Demonstrating Cluelessness Via Tweet: An Advanced Lesson From Megan McArdle

Recently by Robert Wenzel: Totally Busted: The Truth About Goldman’s Bailout by the Fed

As part of my response to Megan McArdle’s attack on Ron Paul, I wrote:

It’s one thing if these people could argue toe to toe with Congressman Paul about the regression theorem, the proper methodology for a science such as economics or the damage that Fed money printing does to the structure of capital in an economy, but they can’t. So they put on a carnival act of words in fear that if they actually challenged Congressman Paul on his well grounded and deep economic understanding, their confusion about basic economics would be laid bare for all to see.

McArdle has not responded in full to the three questions I placed in my post, however she sent out a tiny tweet to me. She thumbs:

@wenzeleconomics The brief answer is that no intelligent person thinks that the key to any science is "all there" in the work of two writers

This tweet proves my point about how nervous they are about responding to specific charges. Even in a tiny little tweet of 124 characters, she has revealed a lack of knowledge so truly astounding that I can’t think of 124 characters where one could reveal greater ignorance.

Her tweet is in response to this in my post:

Don’t tell me you can’t find Congressman Paul’s thoughts on this. As he has said many times, he derives his understanding of economics from the writings of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. It’s all there.

Now she builds a nice strawman here. The "all there" is referring to the three questions I posed in the post. The three points that I raised are all discussed by Rothbard and Mises. So my point was the answers to the three questions are "all there".

McArdle stretches this to mean that I am saying that all of economics is in Rothbard and Mises (and possibly that Congressman Paul thinks so also). Now, there is a remarkable depth of understanding in the writings of economics in Rothbard and Mises, but a comment like it’s "all there" also contains a nuanced meaning which quite possibly underscores a tin ear on the part of McArdle. It could simply be a tribute to Rothbard and Mises in that their understanding of economics is so great, which it is, that it’s "all there." Not meaning that every correct word ever written by Rothbard and Mises are the only correct words written about economics, but simply that the depth of their writing is so great that one could say it is "all there", but not mean it in a complete literal sense.

However, if you want to take the vicious view that McArdle takes, I am an ignoramus and think all economics is in Rothbard and Mises and no other, then it is quite reasonable to say that McArdle has taken the most idiotic clueless method of attack that one could take on this subject, since Rothbard and Mises more than any other economists held the view that economics is far more than a science where the "all there" is in the work of two writers.

Rothbard was unrelenting in the dangers of the "Great Thinkers" syndrome:

Straussians take a few what they call "great thinkers" – I’m going to criticize that too, the concept of taking only great thinkers – they take a few great thinkers, more or less arbitrarily selected. How do they know they’re great thinkers? Well, everybody says they’re great. Machiavelli, Aristotle, Dewey, whatever. Hobbes.

Then they say, "Since this guy is a great figure, he must’ve been consistent. Why does he have to be consistent? Well, he’s a great thinker? Who am I, a schnook professor, to challenge the greatness of this guy?" The assumption is this guy’s a great thinker.

Most of these guys are very inconsistent. They contradict themselves on every page. Keynes did this all the time.

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December 18, 2010