If I could return to the Hayek's discussion of Keynes's statement   
that in the long run we are all dead.   
  
In response to my brief posting, Rod Hay wrote:  
  
"This of course, is based on a deliberate misreading of Keynes. Keynes   
was arguing against the laissez-faire policy proposals for dealing with   
extreme economic conditions like the great depression. 'In the long run   
the economy may correct itself. But we cannot afford to wait. Because by  
then we will be dead.' is how I read his comment."  
  
  
It may be my own fault for not being more explicit, but Hayek does   
understand exactly what Keynes is getting at. It is precisely because   
Keynes focuses on the short run that Hayek sees as the problem. My aim   
was only to note the existence of Hayek's discussion and not to render  
it in full. What Hayek wrote was this (The Fatal Conceit, Routledge 1988, p  
57):  
  
  
"This extraordinary man [ie Keynes} also characteristically justified  
some of   
his economic views, and his general belief in a management of the market  
order,   
on the ground that 'in the long run we are all dead' (i.e., it does not  
matter   
what long-range damage we do; it is the present moment alone, the short  
run -   
consisting of public opinion, demands, votes, and all the stuff and  
bribes of   
demagoguery - which counts). The slogan that 'in the long run we are all  
dead'   
is also a characteristic manifestation of an unwillingness to recognise  
that   
morals are concerned with effects in the long run - effects beyond our  
possible   
perception - and of a tendency to spurn the learnt discipline of the  
long view."  
  
  
  
And in response to my post, in which I had stated that "Keynes statement  
is   
shown to be not only economically destructive as a basis for policy but  
is also   
deeply amoral" Jesse Vorst wrote:   
  
"I consider the  use of the word 'shown' inappropriate, as it has the   
pretension of relating to objective truth; 'argued', 'suggested',   
'intimated' or 'maintained' would have reflected the implicit   
subjectivity of of the assessment."  
  
  
In my own posting I was merely pointing out what Hayek had written   
but if I also happen to think what he had written is true (!) then I  
find it   
unproblematic to say that Hayek had shown certain conclusions to be so.  
Hayek  
in the passage I quote is hardly concerned with emphasising that these  
are   
merely his own subjective conclusions but is stating what he also  
believes to   
be the truth of the matter and in no uncertain terms. All of our  
assessments   
are by nature subjective but it does not strike me that for that reason  
we   
might not say what we mean as forthrightly as possible. I might note  
that   
Hayek, also in The Fatal Conceit (p 106), in a chapter with the  
remarkably   
pointed title, "Our Poisoned Language" wrote,"As Goethe recognised, all  
that   
we imagine to be factual is already theory: what we 'know' of our  
surroundings   
is our interpretation of them." That, of course, never stopped Goethe or  
Hayek   
from reaching their own conclusions on a vast array of issues.   
  
Steven Kates