User:RM395/Course/Edit wars/Austrian School

Introduction

An edit war broke out on the Austrian School page in February. The Austrian School is a school of economic thought that places a high importance on free markets and spontaneous order.

Originating from the policies of Austrian-born economists like Carl Menger, the Austrian School's policies were later influenced by Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. The school's beliefs are often contrasted with Keynesian economics.

Paul Krugman, a Keynesian economist and writer at The New York Times, frequently writes about the Austrian School in his column.

The Edit War

On November 29, Krugman wrote a blog post criticizing investor Peter Schiff, who considers himself an adherent to the Austrian School. Using data obtained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Krugman attempted to explain that Schiff's forecasts on inflation — both in general and in relation to the U.S. government's post-recession economic policies — were completely off-base.

A Wikipedia user named Byelf2007, whose public profile mentions that he is a follower of the Austrian School, noticed a discrepancy in how the page detailed Krugman's work. Austrians and Keynesians often define "inflation" in different ways — the former as an increase in the money supply and the latter as an increase in commodity prices — and a refusal to compromise on its definition in the Wikipedia page would make it impossible to discuss Krugman's worries about a liquidity trap.

John Carney, a senior editor at CNBC, explained the situation likewise: "Austrians will insist that any increase in the money supply is inflation — as a matter of definition. But Austrian economics does not insist that this kind of inflation necessarily results in higher prices. . . . Or, perhaps more generously, they failed to make it clear that their concerns about 'inflation' were not primarily concerns about rising prices." Thus, a main concern was that Krugman's conflation of price inflation and monetary inflation would make him look unprofessional.

A general consensus was met in late February, but emotions were still subtly brewing about other issues. Key contributors decided to stick to inflation changes before moving on to the rest of the page's dynamics. As recently as March 17, the debate is still under way.

Outcome

Administrators at Wikipedia eventually stepped in to mitigate the edit war, putting the Austrian School's page on temporary lockdown. Anyone who tried to change its content before February 23 was greeted by a message explaining, "[This page] is currently protected from editing."

Krugman, commenting on the edit war, told Salon writer Andrew Leonard that the incident parallels his typical experience with Austrian School proponents: "That is my experience with the Austrians: whenever you try to pin them down, they insist that you fail to understand their profound ideas. And they have indeed been predicting runaway inflation for years now; it’s interesting that they can neither explain why they were wrong nor admit that this poses a problem."

"Its devotees believe that they have access to a truth that generations of mainstream economists have somehow failed to discern," Krugman later added. "They go wild at any suggestion that maybe they’re the ones who have an intellectual blind spot. And as with all cults, the failure of prophecy — in this case, the prophecy of soaring inflation from deficits and monetary expansion — only strengthens the determination of the faithful to uphold the faith."