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Ross Emmett and others asked me to post my joke to the list.  I told this 
joke when I received the Dorfman award at the HES conference in 
Winston-Salem. 
 
During this conference, we had several discussions about how the popularity 
of the history of economic thought might be improved.  I think that I found 
a possibility: it goes like this. 
 
Jevons, Marx and Keynes are sitting in a pub, discussing the labour theory 
of value and the Irish question, and simultaneously they are having a 
drinking contest. 
 
Jevons sits quietly on his barstool, both his hands behind his back, an 
untouched glass of white wine in front of him. 
 
Marx is drinking large pints of German beer.  He empties a pint in one 
drink and immediately orders another. 
 
Keynes is having a dry sherry and making obscene gestures to the bartender. 
 
Suddenly Keynes turns to Jevons: "Hey, Willy, why are you not drinking your 
wine?" 
 
"Well, Johnny", Jevons replies, "I had only one glass of wine in my entire 
life.  It was back in Australia, when I was invited to have dinner with 
some friends.  I was sick after the wine and had to leave.  Right now I am 
still balancing the marginal utility that would result from tasting the 
wine against the marginal disutility from feeling uncomfortable 
afterwards." 
 
Keynes replies: "Why are you not using your logical abacus?" "Of course!" 
Jevons shouts, and he takes his logical abacus out of his pocket.  He puts 
all relevant data in the machine and starts making very complicated 
calculations.  After a while Jevons says: "I think that I can have a try!" 
and he takes a nip. 
 
A few seconds later Jevons falls from his stool and lies unconscious on the 
floor. 
 
It turns out that the solar battery of his logical abacus was 
malfunctioning, because Jevons miscalculated the length of the sun spot 
cycle. 
 
Meanwhile, Marx is still having one large beer after another.  Suddenly, 
his skin turns pale and he rushes to the restroom.  After a few minutes he 
returns with both his hands on his belly, making some rather unhealthy 
noises. 
 
"What's wrong, Carlo?" Keynes asks. 
 
"Oh Johnny", Marx replies, "I was unable to solve my transformation 
problem." 
 
And then Marx falls unconscious on the floor. 
 
Keynes smiles, drinks up his dry cherry and gives a large tip to the 
bartender. 
 
He walks to the exit door, but before leaving the pub he turns around and 
says to himself: "Oh well, in the long run, we are all dead." 
 
Dr. Bert Mosselmans 
 
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