Gavin Kennedy — David Bratt And Lisa Hill On Adam Smith's Religiosity And My Rebuttals

Scot Galupo (18 June) in “The American Conservative” HERE lamblasts “David Brat’s Half-Cocked Theological-Economic Fusionism”.  

I agree with Scot Galupo on this occasion.

Adam Smith's Lost Legacy
David Bratt And Lisa Hill On Adam Smith's Religiosity And My Rebuttals
Gavin Kennedy was Professor of Defence Finance in the Department of Accounting and Finance at Heriot-Watt University and Professor of Economics at Strathclyde University, where he helped to develop the MBA programme. His research interests are all aspects of the history of negotiation; he has written a book on Adam Smith's philosophy and economics and has published extensively in the fields of defence economics and naval history. His books on negotiation are best-sellers and are widely read by practising managers. Professor Kennedy has been managing director of Negotiate Ltd since 1987, an international consultancy specialising in negotiation and influence, whose clients include corporations, government departments and non-governmental organisations in many countries.

Steve M. — One More Thing About David Brat

No, Brat is not a conservative Elizabeth Warren. He's an extremist.

No More Mister Nice Blog
One More Thing About David Brat
Steve M.

(h/t Brad DeLong)

Julie Ingersoll — David Brat: Catholic, Calvinist, and Libertarian, Oh My!

David Brat is a Theological Libertarian. Ingersoll explains his views on reconciling Calvinist Christian theology with contemporary Libertarianism.

Religion Dispatches
David Brat: Catholic, Calvinist, and Libertarian, Oh My!
Julie Ingersoll | Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Florid
(h/t Kevin Fathi)

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

Matt O'Brien — Dave Brat’s unorthodox economics: Adam Smith ‘was from a red state’

So what are Brat's economic beliefs? Well, he's focused on, to his mind, two related questions: why rich countries are so rich, and what ethics has to do with economics. Let's look at them both....

In short, Brat thinks that culture matters—and so does ethics. Now, that's not a word you hear economists use very much nowadays, but Brat points out that they used to....

...according to Brat, that unlike economists today, Smith "knew that the world of thought must be unified"—that "positive analysis and normative analysis must meet in the end." In other words, Brat thinks economists have to get back to telling us how to live, and not just how to live efficiently. Or at least be explicit about it, so we can judge whether we like the ethics behind their economics.

I agree with this in principle, although I disagree with Brat on the details. Suppressing the normative and prescriptive content of assumptions in order to appear more positive and science-like is disingenuous or ignorant.

As Keynes wrote in a letter to Harrod (787, 4 July 1938), "economics is essentially a moral science and not a natural science. That is to say, it employs introspection and judgments of value."

The Washington Post — Wonkblog
Dave Brat’s unorthodox economics: Adam Smith ‘was from a red state’
Matt O'Brien

Brad DeLong — Patrick Iber: Review of Republican Congressional Candidate David Brat’s (VA-7) Dissertation

Doesn't seem that his dissertation throws much light on what David Brat thinks which is relevant to contemporary politics. But it's a piece in the puzzle.


WCEG — The Equitablog
Patrick Iber: Review of Republican Congressional Candidate David Brat’s (VA-7) Dissertation
Brad DeLong

Lee Fang — Eric Cantor’s Opponent Beat Him By Calling Out GOP Corruption

The national media is buzzing about Brat’s victory, but for all of the wrong reasons. 

Did the tea party swoop in and help Brat, as many in the Democratic Party are suggesting? Actually, the Wall Street Journal reports no major tea party or anti-establishment GOP group spent funds to defeat Cantor. Did Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, lose because of his religion, as some have suggested? There’s no evidence so far of anti-Semitism during the campaign. Was Cantor caught flatfooted? Nope; Cantor’s campaign spent close to $1 million on the race and several outside advocacy groups, including the National Rifle Association, the National Realtors Association and the American Chemistry Council (a chemical industry lobbying association) came in and poured money into the district to defeat Brat. The New York Times claims that Brat focused his campaign primarily on immigration reform. Brat certainly made immigration a visible topic in his race, but Republic Report listened to several hours of Brat stump speeches and radio appearances and that issue came up far less what Brat called the main problem in government: corruption and cronyism.

Brat told Internet radio host Flint Engelman that the “number one plank” in his campaign is “free markets.” Brat went on to explain, “Eric Cantor and the Republican leadership do not know what a free market is at all, and the clearest evidence of that is the financial crisis … When I say free markets, I mean no favoritism to K Street lobbyists.”

Moyers & Co.
Eric Cantor’s Opponent Beat Him By Calling Out GOP Corruption
Lee Fang, The Republic Report

See also Seven Key Takeaways From Eric Cantor’s Shocking Defeat by Joshua Holland

Below, we’ve rounded up some of the best analyses of Cantor’s unlikely loss. But an important caveat as you sort through the reporting: Be wary of sweeping conclusions based on a midterm primary. Only 65,000 people cast ballots last night — around 12 percent of registered voters in Virginia’s 7th District. So while the results may say a lot about the Republican Party’s activist base, Eric Cantor’s relationship with those voters and perhaps the mood among the most conservative constituents in Virginia’s 7th District, they probably offer little insight into nationwide trends heading into November’s midterms.

John B. Judis — Dave Brat and the Triumph of Rightwing Populism

Dave Brat’s victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has been widely attributed to Brat’s opposition to immigration reform. But in his campaign, Brat and his Tea Party backers gave equal weight to denouncing Cantor as a tool of Wall Street, the big banks, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. Brat’s campaign reflected an old strain of rightwing populism that continues to be an important part of our politics. 

American populism is rooted in middle class resentment of those who are seen as enjoying the benefits of the goods and services the middle class produces without having earned them through work. Its ideology is what historians call “producerism.” It first appears in the Jacksonian Workingmen’s Parties and then in the Populists of the late nineteenth century. But it takes a leftwing and a rightwing form.

Facing an ailing economy, leftwing populists from Huey Long to Paul Wellstone primarily blame Wall Street, big business and the politicians whom they fund. Rightwing populists from George Wallace to Pat Buchanan also blame Wall Street, but put equal if not greater blame on the poor, the unemployed, the immigrant, and the minorities, who, like the coupon-clipper on Wall Street, are seen as economic parasites.

The Tea Party is a heterogeneous movement, but many of its members, and many of the local candidates it champions, are rightwing populists. And that was certainly true of Brat....

New Republic
Dave Brat and the Triumph of Rightwing Populism
John B. Judis

Amanda Terkel — Dave Brat, Economics Professor: 'I Don't Have A Well-Crafted Response' On Minimum Wage

This guy is an economics professor involved in politics and doesn’t have a "well-crafted response" to a question about the minimum wage? Fail.

TODD: Should there be a minimum wage in your opinion?

BRAT: I don't have a well-crafted response on that one. All I know is if you take the long-run graph over 200 years of the wage rate, it cannot differ from your nation's productivity. Right? So you can't make up wage rates. Right? I would love for everyone in sub-Saharan Africa, for example -- children of God -- to make $100 an hour. I would love to just assert that that would be the case. But you can't assert that unless you raise their productivity, and then the wage follows.

According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the federal minimum wage in the United States should actually be almost $22 an hour if it had kept up with increases in worker productivity.

The Huffington Post
Dave Brat, Economics Professor: 'I Don't Have A Well-Crafted Response' On Minimum Wage
Amanda Terkel

Zack Beauchamp — The guy who beat Eric Cantor penned a scathing, seemingly unpublished book about the economics profession

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor just lost a historic primary race — to an economist. Prof. David Brat chairs the Department of Business and Economics at Randolph-Macon College, a liberal arts school in Ashland, Virginia. Vox read over some of his academic research, and it helps give you a sense of what the politician at the center of tonight's political earthquake believes.

VOX
The guy who beat Eric Cantor penned a scathing, seemingly unpublished book about the economics profession
Zack Beauchamp

Digby — Limbaugh was credited with winning the 1994 election for the GOP. Meet the new Rush Limbaugh. #Cantorupset [Laura Ingraham]

Talk radio won this one. And Ingraham was all over Brat's campaign and his anti-immigration message.

Hullaballoo
Limbaugh was credited with winning the 1994 election for the GOP. Meet the new Rush Limbaugh. #Cantorupset [Laura Ingraham]
Digby

Tim Murphy — Eric Cantor Loses GOP Primary. Wait, What!?

[Eric] Cantor became the first majority leader to lose a primary in 115 years.

So who is [David] Brat?

Mother Jones 
Eric Cantor Loses GOP Primary. Wait, What!?
Tim Murphy