More on the Genius (and Flowing Locks) of Mike Munger

Katherine Mangu-Ward | October 27, 2008

For those who can't get enough of today's reason superstar, Duke economist and North Carolina Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate Michael Munger, I suggest dipping into this EconTalk podcast on the joys of middlemen.

One of the subjects addressed is the story about the priest in the POW camp during WWII taken from R.A. Radford's 1945 Economica article:

We reached a transit camp in Italy about a fortnight after capture and received 1/4 of a Red Cross food parcel each a week later. At once exchanges, already established, multiplied in volume. Starting with simple direct barter, such as a non-smoker giving a smoker friend his cigarette issue in exchange for a chocolate ration, more complex exchanges soon became an accepted custom. Stories circulated of a padre who started off round the camp with a tin of cheese and five cigarettes and returned to his bed with a complete parcel in addition to his original cheese and cigarettes; the market was not yet perfect. Within a week or two, as the volume of trade grew, rough scales of exchange values came into existence. Sikhs, who had at first exchanged tinned beef for practically any other foodstuff, began to insist on jam and margarine. It was realized that a tin of jam was worth 1/2 lb. of margarine plus something else; that a cigarette issue was worth several chocolates issues, and a tin of diced carrots was worth practically nothing.

A bonus Mike Munger story, gathered third-hand by yours truly: At a Public Choice Society meeting, Nobel Prize winning economist James Buchanan says to Munger, who he hasn't seen in several years, and whose flowing golden locks can also be seen on the reason homepage, "Munger, I just don't get 'ya. The hair says liberal, but the umbrella says conservative."

Comments

economist|10.27.08 @ 6:14PM|#

I am the first to post.

economist|10.27.08 @ 6:15PM|#

I now rule the thread, and I challenge any of you to try and topple me from this lofty position.

SSFC|10.27.08 @ 6:16PM|#

That's old Munger. New Munger got all respectable like and cut his hair when he decided to run for governor.

The corruption in North Carolina politics is such that even with the short hair and his adherence to the world's most corrupt basketball team, I still considered Munger the least of three evils and voted for him.

|10.27.08 @ 6:19PM|#

Um, didn't Munger grow his hair for charity and then cut it..like a year ago or something?

Brian Sorgatz|10.27.08 @ 6:20PM|#

Michael Munger and Steven Pinker both belong in the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™, which I discovered through Pinker's Harvard website.

|10.27.08 @ 6:21PM|#

http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/03/14/michael-mungers-hair/

http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/mike_mungers_haircut

According to his blog, Kids Prefer Cheese, Munger gave his hair away to commemorate his wife's survival of breast cancer in 2004.

"To all of you who have wondered about, or openly mocked, my hair....that's why I grew it out," he wrote.

SSFC|10.27.08 @ 6:24PM|#

Whatever he says about his excuse for cutting his hair and going establishment on us, when I told my wife (who works at Duke) that I'd voted for Munger, her response was:

"YOU VOTED FOR DOCTOR WHO!"

Dormouse|10.27.08 @ 6:30PM|#

^^

I'd vote for Doctor Who.

Brian Sorgatz|10.27.08 @ 6:32PM|#

I didn't know William Katt was a Libertarian.

|10.27.08 @ 6:35PM|#

I very much enjoyed the Economica story. But wasn't there something about a guy drawing a cross in the dirt with his sandal? I coulda sworn ...

Mad Max|10.27.08 @ 8:48PM|#

"I'd vote for Doctor Who."

Which one?

Corporal Bugs Bunny|10.27.08 @ 9:02PM|#

a tin of diced carrots was worth practically nothing

Ah, dems jus' dose gawddaym fiat cawwots!

|10.27.08 @ 9:28PM|#

Hey, I just read that "economy of prison camp" it's like this really long academic thing. Some Reason staffer linked me to it. Who was that, what post?

Dormouse|10.27.08 @ 10:23PM|#

Pertwee, Baker, Davison, Eccleston, or Tennant.

[/nerd]

|10.28.08 @ 1:11AM|#

Question: didn't the padre fulfill the role of creation of wealth by transport (like how spices in India were worth less than they were in Europe, promoting trade via the sea and the Middle East)? I rather dislike the sentiment that the market wasn't perfect because the Padre effectively performed the service of a merchant and left everybody else better off in their own opinions, even if he ended up with more overall.

Harry Lime|10.28.08 @ 2:56PM|#

I'd vote for Doctor Who.

Anyone but Pertwee. He was an establishment tool.