On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Michael Perelman<[email protected]> wrote: > By the third volume of his Keynes trilogy, Skidelsky was moving into > the Hayek camp.
Skidelsky: "One difference between them was that Hayek was an ivory-tower economist, very, very long run, and tended to believe that error must be allowed time to play itself out, whereas Keynes was an activist who said in the long run we're all dead, and in the long run, if we allowed things to go on without remedy we'd get lots of Hitlers, lots of wars, and lots of Stalins. And he was right. Lionel Robbins, who was a great supporter, a great Hayekian in the early '30s, said Keynes was right, finally, and "I very much regret that I supported Hayek in the controversies with Keynes," because although it might be true that someone falls into the ditch because they've had too much alcohol, you don't let them lie there and wait for them to sleep it off when they're dying; you have to do something to revive them. And Hayek was very, very aloof to the political and practical consequences of doing nothing in the early '30s, and he never really came clean on that. So you may say this is a debate between the short run and the long run, but for God's sake, you know, if you're interested in preserving a free society with a minimum disturbance, you'd go for Keynes of the early '30s and not for Hayek." Michael, can you elaborate on the "moving into the Hayek camp" remark? _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
