"I can certainly identify with that. Last year, I wrote a column pointing out that Germany was one of the few countries in the 1930s to try aggressive economic stimulus — and, as a result, escaped the Great Depression faster than other countries. Opponents of stimulus, on blogs and talk radio, then cited that column to suggest that Keynesian[ism] was a cousin of Nazism."
I'm not sure what you call this fallacy, but it's certainly out there in force.
It reminds me of the thorough teasing we gave my sister when she decided to become a vegetarian years and years ago. We were fishing, and she wanted to stay on the dock and clean the fish with my brother, my dad, and me. Of course she hadn't thought through the fact that she'd be watching us stun the fish, cut off their heads, gut them, and scale them. Needless to say, she was a vegetarian by dinner (and has maintained the lifestyle to this very day). For the first few days, we viciously reminded her that "Hitler was a vegetarian too".
My sister, thankfully, was astute enough not to take the inference we were forcing on her very seriously. Unfortunately, many ostensibly serious commentators today can't quite muster that level of astuteness.
OK - time to get back to work. I think I'm going to listen to some Wagner while I do - without hesitation or concern (after all, von Stauffenberg was a fan too, wasn't he?).
I should note - I've read only one (quite excellent) book on the Nazi economy, and even that one focused primarily on the late 30s and 40s - so I can't really assess Leonhardt's claim one way or another. Needless to say, that wasn't really the point of this post. The point is really dumb Nazi analogies that make good jokes but bad analysis.
ReplyDeleteWell, there's no getting around the fact that Keynes himself admitted his strategies for coordinating the economy would be better implemented in a totalitarian society rather than one build on laissez-faire (Intro to German translation of GT).
ReplyDeleteBut the fallacy you're talking about is the cum hoc ergo propter hoc (With this, therefore because of this) fallacy. It's the same type of argument used to try to persuade people that because there exists correlation, causation can be implied.
You misread the German translation, or if you haven't read it you rely too uncritically on common misreadings of it. Perhaps I'll post on that soon.
ReplyDeleteActually, it's a methodological point Keynes makes that the Austrians themselves have an important connection to.
"It's the same type of argument used to try to persuade people that because there exists correlation, causation can be implied."
Aha. I was going to reference post hoc ergo propter hoc, but that's not quite what is going on here. So it's cum hoc. Very good. It has been fifteen years since I have had any kind of formal training in Latin. Perhaps I'll pick that up again at some point.
What I pulled up was the following, quoted from this article that discusses the issue in greater depth:
ReplyDelete"Nevertheless the theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state (the German text carries the official expression: Totaler Staat), than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire. This is one of the reasons which justify my calling my theory a General theory. Since it is based on less narrow assumptions than the orthodox theory, it is also more easily adapted to a large area of different circumstances. Although I have thus worked it out having the conditions in the Anglo-Saxon countries in view—where a great deal of laissez-faire still prevails—it yet remains applicable to situations in which national leadership (staatliche Fuhrung) is more pronounced."
Keynes seems quite clearly to be saying that his theory is better applied in a totalitarian tradition than alternative theories, not that it is better applied in a totalitarian tradition than in a laissez-faire tradition. You must either willfully be misreading him, Mattheus, or ignorantly getting this accusation at second-hand. My knowledge of economics is practically nil, and I found this in five minutes of searching (which means that even if you merely received this criticism ignorantly through others, you're still quite guilty of negligence in failing to correct what amounts to an easily correctable mistake).
I didn't make the same logical connection you did. I thought Keynes was making the latter statement, when you say he is in fact making the former.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.. I daresay I'm wrong.
As in philosophy, economics was (is?) simply done differently on the Continent. That's important to keep in mind when reading this preface.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to post on this tomorrow morning. A good excuse not to do work I was going to wake up early to do.