Sunday, November 27, 2011

Karl Smith on the Keynes-Hayek Debates

Posted by dkuehn at 12:12 PM
"These were two of the most grotesque spectacles I have ever seen in my life."

It's all very good. That's more or less what I thought of the LSE one, so I never ended up even watching the Reuters one. It's roughly my reaction to the whole Keynes-Hayek rap too. These have mostly been thinly veiled political tropes dragged out and forced - like square pegs into round holes - into the mouths of Keynes and Hayek.

To a certain degree I'm exaggerating of course - you don't get the approval of Caldwell and Skidelsky for pure ideological tropes. But I think this accounts for a great deal of the modern Keynes vs. Hayek discussions, simply because people hate Keynes without knowing why and so they make up crap and attribute it to him - and others do the exact same thing with Hayek.

9 comments:

  1. Blue AuroraNovember 27, 2011 at 1:24 PM

    Daniel Kuehn, welcome to the phenomenon of confirmation bias. I'm not surprised that the Keynes and Hayek debates on Reuters turned out to be atrocious. It's the same thing I get when people turn out to hate economics by thinking it's the "study of greed, oppression, and deceit", or the "study of cheating people", or seeing economics as the observation of a "machine of misery, fascinating yet repulsive at the same time". Talk about being ignorant...

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  2. AnonymousNovember 27, 2011 at 4:15 PM

    "I get when people turn out to hate economics by thinking it's the "study of greed, oppression, and deceit", or the "study of cheating people", or seeing economics as the observation of a "machine of misery, fascinating yet repulsive at the same time".

    Those that I hear most often are that economics is "smoke and mirrors" or that it is no different than "psychology".

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  3. LorenzoNovember 27, 2011 at 4:42 PM

    Having (thanks mainly to David Glasner) become aware of the work of Hawtrey and Cassell, I have come to the conclusion that the 1930s brilliance of both Hayek and Keynes was somewhat disastrous for the development of economics by creating divisions and controversies that were unnecessary but fed into wider political agendas.

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  4. AnonymousNovember 27, 2011 at 4:47 PM

    Lorenzo,

    That may be true, but I feel that the divide was primarily methodological within the economic community.

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  5. AnonymousNovember 27, 2011 at 6:46 PM

    Here's a report from another attendee:

    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2011/11/keynes-vs-hayek-debate-diary.html#ixzz1dbjefdgV

    @Blue Aurora
    Confirmation Bias Theorist Sees Confirmation Bias Everywhere

    Invisible Backhand

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  6. Blue AuroraNovember 27, 2011 at 7:07 PM

    @Invisible Backhand: LOL.

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  7. CurrentNovember 27, 2011 at 9:28 PM

    I don't see any real argument here. Gentlemen, come back to me when you have a proper argument.

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  8. Daniel KuehnNovember 27, 2011 at 9:53 PM

    My commentariat does not live to serve your every whim, sir!

    Argumentless commentariat: carry on.

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  9. CurrentNovember 28, 2011 at 5:27 AM

    :)

    ReplyDelete

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