Posted on 04/05/2005 12:47:12 PM PDT by guitarist
I said he was right once.:-)
In General Theory, Keyenes argued in favor of expansionism and increased government involvement in the economy, and Roosevelt was encouraged by that to spend more of other people's money. Keyenes' economic theories created socialist Europe, though I'd agree that what we know today as Keynesian Economics is largely extrapolations by his successors.
I know it's open to debate, but IMO Keynsian theories implemented by Roosevelt prolonged the depression, and the pair of them got lucky when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
Well, that was my opinion, but I don't know what economics departments are teaching. When I took economics classes I had a single professor (who had received his doctorate only two or three years before teaching that particular class) who taught Hayek and von Mises on a level with Keynes. I had another econ prof who mentioned Hayek and lovingly embraced Keynes. Interestingly, they were both young professors.
Krugman is a turd.
Later I'll have time to read the replies.
There was a time when I used to really enjoy reading the New York Times, especially on Sundays. I really regret the Times' descent into unreadability because nothing has taken it's place, although at least now we have the Internet.
Actually....
Keynes was the father of modern economics. His approach was unique for the time and transformed the discipline. Sure, some of his ideas have been overturned and replaced, but many of them are still around today. The argument that the Bush tax cut was a justified and proper stimulus to avert an inherited recession is Keynesian to the core.
As far as other the cocktail napkin comment goes, it was actually Laffer showing Reagan, not the other way around. Reagan, despite his other attributes, was not a trained economist.
Nor was von Hayek -- he was a political theorist. His ideas were influential on people such as Milton Friedman, but von Hayek himself would never have claimed to be an economist.
Von Mises was a protectionist who was in many ways the antithesis of Adam Smith. Von Mises argued for high tariffs and intense government involvement in industry. His ideas are more influential on Japanese and other Asian "industrial policy" managers than in the US.
Finally why shouldn't universities teach Keynes and Marx? Of you don't read Keyens, you don't know what Friedman is criticizing. If you don't read Marx, you don't understand von Hayek. Universities should, and usually do, teach all ideas.
OK, I am now stepping down from my high horse.
Just because his ideas are still around, that doesn't make them right.
it was actually Laffer showing Reagan, not the other way around. Reagan, despite his other attributes, was not a trained economist.
If I can be shown the Laffer curve and then show it to other people, surely Reagan could.
Hayek, von Mises etc ...
I'm sure you know more about it than I do. My knowledge of von Mises is limited to his writings against socialism, but I've never read where he encouraged "intense government involvement in industry."
Finally why shouldn't universities teach Keynes and Marx? ... Universities should, and usually do, teach all ideas.
I have no problem with universities teaching Keynes and Marx, and I wouldn't argue with you that to understand modern economics you've got to teach Keynes. However, I have a problem with universities teaching Marx (specifically) as if his ideas are correct. It's also been my experience that universities do not teach all ideas, that ideas associated with self-reliance over government intervention are often excluded.
I don't profess to be a Keynes biographer, but I know what I've read by him and about him and I know that he supported policies of government intervention. I think those policies are bad policies, and I think that Keynes influenced FDR's economic policies that did damage to this country that we are still to this day trying to repair. Yet in the classrooms I have direct knowledge of, Keynes was taught as if there was no opposing view (other than mine).
OK, I am now stepping down from my high horse.
Feel free to step back up where you think I'm wrong. I readily admit I'm no expert either in economics or economic history, I'm just very opinionated.
Actually, you were right about von Mises and I was wrong -- I mixed him up with Fredrich List. D'oh.
But of course, I am absolutely correct about everything else I said (I think....)
You should have never said anything ... I was just ready to begin a weekend of reading everything I could find by von Mises because you'd convinced me.
My Econ 101 professor was a noted communist, I did not find out about Hayek until much later. But I did learn that large corporations are with holding many inventions that could benefit mankind except that they would not make money on them. (BTW, I had trouble believing him, but Econ was not my major, so I went back to engineering courses and forgot about it.)
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