Regarding the RGS, a student writes:
As a veteran of many Mises Institute events, including a Mises University and a previous Rothbard Graduate Seminar which covered Human Action, here are several reasons why I found our Seminar on Man, Economy and State to be a superlative event:
- This was the first such seminar on Rothbard’s economic treatise at the Mises Institute. Not only was it exciting to be part of such a historic event, but I suspect this had to do with the level of enthusiasm from the professors and students.
- The professors’ lectures had real depth and scholarship. Rothbard’s work was not just summarized, but engaged, criticized and extended. This was a true graduate seminar. The feeling was not that we were piously reading holy writ, but that we were being brought into a living research program with plenty of opportunities for all of us to extend the Rothbardian paradigm, refine it and apply it.
- As a result of all this, the level of student engagement was very high. Our M.C., Mark Thornton, commented that there was no need for him to prod questions or discussion at this seminar, he simply had to cut it off so we didn’t run over time. I thought the questions showed a high level of engagement with Rothbard’s work and a high interest in finding research opportunities. The students were clearly a high quality group with strong motivation and commitment to Austrian economics and libertarian theory.
- As someone who has been around the Mises Institute before the addition of the new building, I did not take the excellent facilities for granted. The new seminar room provided plenty of room for the nearly 30 professors and students to spread out our books and notes during lectures. The seminar room also featured top notch audio-visual equipment for showing computer based presentations, recording the lectures and even watching a video of Rothbard speaking. We also had excellent outdoor dining space for eating our breakfasts, lunches and dinners at the Mises Institute which gave us additional time for discussion and just getting to know each other. The more and more extensive library was often used by professors and students during breaks.
Mny thanks to those who made this seminar possible. For me this seminar was a quantum leap in my understanding of Austrian economics and my motivation to extend the Austrian research program.
Stephen W. Carson
Graduate student in Political Economy
Washington University, St. Louis, MO
