Apparently, only Guido Holtzman can read it.

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That's right.

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Yeah. Yeah. Is Grove City still independent?

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Yes. Yes, fiercely so. In fact, there's the president is giving a sort of a hosting an

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event this next week on the Supreme Court case that sort of revolved around Grove City

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College not accepting government grants and or student loans so that we can remain fiercely

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independent and not have to, not be in danger of the level of government intervention and

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education that other schools that take government money would be under.

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Now, do you have any students from Grove City's program who are right now in graduate school?

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Yes. We have... Well, wait a minute. I don't know if we have... I don't know if we have

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any right now. We have some that are currently applying. We just have one that just recently

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graduated with a Ph.D. from Ohio State University, Lucas Engelhardt.

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He just finished, okay.

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And then we've had a number of students that have matriculated through master's programs.

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A lot of students that come, they end up in graduate school but they go to law school.

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That's sort of what they know that they want to do when they come through here.

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So we've had a pretty large number.

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In fact, interestingly enough, there's a student that I think he would have majored

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in economics if he had discovered economics until – before he was a junior in college.

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Now that time was sort of too late to get all the credits in, but he subsequently went on

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to Penn State, the law school at Penn State, and has written a law review article that

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got published dealing with applying the praxeology to inheritance law that is now in the legal

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literature.

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So that's pretty exciting.

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And I did an independent study with him on applying praxeology to the various legal theories

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I have a professor here, a professor there that's sort of interested in Austrian economics,

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but we have people that begin their theory classes in principles of micro, principles

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of macro, foundations of economics, beginning with human action, and we just teach, well,

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this is what economics is.

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And then we get into the ... I teach the intermediate micro and macro sequence, and there we look

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at the broader ... What is the broader profession of economics?

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What do they think about price theory?

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We talk about neoclassical price theory.

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We talk about the vast number of perspectives on macroeconomics, and so we learn them all,

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but we learn to evaluate them from the perspective of praxeological economics.

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And we don't have to try to sort of tack on a little bit of Misesian economics to sort

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of band-aid over this gaping wound of modern economics.

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The students come in understanding the way the economy really works.

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And so then, when they're presented with the Keynesian system or the monetarist system,

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they can immediately see, well, there's parts of this that just isn't right, and you don't

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have to reinvent the wheel every single class that we talk about.

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And then, of course, the myriad of other electives that we teach, from comparative economic systems

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to money and banking to American economic history or the history of economic thought,

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and the Austrian content just sort of permeates the entire curriculum.

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So if you're interested in Misesian economics, Grove City is a place to come for undergraduate

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economics for sure.

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Do people come up to you at this conference and say, Sean, you're living the dream?

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Not as many as should.

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I mean, I feel like it.

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I'm having a great time.

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They're paying me for doing what I love.

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We have good students and Grove City is a lovely town.

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It's small towny.

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actually when I first got the job I was a little bit later I think I'm going to

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Pennsylvania it's for you know quite a bit farther east but it really feels

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like a Midwestern it you know I for you forget how wide Pennsylvania is and by

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Midwestern you mean good exactly yes yes Midwestern in the in the good sense the

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way I was brought up in the Midwest and so you know so a small-towny neighborhood

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oriented hi how you doing that kind of thing right right now it wasn't too long

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I recall a while ago that you were a graduate student at Auburn University.

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Yes.

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I remember these days well.

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I do too.

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It was hard to see you go.

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But in a very quick period of time, you're at Grove City and I gather you're planning

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to stay there for a while.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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I have no intention.

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That's Hans-Holstein Holtz did for so many years.

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Yes.

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Yes, indeed.

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He said he knew his time to retire only when he was getting students saying, you didn't

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teach my parents, but you taught my grandparents economics at Grove City.

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So, okay, that's it.

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I recall that Gary North once wrote, I think it was an article, maybe it was just a speech,

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where he talked about the way to leave a legacy is to find a place where you're going to

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make it a permanent home for yourself.

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Oh, I think there's something to that because there's part of the academic culture where

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there's a certain inertia.

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And so it takes a number of years to actually have some type of vision develop.

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Because in some sense, the reviving of the Austrian tradition didn't start with me. It

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really started in 97 when they hired Jeff Herbner. And then he contacted me and then

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I came on board. So he was there in 97. I came on board in 2001. And then it was another

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two or three years before we got the Austrian Student Scholars Conference going. So these

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things just take time. And if, let's say, I'm in one place for four years and somebody

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else for four years and somebody else for four years, you didn't have the time to really

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develop the sort of the institutional momentum, I guess.

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Trevor Burrus And the Austrian Student Scholars Conference occurred two weeks ago.

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Robert McLean Yes. Yeah, roughly. Yeah, two, three weeks ago.

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Trevor Burrus It's a kind of miniature version of this.

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Robert McLean Yes. That's right. I mean it's modeled after

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the Austrian Scholars Program designed for undergraduate and graduate students and it's

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been great. This is – I think it was the sixth or seventh conference we've had. It

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is the largest that we've had. We've had something like 30 – over 30 papers and we've

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had – we had people from many different countries that presented, from many different

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universities and colleges. It was just really, really, really great.

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And these things do have a momentum, don't they? They develop a reputation and start

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achieving a certain status and people aspire to give papers there and that sort of thing.

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Standards are always going up all the time.

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Oh, yes. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've been really pleased with how it's grown

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and Development.

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Well, you know, it's interesting. When I think about this, 20 years ago, something like an

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Austrian Student Scholars Conference was inconceivable. Now, it's...

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Oh, I know. It's like the industry standard.

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Yeah, the industry standard. That's right. Now, speaking of, you have a new book. Well,

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it's not quite new. It came out, I guess, last year.

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January 2010, yes.

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Yeah. And the title?

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The title is Foundations of Economics.

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And it's marketed mainly to a kind of private school, religious school market.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I was asked, I was sort of commissioned, if you will, by a successful Christian entrepreneur

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to write a free market economics text, introductory free market text from a Christian perspective

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that would then be likely to be adopted in mostly private, but Christian schools, colleges.

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High schools and colleges.

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Basically, colleges was sort of the initial vision.

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And so that's what I did. I wrote a principles text. The main goal is to teach students economics

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and then also have them understand that there's nothing in scripture that's contradictory

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with good economics. We don't have to be sort of hold it at arm's length, say, well,

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this is about worldly things, you know, that kind of stuff. So it took me—I think I was

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talking to somebody—it took me at least four and a half or five years to write the

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to Manuscript.

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No, but it's a gigantic book actually.

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That's 564 pages and you know, it's one of those things if he said—if he would have

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said upfront, said, I want you to write this book but it has to be 564 pages, I would have

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said, no, I don't think I'm your man.

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But you know, as it just sort of—you just start writing and you have this vision for

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what you would think a body of economics—an introductory body of economics would be and

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it just sort of—the size sort of determines itself.

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I'm not sure if I told you this but a number of people have mentioned to me who have read

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that they were impressed at the writing style and at the rigor of the logic and that everybody

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likes it a lot.

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Well, thank you.

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I'm gratified.

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Yeah.

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Do you know how it's doing?

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Is it being adopted?

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It's being adopted some.

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I don't have the most up-to-date figures.

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My temptation is to be sort of like the numbers hound, you know, every week calling, what

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are the numbers like this week?

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and the New York Times.

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What are the numbers like this week?

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Yeah, exactly.

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And I know that I will finally have made it when I get denounced by Paul Krugman on his

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blog.

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Of course, we can always dream.

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That's right.

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But it was doing okay.

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I think as of May, I mean I use it in my classes.

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Dr. Herbner used it in his classes.

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I get corresponded from other professors who use it in their classes or wanting copies

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of Money, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory of Money

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Contexts.

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So for one bright shining day, you know, I will always have Paris, you know.

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You're probably even ahead of Paul Krugman's books.

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I was on that day.

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That was fantastic.

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That was a great day.

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But yeah, it's clear that, you know, it's still getting sold and I should find out again.

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I mean, I just, I don't like, I don't want the publisher to think, oh, I'm the guy that

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always, you know, wants to know what the number is.

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So I sort of said, I'm not gonna call them, I'm gonna let them contact me and we'll see.

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But the impression I get is it's selling okay and especially given the fact that I haven't

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had time to really market it like I would like and they don't have the resources to

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market it like they would like.

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So I'm just sort of, you know, I have a blog and I talk to people and I've been on a few

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radio stations, radio programs.

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Well, it's also the kind of book that maybe it's not going to make a big splash up front.

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Right.

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Sure.

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But it's got some longevity to it.

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It's not tied to current events.

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not exactly meltdown or nullification, but you know, it's...

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You can write a new book every six weeks.

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Not me, not me. Oh, no.

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Okay. But you maintain a very rigorous schedule, too, of teaching.

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Oh, yeah.

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You have a lot of classes.

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Oh, sure, yeah. I teach four courses every semester. And once the semester gets going,

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it is just hard to find time to devote to writing, especially if you have to just start from scratch.

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But teaching is your calling, right?

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I think so. Although I find the two, as I've gotten older, as I've taught more classes,

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you just sort of, you learn more economics by teaching. And I'm at the point now where

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I do feel like I have things, after I've sort of let ideas percolate and theories sort of

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sit for a while, I'm at the point now where I do feel like I have things to say that I'm

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ready to start, you know, in a while, maybe start my next project.

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Maybe a research project, a writing project. I hope you'll consider the Mises Institute for that sort of thing.

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Well, I think I will.

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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.

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Yes, yes.

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And there's not enough material in the economics world on that.

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No, no. In fact, I mean, it's so frustrating. Every time they talk about, you know, cutting something.

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The next thing you know is you hear these studies about how, oh, you can't cut the arts

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Because they generate so much money for the economy, so much taxpayer dollars. I'm thinking this is Keynesian multiplier all over again.

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You've got a lot to say.

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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.

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And 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.

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And I should say that you're very qualified to speak about this. There was a time when

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I was playing a piece on my car stereo that I thought was surely the most obscure piece

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of music ever. And you only heard a few notes and you said, well, sure, that's a Monte

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Verde magical.

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That's right.

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I do remember this.

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That was one of my great moments.

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Drove off the road.

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That's right. That's right. Yes. And you know, I actually, in my book, I reference

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When we talk about the not being able to compare utility, I have an example where two people

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are arguing over the musical value and the economic value of the music of Heinrich Schuetz.

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And I've had people ask me on campus, well, were you talking about one of the music professors

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on campus when you wrote this.

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I said, so no, it's actually about a good friend of mine

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that I met in graduate school.

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Okay, yeah.

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And I should credit you also for introducing me

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to Beethoven, which is an embarrassing

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to have to admit, but when you live in the world

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of Monteverdi and Schutz, you know, all your life,

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Beethoven's a revelation.

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Well, you know, it's one of those things. I appreciate that

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and I thank you for that, but you're right.

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I mean, it just takes time

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to really understand the composer

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and then start to, you know, branch out.

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Well, I hope you bring your two great interests, actually many great interests together, but

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you've got many years ahead and we're looking forward to great things. Thank you for being

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with us here today, Professor Rittenour.

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Well, thank you very much. It was a treat.

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