Keith: Good to read your voice. Just a couple of things. Starting at the end.
1. Malthus was considered a scientific economist in the books I've read. I think you will enjoy the Heilbroner for both. 2. Rather than considering that one Keynes statement is wrong and the other right. How about considering that an expression of admiration for another's thought does not preclude the fact that he thought there were people who could plan and people who were not very good at it or did it for less than moral reasons. Any follower of Italian Opera is well aware of such plots. It is said that Stalin had a copy of the Prince on his bedsider throughout his life. Sometimes it is devious and sometimes it is incompetance. Lots of people know the scales but very few are Bach and lots of people have opinions about why Bach "works" but have no knowledge of what it would mean to perform him. Not being anything but a citizen economist I am striking out in muddy waters her but, Keynes was a practical man concerned with the problem of Governing (according to your own statements). Hayek was a better writer but not as experienced in the implications of his thought. That is not out of line with the time when they were living. The "purity" of the cloister made practical thought even considered quackery. You could look at the history of the word "empiric" which has moved back and forth from meaning practical to meaning a "quack doctor" over the years. You could also refer to my post on the problem of language and Empire as well since no one seems to have read it or thought it worthwhile commenting upon. 3. As for fickle, I heard another story. It was his Gay friends who considered him to be faking it when he married that Russian Ballerina that made the fickle comment. But Keynes evidently was bisexual and loved his dancing lady as well as the arts. That is a neat metaphor for the problem of the arts with the current economics as well. (Forgive me Arthur, but this is not just gossip but documented and could have profound significance, or at least as much so as my meditation on bagels.) (see reply Economics 2/5/02 3:27) Regards, Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] PS another take on fickle could refer to FW which doesn't seem to work if I CC: to the list. Only if it is To: or first in line does it send out my posts. Well FW you are always my first choice. REH ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Ray Evans Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Ed Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 3:25 PM Subject: The mind of Keynes (was Re: Economics) > Hi Ray, > > Keynes and Hayek both were arguably two of the greatest minds living in > England in the last mid-century. They were both extremely widely read and > knowledgeable, and both wrote with elegance and largesse. To read either > for maximum enjoyment and understanding you really need to put your feet up > comfortably and read at Andante tempo. > > But there is one notable difference in their styles. Hayek constantly hunts > around the theme he is pursuing. No matter how far he sometimes appears to > digress to fetch examples from here and there, he always returns to the > point. Keynes, however, almost always gets carried away with his own > eloquence and comes to rest far from his original intention. This was why > his friends called him fickle. This is why, when Keynes was in America > negotiating Lend Lease in the last year of the war and sending long, > beautifully composed, communiqu�s back to London for approval, the > recipients in the Treasury or Downing Street would tear their hair out in > trying to understand just what precisely he was saying. > > But let me quote part of your posting, and then I want to quote Keynes just > a little further to show what he really thought of Hayek: > > At 22:28 04/02/02 -0500, you wrote: > (KH in reply to Ed Weick) > <<<< > After reading Hayek's "Road to Serfdom", Keynes changed his views later, > so perhaps I could encourage you to dig deeper and become more Ricardian in > your approach. Nevertheless, if spontaneous conversion is too much to hope > for at this stage I always read your weighty postings with respect. > <<<< > (EW) > <<<< > I would agree that a conversion would be pretty difficult. I simply don't > have the time and perhaps not even the interest. I had some exposure to > Hayek when I was a student, but my professors, perhaps wrongly, tended to > dismiss him as being too far to right. > >>>> > > (REH) > <<<< > Keynes agreed with Hayek's indictment of the overplanned economy, however I > think it is not quite accurate to say that Keynes agreed with Hayek's > answers on this. Keynes wrote this to Hayek: > > "I should...conclude rather differently. I should say that what we want > is not no planning, or even less planning, indeed I should say we almost > certainly want more. But the planning should take place in a community in > which as many people as possible, both leaders and followers, wholly share > your own moral position. Moderate planning will be safe enough if those > carrying it out are rightly oriented in their own minds and hearts to the > moral issue. This is in fact already true of some of them. But the > curse is that there is also an important section who could be said to want > planning not in order to enjoy its fruits, but because morally they hold > ideas exactly the opposite of yours and wish to serve not God but the devil." > >>>> > > Look at what Keynes (unintentionally) reveals here! He appears to want as > many people as possible to take part in the formulation of policy . . . so > long as they agreed with him! In reality, Keynes was a member of a pretty > tightly drawn academic elite -- the same Oxbridge group that had also > captured the English Civil Service since the 1870s or so. > > The Labour Party was the vehicle for the sort of planning that, by then, > Keynes regretted, and set about it in a massive way immediately after the > war when it won the General Election. One of the leading MPs at the time, > Douglas Jay, an Oxbridge type again and, later, a Labour Government > Minister, put it into words far more bluntly than Keynes: > > "In the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the > gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for the people > than the people themselves." > > Before the above paragraph that you quoted from (in Keynes' letter to > Hayek), he wrote this: > > "It is a grand book, and we all have the greatest reason to be grateful to > you for saying so well what needs so much to be said . . . Morally and > philosophically, I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it; > and not only in agreement, but in a deeply moved agreement." > > In truth they were as close as peas in a pod by the time the war ended. But > because Hayek never really thought through the practical implications of > his writings and didn't know where to draw the planning line, then Keynes > took the laurels as the foremost economist of those days. But his > 'conversion' to Hayekian ideas was sufficient for him to keep his distance > from Labour, the ultimate planning Party outside Stalin's USSR. > > Keith > > P.S. Excuse me if I neglect the middle part of your posting and jump to the > end of your posting to your words about Ricardo: > > (REH) > <<<< > Ricardo is another matter indeed. I would suggest a read in a book that > was recommended to me several years ago by a member of this list. > Heilbroner's "The Worldly Philosophers" where there is a completely > different take on what Ricardo was saying than has been spoken on this > list. Have a read and meditate on those fresh bagels. > >>>> > > I think you must be referring to what Harry Pollard says about Ricardo. I'm > not well-versed in his ideas so I will follow your suggestion. The main > thing I know about Ricardo, or of him, is that Marx snitched his main ideas > about agricultural economics and transposed them into an industrial setting > -- where, of course, they were totally invalidated because the industrial > worker did not remain poor, as did the agricultural worker of Ricardo's day > (and ever since), but prospered, even as Marx was writing his Communist > Manifesto. I only mentioned Ricardo in contrast to Malthus as someone who > wanted to get at the basic principles of the subject (and could, I suppose, > be considered the first scientific economist). > __________________________________________________________ > "Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in > order to discover if they have something to say." John D. Barrow > _________________________________________________ > Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _________________________________________________ >
