David Lambkin wrote:

>      I have faithfully attended all the Burkett-Miller lectures of the last 4 years and mostly suffered in silence.

Well, gee whiz, if you have been suffering so much for four years, why
have you kept attending this long?  I hope no one has been holding a gun
to your head and making you attend.  If it's such a chore, why not take
the afternoon off and go fishing instead....

>      My problem is that the speech he gave was either pointless or patronizing, depending on your level of knowledge, and sheer ideological cant throughout as well as being poorly presented.

I was able to follow it pretty well and found it neither pointless nor
patronizing.  It was clear to me that it was over the heads of most of
the students in the audience, though.  Perhaps he could have done a
better job of targeting the audience, but I found the public speech
interesting and the smaller, private session afterward even more so.

As far as being poorly presented - well, it could have been better, but
I have definitely heard much worse, too.  It appeared to me that Dr.
Smith was bothered considerably by the lighting in the auditorium (which
after all is designed for musical performances rather than lectures).
He appeared to lose his place several times and take a moment or two to
regroup, but I attributed that to the conditions rather than poor
organization or lack of speaking ability on his part.  It is obvious
that his talents as an economist far exceed his oratorical prowess, but
I was able to overlook the miscues and still comprehend and enjoy the
lecture.  I do think the Probasco Chair should look into moving future
lectures to a more speaker-friendly site or at least doing something
about the lighting in the Roland Hayes hall so that it doesn't distract
the presenter.

>     Also to state that markets cannot be "cognitively comprehended" only empirically tested to demonstrate their "better than expected outcomes" both mystifies markets beyond any criticism and leaves us hanging as to exactly how one objectively tests market functions.

I gathered from that statement not the conclusion that we cannot observe
and draw conclusions about the function of markets, but rather an
understanding that the sheer complexity of any market in the real world
means that no one person or entity can possibly comprehend its operation
sufficiently to exercise centralized control successfully.  Markets by
nature are an example of distributed control which, while not
necessarily optimal, yields better results than one would expect from
theory and certainly better than any attempt to "plan" economic
activity.  That's my poor, non-economist attempt at clarifying his
point, anyway.  As to how one objectively tests market functions, that's
out of my league, but maybe Probasco Chair J. R. Clark or one of the
other ECON profs can enlighten us about that aspect of Dr. Smith's work.

> To be a fan of "free trade and free market function" is almost de rigeur in economics.

Maybe, but it's hardly de rigeur on university campuses, where socialism
is the prevailing philosophy.  I loved Vaclav Klaus' observation Friday
that there are more true Marxists on the UC Berkeley campus than in all
of the Czech Republic (or even in the former Czechoslovakia under Soviet
domination).  People who have seen central planning in action don't need
Vernon Smith to tell them it doesn't work; all it takes are two eyes and
a little common sense.

I am so pleased that UTC has a free market, libertarian-leaning lecture
series that presents the opposite (non-socialist) viewpoint to students
and those faculty, staff, and community members willing to listen.  It's
a breath of fresh air compared to the tired old "Government knows best,
let Big Brother fix everything" rhetoric one usually hears coming from
campus lecterns.  I hope the Probasco Chair continues to bring in such
acclaimed speakers as Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, John Stossel,
Vaclav Klaus, and yes, Vernon Smith, to advocate the cause of economic
and personal freedom.

>      Whatever you think about this "lecture series" I am going to stop going until there is some revision of the format and a clearer and fairer structure.  I also am going to stop offering my students (public speaking 101) a 2% bonus for writing a 2 page summary of the main speech.

That's the wonderful thing about free markets.  No one is forcing you to
go or to send your students.  It is openly advertised as a lecture
series about free enterprise, so you know what to expect before you walk
in the door.  If you don't like it, vote with your feet; if most people
feel as you do, the series will wither for lack of attendance.  (Maybe
those who don't like the Burkett Miller lecture series can start, oh
say, a competing "Che Guevara Memorial Lecture Series in Socialism" and
see how it does.)  If people continue to attend, it will prosper.
Ultimately, the market will decide - which is, after all, the whole
point of the series in the first place.