Comments on Roger Garrison's "a roundabout approach to macroeconomics: some autobiographical reflections".

The autobiographical article by Roger Garrison (Fall, 2004) told of a journey from his days as a potential engineer to a leading and respected Austrian Economist. However, there were therein some unfair and misleading statements aimed at this University and its faculty.

Garrison indicated that he was surprised that we admitted him to our Masters program due to our Veblenian and Ayresian (Institutional/Evolutionary) leanings visa vis his then stated interest to us in Mises and others. Our Department has had and does have a history of inclusiveness and diversity--Orthodox, Institutional, Keynesian, Post Keynesian, conservative, liberal, et cetera. As an Austrian, he was welcome to join us in our belief in and practice of academic and philosophical diversity.

Garrison did mention his macro-economics course (501) which, at that time Garrison took the course, used the Ackley text. Although rigorous, the text's many graphs were daunting and, to some economists, neutered the real message of Keynes as does the IS/LM analysis. One student said to me lately that spending so little time on IS/LM per se she believed was too little until she later realized that it was too much time spent on it, especially its supposed mathematical certainty, as has been indicated elsewhere. Thus, on this point, there is general agreement here with Garrison.

Garrison later indicated (page 32) that he apparently thought that no one had really read or understood his Austrian paper written here in Macro 501. However, the professor not only read it, but discussed the diagrammatical approach with Garrison before its being written. It was an excellent paper which the Rothbards later found very promising--rightfully so! As to the "hint" of his belief that no one here really under stood the Austrian analysis, there is no one here of the high degree of Austrian expertise as Roger, but the Macro-instructor in said Macro course did at Dartmouth have a course in business cycles that covered three economists: Hawtrey, Keynes, Hayek--an excellent selection of theorists. Later, at Oklahoma University, the same professor wrote a graduate paper on Hayek in which there was a general agreement with the mechanism of the Hayek cycle after the initial disturbance, but with less certainty concerning its causation and implications thereof. In his later course in business cycles, Hayek was included. Thus, the instructor did and does have a degree of Austrian understanding. As to the apparent belief by Garrison (p. 32) that his paper was not really read or understood, it was read. Papers here are not graded without being read--and I hope that is the case everywhere else as well.

The autobiographical article by Garrison was of interest and relevance. At this University, we are glad that Roger was with us; and we are glad of his many successes. The field of Economics can learn something of value from many paradigms of analysis. Roger's journey from engineering to Austrianism is proof of this. As for myself, I have gone from Orthodoxy to Post Keynesian with an Institutionalist underpinning. Roger and I have both traveled an academic joumey of interest and relevance. Happily, our journeys are not yet over. Perhaps, we can both say of our journeys as did the poet, Robert Frost, in his poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening":

   The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
   But I have promises to keep,
   And miles to go before I sleep,
   And miles to go before I sleep.

I hope that our diverse readers feel the same for themselves in their own on-going journey towards a more adequate degree of Economic analysis and realize that no paradigm has a monopoly on a complete adequacy of Economic knowledge. I close by congratulating Roger on his journey and his well-deserved successes therein.

W. Robert Brazelton, Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri-Kansas City.