Who are your top 5 Austrian economists?

[AlexMerced]

FA Hayek
Mises
Rothbard
Modern Day I really enjoy the work of Robert Murphy on the Rothbardian side of things and was fascinated by a lot of the writings of Arnold Kling who is more in the hayekian mold.

As Historians my favorites are Rothbard and Tom Woods

Other notable charachters not exactly in the austrian tradition are Nassim Taleb, Douglass C. North, John Kenneth Galbraith (while I vehemently disagree with Galbraith and even more so his son, JKG put forth some interesting challenges to us in the free market crowd which recommend people familiarize themselves so you know how to deal with them when people bring them up)

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

FA Hayek
Mises
Rothbard
Modern Day I really enjoy the work of Robert Murphy on the Rothbardian side of things and was fascinated by a lot of the writings of Arnold Kling who is more in the hayekian mold.

As Historians my favorites are Rothbard and Tom Woods

Other notable charachters not exactly in the austrian tradition are Nassim Taleb, Douglass C. North, John Kenneth Galbraith (while I vehemently disagree with Galbraith and even more so his son, JKG put forth some interesting challenges to us in the free market crowd which recommend people familiarize themselves so you know how to deal with them when people bring them up)

You pick JKB of all those who actually have significant critiques and opposition? I would be more inclined to put someone like Jevons or Pareto. Yes, they are closer to us in the grand paradigm than JKB, but I find those closest to us, but not quite us who have an understanding of our positions are best able to put forth objections with actual methodological and practical reasoning.

[hayekian]

Herbert Spencer - I know, not usually associated with the Austrian label but very much a free-market guy who was tremendously influential on many who were looking at the world in an evolutionary way at the time and ever since. Spencer was like a Hayek half a century before there was a Hayek. Carl Menger didn't write much, but at least on a couple of occasions referred to Spencer favorably, and Carl Menger's writings were very much in the spontaneous order/evolutionary path that Spencer had been popularizing better than anyone else at the time. Charles Darwin told Spencer that "Every one with eyes to see and ears to hear (the number, I fear, are not many) ought to bow their knee to you, and I for one do." and in another occasion referred to Spencer as "twenty times my superior."

Carl Menger - . Menger's work not only became the foundation for the modern Austrians when it came to pure economics, but he also gave a tremendous boost to the evolutionary/spontaneous order tradition by explaining how the evolution of money and other social institutions are the result of human action but not of conscious human planning or design. Here is a great example of his contribution in this area (From Menger's "Investigations Into the Method of the Social Sciences"):

“There exists a certain similarity between natural organisms and a series of structures of social life, both in respect to their function and their origin…Natural organisms almost without exception exhibit, when closely observed, a really admirable functionality of all parts with respect to the whole, a functionality which is not, however, the result of human calculation, but of a natural process. Similarly we can observe in numerous social institutions a strikingly apparent functionality with respect to the whole. But with closer consideration they still do not prove to be the result of an intention aimed at this purpose, i.e., the result of an agreement of members of society or of positive legislation. They, too, present themselves to us rather as “natural” products(in a certain sense), as unintended results of historical development. One needs, e.g., only to think of the phenomenon of money, an institution which to so great a measure serves the welfare of society, and yet in most nations, by far, is by no means the result of an agreement directed at its establishment as a social institution, or of positive legislation, but is the unintended product of historical development. One needs only to think of law, of language, of the origin of markets, the origin of communities and of states, etc.”

Hayek mentioned that: “I only met Mises really after I had taken my degree. But I now realize—I wouldn’t have known it at the time—the decisive influence was just reading Menger’s Principles. I probably derived more from not only the Principles but also the Investigations .” Hayek found Menger’s Principles “such a fascinating book—so satisfying.”

Mises

Hayek

Rothbard

[Xerographica]

Any assistance with this economic topic would be appreciated...Why Should Perspectives Matter?

My topic 5 Austrian...kinda...economists are...

Bastiat
Hayek
Turgot
Boettke
Adam Smith!

[Jingles]

Murray Rothbard
Walter Block
Robert P. Murphy
Thomas DiLorenzo (Who got his PhD in Economics at VTech... Where I am going to school).
Hans-Hermann Hoppe

[seraphson]

Arnold Schwarzenegger







Currently reading Road to Serfdom. Good stuff.

[Keith and stuff]

Is that Buchanan in your avatar? Seems kind of strange for an Austrian fan to also be a Buchanan fan.

Rothbard was a big supporter of Buchanan. Also, Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Buchanan have some similar views. Not to mention that Lew Rockwell went out of his way for years to promote Buchanan. Of course, Buchanan also went out of his way to help Ron Paul.

To answer the original question:
Henry Hazlitt
Tom Woods
Thomas DiLorenzo
Lew Rockwell
Murray Rothbard

[StilesBC]

1. F.A. Hayek
2. Ludwig von Mises
3. Murray Rothbard
4. Henry Hazlitt
5. Joseph Schumpeter

Schumpeter is not really of the "Austrian School" but his ideas of "creative destruction" are imperative to understand the role failure plays in a market economy. Some of the others can tend toward a free market utopianism, so for balance a little Schumpeter is a good suggestion for all to read.

Living:

1. Jesus Huerta de Soto
2. Joseph Salerno
3. Peter Klein
4. Steve Horowitz
5. Pete Boettke

Honourable mentions to Murphy, Shostak and Garrison. But again, Horowitz and Boetkke get top spots for balance, as I recognize that the work the GMU crowd is doing is every bit as good/important as LvMI. De Soto doesn't get enough credit, I assume because his lectures in English are almost incoherent for those without some background in Spanish. But his work is one of the last remaining beachheads in Europe for economic liberty. His book, "Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles" should be required reading for those interested in monetary issues.

[hugolp]

Apart from the "classics" (Mises/Rothbard/Hayek) some modern ones I like:

- Roger Garrison
- George Selgin
- Robert Higgs
- Steve Horwitz
- Ralph Raico

[osan]

Curious to see the views of the forum, and perhaps it will spark discussion surrounding the differences of the economists.

I don't have five favorites. I like anyone carrying forth and advocating the philosophy of free markets as a necessary element of human freedom.

I do have one favorite Austrian economist, though: me.