Maynard was tapped for coveted membership in the secret society of the Apostles, an organization that rapidly shaped his values and his life. Keynes grew to social and intellectual maturity within its confines. FULL ARTICLE by Murray N. Rothbard
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/11052/keynes-the-man/
Keynes, the Man
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So let’s make a personal attack on Keynes now? Beautiful. I expect nothing less.
As a whole, this website does a nice job to completely confuse (or more likely obfuscate) the whole of what is written in the General Theory. Keynes makes quite explicit that the theory is meant to address a point in time as opposed to changes that occur over time and, in application to the later – i.e. for practicality – one must take into account the magnitude of the changes of the factors based on THE EXPERIENCE AT HAND. Austrians ignore his later statements in regards to the application which they are pressing, and are once again holding their normal line of half-truths. They also seem to be having issues with the separation of theoretical and the practical utility – implicit in their reasoning being that the former be in all forms interchangeable with the later in a mechanistic fashion. The difficulty Keynes, as all economists, have is that they are unable to determine future events in regards to SPECIFIC changes because these changes are dependent on factors which they cannot foresee. One CANNOT render a notion ‘arbitrary’ or ‘meaningless’ that it should be held to exist only under hypothetical conditions unless you equally dismiss everything arrived at by deductive reasoning in this sense. In the Austrian case – you cannot simply pick and chose what is ‘arbitrary’ due to being ‘detached’ from real world functioning unless all reasoning that is so detached is also considered ‘arbitrary’.
This handling of the General Theory is completely mechanistic. It also presupposes that it was meant for a certain function – namely specifics as opposed to general foundations – and lay claim to its inconsistency in that it only describes general instances holding specifics constant wherein the specifics must always be in flux. Why was it not called ‘The Specific Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money’ then? Because Austrian presuppositions of its utility are completely baseless. Keynes makes clear that the specifics he holds constant ARE NOT constant in practicality – and Austrians have demonstrated that they know this to be the case. However, they then move on to strange tangents about how ‘Keynes knows he was wrong because he knows these variables are not constant’. I have seen this thread before when people attempt to claim that Marx knew he was ‘wrong’ when he said ‘I am not a Marxist’ – all superficial nonsense. What Austrians have not demonstrated is an understanding of the difference between ‘general’ and ‘specifics’, and in regards to the later Keynes was quite explicit in illustrating their inexorable tie to the experience at hand. On the grounds that Austrians are attempting to justify your irrational hate of the General Theory, we should, if thier approach is to be accepted, have equal hatred for ALL schools of economic thought.
I am not satisfied with how economics is taught at universities. It is an independent endeavor for a greater project the goal of which is to have a firm understanding of economic thought from Smith through Ricardo through Marx through marginalist revolution to Schumpeter and Keynes by the time I enroll in PhD economic program.
Bob,
I too have a problem with Mises.org contributors regarding Keynes.
They take him too seriously. Keynes was not an economist. He was a charlatan. The only reason he is mainstream is that he is a court charlatan, an apologist for the state and the state controls the economics science for the past 100 years.
If say Mises is an astronomer, Keynes is an astrologer. A charlatan using concepts of a legitimate science to further his agenda.
Ktibuk,
I have a much bigger problem about the general public, the politicians and mainstream media all believing in Saint Keynes and his gospel.
That Keynes is a charlatan is one thing, but that most of the population believes without asking questions and in the face of refuting evidence is what is disconcerting.
Bob,
Get a life and stop trolling!
Paper is better used for printing money than printing books like General Theory. The printing presses won’t print enough money for everyone and that’s why there’s still poverty. If we print enough money and keep the interest rate low enough, we’ll have a permanent quasi-boom.
Matt,
As I already had to point out on the blog today, ignorance is not trolling.
To understand the difference, take the position of the curious lurking observer. From his perspective, Bob Stafford makes a reasoned argument, but rather than being refuted, he gets shouted down. From that point of view, who’s the one promoting discussion and who’s the one silencing it or distracting from it? Who’s the real troll?
Bob took a good chunk of time to write all that. He deserves an honest rebuttal. Trolls as a rule do not take the time to write 500-word posts.
Some of us here need to stop being so trigger-happy in calling people trolls. If you don’t have anything to say to his point, then opening your mouth (your submit button?) just makes Mises.org look bad.
Mike, You make an excellent point, and this entry is much less incendiary than Bob’s normal confrontational style. But he does have a history of being an idiot on here.
This article reminded me of another one I read decades ago in Fortune magazine about how to succeed in a corporation. The first rule is to learn how to promote yourself to those above you. Middle managers are too busy trying to please their bosses to pay any attention to what goes on below them, so they have no idea who is good at what they do. Anyone who wants to succeed will have a subtle way of endearing himself to the middle and upper managers and letting them know at every opportunity what an amazing job he is doing for the company.
Rule #2 is always proclaiming loudly and to everyone the success of every project, because the outcomes of most projects are usually too vague to quantify. And if you don’t trash the projects of colleagues, they likely won’t reveal what failures your projects have been.
Keynes was nothing but a typical self-promoter. There was nothing original about him, in spite of the fact that he valued originality above everything else. Measured against his own standard, he was a miserable failure.
Robbins: “Keynes must be one of the most remarkable men that have ever lived — the quick logic, the wide vision, above all the incomparable sense of the fitness of words, all combine to make something several degrees beyond the limit of ordinary human achievement.â€
Many people wrote similar words about Hitler, Stalin and Mao. They mean nothing more than that all four were great snake oil salesmen.
“As a whole, this website does a nice job to completely confuse (or more likely obfuscate) the whole of what is written in the General Theory. Keynes makes quite explicit that the theory is meant to address a point in time as opposed to changes that occur over time and, in application to the later – i.e. for practicality”
and thus… I ask any follower of Keynesianism
Why Bother?
It was a good effort by Bob and I appreciate conflicting points of view but in this case, I think he’s missing the point. While there should be no confusion in what you say as much of it is accurate, I to this day do not understand why Keynes would go through the effort of time and influence all for impractical theory – to use your words.
Bob Stafford said, “Keynes makes quite explicit that the theory is meant to address a point in time as opposed to changes that occur over time and, in application to the later – i.e. for practicality – one must take into account the magnitude of the changes of the factors based on THE EXPERIENCE AT HAND.”
“Thus the remedy for the boom is not a higher rate of interest but a lower rate of interest! For that may enable the so-called boom to last. The right remedy for the trade cycle is not to be found in abolishing booms and thus keeping us permanently in a semi-slump; but in abolishing slumps and thus keeping us permanently in a quasi-boom.” (General Theory, p. 322)
On a much more interesting note, this little gem has made my day: “But there were also strong internal reasons for the success of The General Theory. By dressing up his new theory in impenetrable jargon, Keynes created an atmosphere in which only brave young economists could possibly understand the new science; no economist over the age of thirty could grasp the New Economics. Older economists, who, understandably, had no patience for the new complexities, tended to dismiss The General Theory as nonsense and refused to tackle the formidably incomprehensible work. On the other hand, young economists and graduate students, socialistically inclined, seized on the new opportunities and bent themselves to the rewarding task of figuring out what The General Theory was all about.â€
Entirely sums up my Post-Keynesian professors.
Quality Hardwoods For Quality Guitars Is Now A Crime.
This is an example of, and an outcome of, why Keynesianism was so readily adopted around the world even though it is economic quackery.
Keynesianism (empowered) and empowers the ones who have lusted after and attained political power. They do not want to be constrained by economic laws and so they are all in favor of Keynesianism which simply ignores economic laws in favor of ego-driven interventionism. Property rights are not a part of Keynesianism, other than the confiscation of property rights for ego-driven intervention uses.
In the perverse Keynesian world, such as we live in today, the absence of the protection of private property rights leads to unsustainable exploitation of valuable resources all around the world which leads to further violations of property rights by the ‘goons’ who are blindly expanding the ego-driven intervention perpetuated by the monsters created by the quackery of Keynes.
@ Mike @ Published: November 18, 2009 2:25 PM
From my perspective as a reasonably knowledgeable person on Austrian theory Bob’s story isn’t even that ignorant for he distinguishes between Keynes and the Austrians as schools of thought that construct(ed) specific versus general theories, or rather theories on specifics in a certain point in time versus theories that are general. Which is as far as I can see correct. Where Bob seems to be ignorant in though is his statement that Austrians wouldn’t know the difference between general and specifics while in my opinion it is one of the few schools that actually does make the distinction in a fundamental manner, see e.g. the first chapters of Human Action or Hoppe’s Economic Science and the Austrian Method.
What Bob seems to be missing in the Austrian argument versus Keynes’ theory being specific applicable for a certain point in time is the philosophic foundation of such a theory of such an theory on ‘accidentals’ which ignores and tries to negate praxeological laws, which makes Keynes’ theory both wrong and unpracticable (hmm that’s not a word).
>[Bob Stafford]Keynes makes quite explicit that the theory is meant to address a point in time as opposed to changes that occur over time
Agreed, Keynes was an explicitly dishonest, mindless, intellectually pretentious, hedonistic, unprincipled, short-range, life-hating Pragmatist and nihilist whose pseudo-scientific ideas are destructive in “the long run we are all dead.” A rational culture would have tossed him into the dustbin of history. Counterfeiting is not a theory of economics.
“Keynes makes quite explicit that the theory is meant to address a point in time as opposed to changes that occur over time..”
That should be clear from the fact that Keynes never cared about the long run. So then he named his book “General Theory” so as to convince everyone that it did apply to the long run.
What a hatchet job by Rothbard.
Having, with 2 weeks of one another, read this (coverage of Keynes and his inner circle) and Rothbard’s little satire (covering Rand and HER inner circle), I find the similarities between these 2 subjects quite remarkable .
Rand and Keynes might have occupied opposite ends of the economic thought spectrum, but their arrogance, their egotism , and the way they both regarded most of humanity as beneath contempt, make for some striking psychological similarities.
Mushindo, Interesting juxtapositions. It seems that people like Keynes tend to create cults, while people like Mises inspire followers to be individuals and think critically. What a massive difference between the personal characters of Mises and Keynes!
>[Mushindo]Rand and Keynes might have occupied opposite ends of the economic thought spectrum, but their arrogance, their egotism , and the way they both regarded most of humanity as beneath contempt, make for some striking psychological similarities.
Rand’s respect for man the producer and the American sense of life basically contradicts Keynes’ modernist/nihilist/subjectivist view of man as master or slave. Her grandly romantic art basically contradicts the death-loving perversions of Keynes. Rand was a rational egoist. Keynes was a selfless egoTist, with a bizarrely subjectivist evaluation of his hated self. Keynes was dead inside and lived thru others. There are no important psychological similarities. See
KEYNES AT HARVARD
Economic Deception as a Political Credo BY ZYGMUND DOBBS, Ch. IX,
THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES
OF MORAL DEPRAVITY. Rand respected her mind’s ability to know reality. Keynes was consumed with fear of the long-range effect of his values. Your attack on Rand is an attack on your own self.
Maybe the interesting psychological similarities are among their worshipers.
Vanmind
Maybe the interesting psychological similarities are among their worshipers.
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This is an arbitrary maybe, without even invalid evidence, thus without any content that can be judged. It is as if nothing has been said. And it reduces ideas to psychological trivia. Rand’s opponents usually have no refutation of her ideas and so substitute personal attacks. And what else can one expect from the opponents of the mind’s contact with reality?
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