Barley Rosser — The Peculiar Political Economy of David Alan Brat

Some reports had him being an admirer of Austrian economics, but it turns out that the political economy of David Alan Brat is far more complicated and not at all clearly Austrian.

What appears to be the deepest key and theme of his views involves religion. He received a Masters degree in theology from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1990, where he apparently entertained critical views of Milton Friedman's approach to theoretical economics, which he considered to be sorely lacking in ethics. Following up on this he pursued a PhD in economics at American University, a department widely considered to be of a somewhat leftish and heterodox orientation... 

Arguing for directly global measures of inequality along the lines pursued by Branko Milanovic at the World Bank, where Brat spent some time then, it could have been written by Thomas Piketty....

So, while he has to overcome a sociology prof from RMC, Jack Trammell, the Democratic nominee, it is likely that Brat will be the next Congressman from the Seventh District of Virginia, one of the most Republican districts in the state. What he will do or where his views will evolve remains to be seen. But one should at a minimum expect to hear more from him about religion and economics.

BTW, as near as I can tell he has never written anything professional on the matters that he has ridden as hobby horses to his political win: immigration and balanced budgets.

So it seems that Brat is neither an Austrian nor a Randian, although he professes to be a free market guy.

I think the major question now is how he reconciles his interest in some aspects of Ayn Rand, apparently capitalism and free markets as "moral" in that they are the products of reason, with his Christianity, the social aspects of which seem to be in conflict with market efficiency as a moral standard.

Econospeak
The Peculiar Political Economy of David Alan Brat
Barley Rosser