Arnold Kling at EconLog has a short essay at TCS with the zippy title, "So you want to be a Masonomist."

The gist is that the GMU economic way of thinking emphasizes methodological and ethical individualism.

If you want to be a Masonomist, you have to lose the we. When people use we in today's politics , they are doing two things.

1. Appealing to a moral entity that stands apart from and above John, Mary, or any other individual
2. Treating government as the embodiment of that higher moral entity

You can be a Masonomist and believe (1). It is a good thing to have a conscience and moral standards. It is a good thing to engage in volunteer work, to form organizations that address the needs of others, and to act unselfishly toward family and others in your community.

Masonomists encourage our noble impulses. Tyler Cowen's book is a cross between a self-help manual and an essay on moral philosophy. In one section, he suggests ways that one can modify one's behavior in order to give enough to charity and to ensure that one's charitable contributions are made wisely.

However, Masonomics is unrelenting in its rejection of (2). For many years, George Mason has been the home of Public Choice Theory, which says that instead of imagining what a wise, omniscient, benevolent government might do, one should pay attention to how government operates in practice. Nobel Laureate James Buchanan, founder (with Gordon Tullock) of Public Choice, is the gray eminence of Masonomics.

I like that gray eminence line. I dislike always seeing Gordon Tullock's name in parentheses when following that of Buchanan.

The implication of the gist of methodological and ethical individualism, a la the GMU economic way of thinking, is to favor markets over governments. I very much admire the pithiness of Arnold's characterization here:

At the University of Chicago, economists lean to the right of the economics profession. They are known for saying, in effect, "Markets work well. Use the market."

At MIT and other bastions of mainstream economics, most economists are to the left of center but to the right of the academic community as a whole. These economists are known for saying, in effect, "Markets fail. Use government."

Masonomics says, "Markets fail. Use markets."

Overall the essay seems to try to make sense of "what is going on" at GMU Economics, and perhaps more importantly, what will come of the ideas currently being tossed about and refined at GMU. That's a tall order. Especially since it's impossible to "abandon the we" when talking about a group of free thinkers, however like-minded and mutually affectionate they may be.