I honestly think you are overcooking your goose, mate. It’s just a blog. Reputational costs, lectoids, externalities; all can be banished with the flick of an eye and the click of a button.

You say that others might want to – and again one cannot rule that out – but the issue here is whether your cluttering Troppo with Austrian lectoids has reputational externalities that will harm other contributors, and will add to the search costs and annoyance factor for visitors such that there is a net drop off in interest. My judgment is that they will, and notwithstanding Ken’s natural noninterventionist leanings, I think its something that the collective contributors to Troppo should think seriously about, and act on, if Rafe himself will not desist from polluting this space.

Pedro – perhaps I used the wrong term when I said ‘centrist’; the real (sub)point is that, relative to many other blogs, on Troppo most commentators let facts influence their understandings of the world, rather than searching for facts to justify their understandings. If I wanted to get right wing or left wing spin on things, I would go elsewhere.

It is always disappointing when idealogical labels are used to filter participation in a discussion.

30Hayek to Mises, letter dated January 12, 1941; Grove City Archive:
Hayek files. He went on:
I am trying hard to show to people how this present trend leads inevitably to economic decay and fascism and I shall follow up my pamphlet with a more popular booklet (probably in one of the sixpenny series) on which I am now working, apart from the larger book, which is slowly progressing

I agree entirely with what you say about the horrible state of economic thinking here and in the U.S.A. That at the present time when one can at least have some hope for the immediate future the long run outlook should be so dark is really dreadful.

Some of the events and incidents in the life of Mises are interesting regardless of the merits of Austrian economics. Like the complexity and ramifications of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the activities of Nazi agents in Vienna, even before Hitler formally took over.

In deference to the people who find some of my concerns to be tedious, I intend to post on a range of issues, as in the past, so there is likely to be something for everyone.

I also intend to post regularly on current work that is being done by Austrians because I think it has value and there is quite likely no other significant blog in Australia where you will find this material. It might even attract some people to Troppo, quite likely more than will be driven away by the need to skip over a couple of paras before the fold.

If people can produce arguments and evidence to show that the Austrians (as I understand them) are on the wrong track I will emulate Keynes and change my mind.

FFS – Tom N just spent much longer composing his whinge than it would have taken to avoid a hundred Rafe posts.

Rafe is a venerable blogging pioneer, and almost a blogosphere institution. He certainly merits a forum for his ideas even if quite a few readers find his obsessions tiresome, and we’re happy to provide a forum here at Troppo. Moreover, Rafe’s style and approach are the eptitome of civility, he almost never descends to ad hominem abuse, and that’s a quality we prize highly here. Feel free to ignore his posts or disagree, but demands to ban Rafe are frankly unworthy IMO.

Tom;

Rafe is actually a very long time posting member of Troppo and Austrian economics is his big subject of interest. It might be argued that the Austrians are more relevant than ever, being the ‘third voice’ on monetary policy, a topic which has suddenly become a rather central topic of late.

It is not simply a matter of: “well, if you’re not interested, don’t read it”. When consuming blogs, there are transactions costs of filtering out uninteresting material – and people when surfing tend, I suspect, to be less tolerant of off-theme material than when, for example, sitting down with a glass of port and a potentially good book at the end of the day.

One reason I come to Troppo is that I find a good majority of the posts to be interesting and stimulating, carefully argued, broadly centrist* and with direct relevance to economic and related policy matters of the day (or, at least, the current millenium).

At a minimum, I think Rafe should simply link to the forthcoming pieces on Mises that he has threatenned to put on Troppo proper, and be sparing in his future posts on other niche topics. Better still would be for hims to find a specialist blogsite on the history of economic thought etc where his stuff would be a better fit.

Tom N.

And please, the ‘mockpuppet’ names aren’t funny or clever. They’re just annoying. Leave it at LP, please.