Yes, I was refering to the Boulding article you mention -- perhaps we read it differently.
Second, I think there are several reasons why Austrians have difficulities --- some self-induced, others as a consequence of other issues. Public choice scholars should realize that for a long period of time, public choice scholars were wedded out of the process --- consider the situation at UVA --- as well. Memory shouldn't be so short. Gordon Tullock published a book a few years ago made up of his rejected pieces --- as he has said on more than one occassion, his original rent seeking piece took for ever to get published and when it did it was in the Western Economic Journal -- not exactly a hotbed of prestige. So fads and fashions are cyclical. Austrian arguments at one time were more widely accepted -- say in the 1930s, and they have been resurrected a bit in the 1980s with the collapse of socialism. As one indicator, look at the articles in the JEL that address Austrian arguments since the mid-1980s --- Kornai's piece on reform in Hungry, Heilbroner's piece on modern economic thought, White and Selgin on Free Banking, Caldwell on Hayek, and Kirzner on the Austrian theory, and even this past year the paper by Ostroy on the market and creative competition. So by that representation, the claim that Austrians have been shut down in the professional discourse is dubious. No doubt a certain style of Austrianism has been shut down, but for good reasons largely. Nevertheless, it is true that Austrians have a difficult time getting a hearing and that is because: (a) they reject the standard language of economics and its method --- along with McCloskey Austrians have long argued that statistical significance and economic significance are not the same thing (making neither one very popular); and (b) they tend to focus their attention on "big" think questions which few scholars are really capable of doing anything with --- the fact that a Hayek or Mises, or a Buchanan or a Sen, or an Adam Smith, can tackle the "big" ideological questions doesn't mean that people who read them can do so in a progressive research program fashion. Thus, many individuals attracted to Austrian economics attempt to tackle questions which they cannot really address given their talents and experience. We would do better if people took smaller projects and did them in a serious manner --- I would opt here for more economic history being written by Austrian inspired folk, and more detailed institutional analysis in the policy work. Third, the market for economic ideas is not a market in the same way that the market for computer software is. This is an empirical claim on my part, and the reasons I would give is that in academic life (following Bryan Caplan) people don't have to pay for holding rather silly ideas. Paul Krugman, who by any measure is a more successful economist than any free market guy currently working in the academy, wrote after September 11th that the attack might actually be good for the US economy. OK -- so much for good economics winning the day. Krugman has taught where? --- MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and he has won what? --- the JB Clark Award. OK --- Joseph Stiglitz is the most important theorist of his generation (something I actually think he deserves credit for), but nevertheless, he has argued that the minimum wage does not present a problem (actually he argued that in his position as a politician while in his textbook he presents the standard argument), but he did seriously argue that capital controls would solve the world financial problems. He has taught where? Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia. He has won what? JB Clark, and Nobel. Do you really think that Mancur Olson, Gordon Tullock, James Buchanan, Ronald Coase, etc. have had the sort of academic prestige throughout their careers as say William Baumol?! Of course not. Olson was denied tenure and had to leave academics before U of Maryland picked him up, Tullock, Buchanan and Coase were basically forced out of UVA. Why? Because they were bad economists?! No, because of fads and fashions and the politics of prestige within the academy. So the Austrians, with the loss of the NYU program, no longer have a presence at a major research university --- only GMU (and even there it is diminshed from what it once was). Does this mean the Austrians have somehow failed the market test. Well, yes and no. At the same time this has happened, a stream of Austrian books have been produced -- some of which have even gotten some pretty good recognition. Articles by Austrian scholars appear in journals all the time --- maybe not in the AER, but in the professional journals. Some Austrians even get some wide recognition within the profession and Austrian arguments are recognized by leading scholars as having some merit --- I am particularly thinking here of Andrei Shleifer who in my opinion is doing the most interesting market-oriented work in a major university these days. Have Austrians missed opportunities --- definitely. In my own case, I failed to grasp opportunities to become a transition specialist that was contributing to the top journals. I had opportunities --- including a Hoover fellowship, which is an absolutely great gig. I tried to make the most of that year, but I didn't have the full creative talents to make the argument fly. I made arguments that were published in lesser tier journals (some of which have even been cited by others) that others were able to develop further and publish in the top journals (for example Shleifer). That is MY failure, not Austrian economics. Larry White and George Selgin didn't miss their opportunities. On final point, the Austrians have often argued that ideology has played a major role in their relative obscurity. There is no doubt this was true during the 1940s-1980s, but since 1980 free market ideas have not been silenced within the profession. So I don't think the ideological argument is true --- though of course the radical libertarianism of most Austrians is suspect even among free market types. For example, when Austrians deny all market failure problems -- no externalities --- they just eliminate themselves from the conversation about how market institutions could arise to solve these problems. So this is again an example where the isolationism is self-imposed. Economists as a group value "smarts" not necessarily being "good". Cleverness wins over wisdom in the game we play. Most of the type of questions which attract the interest of Austrians do not lend themselves to the type of "smart" and "clever" analysis that so often impresses our peers. Instead, sticking to one's knitting and getting the details correct in a solid piece of economic history, or demonstrating a sense of judgement and wisdom on policy relevant issues seems to be more the hallmark of the best within the Austrian approach. BTW, none of this should be seen as a complaint on my part about the relative position of the Austrians within our profession. I think the profession is very important and certainly do not think isolationism and dogmaticism are viable options for progress. I do think specialization is something we economists value in every aspect of production except in our own discpline which is sad and weird -- so I think schools should specialize rather than follow blindly the fads and fashions of the leaders. But these are forces beyond an individuals control --- all any individual can try to do is to do good work as they define it and try to write clearly and forcefully to maximize their readership. I just don't see all the whinning that Austrians supposedly engage in. Pete