A propos Ric Holt's last post, perhaps I could give a different perspective on Seymour Harris (and the role of tenure in emboldening faint-hearts), than conveyed in Galbraith's 1974 letter to Mrs Harris (presumably a letter of condolence on her husband's death). The following paragraph is from my "The New Deal and 'Domesticated Keynesianism' in America", in Michael Keaney (ed.), Economist with a Public Purpose: Essays in Honour of John Kenneth Galbraith, London and New York, Routledge, 2001:-


Galbraith describes the fuss when Alan Sweezy and Raymond Walsh (both signatories [with Currie] of the 1934 letter to Roosevelt) were singled out for termination in 1937. One of their main rivals was Seymour Harris. Paul Samuelson recalls (Colander and Landreth, 1996: 155) that when he asked his Chicago professors in 1935 which graduate school he should attend, he was warned by Lloyd Mints that at Harvard Seymour Harris was an inflationist. “This is interesting”, said Samuelson, “because if you read The Economics of the Recovery Program, 1934, you’ll see that Harris, not yet having tenure at Harvard and still under the influence of Harold Hitchings Burbank, is a stout reactionary. Lloyd Mints must have had some keen sense of smell, because after Harris did get tenure he became a flaming Keynesian.” Currie later remarked sourly that he converted only when it was safe to do so. As Galbraith (1977: 220) put it: “In economics one should not be right too soon. The shrewd scholar always waits until the parade is passing his door and then steps bravely out in front of the band.” When Galbraith was seeking tenure in 1939 he interviewed for a post at Princeton, confident this would be a catalyst to promotion at Harvard. Instead, at dinner in the home of the chairman of the Princeton economics department he was handed a telegram from Burbank. It stated that he had just come from a meeting with president James Bryant Conant; that his Harvard prospects were very dim; and that he would be advised to take any post that was offered by Princeton.

- Roger Sandilands

________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Ric Holt [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 4:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Galbraith's writing voice

 Working with the Galbraith's letters I have come to appreciate the insightfulness of Alvin Hansen. Also my impression is that his ideas evolved over time, which is part of what made him a great economist -- his willingness to change his ideas and experiment with different models and policies to see where they would lead us. In a letter to Seymour Harris' widow, Galbraith mentioned the three economists he believed did the most to bring  Keynes to America (Currie would be part of that group also but in a more limited way for Galbraith). Here he is referring to Harris and then mentions Hansen and Samuelson.

“His [Harris] primary accomplishment was in bringing the ideas of John Maynard Keynes to the United States. With Alvin Hansen and Paul Samuelson, he was one of the three people who principally translated the Keynesian ideas into American terms, made them commonplace with American economists, their students and the larger public” (Letter from JKG to Dorothy Harris, December 16, 1974).

Paul Samuelson and Jim Tobin were students of Hansen. The question I'm asking myself is what level of influence did Hansen have on what has become known as the MIT method that has dominated how economics is done in America. And it seems Hansen is coming back again with this MIT crowd with his pioneer work on stagnation. One of the big debates Hansen had with Galbraith was over this method, though they never put it in those terms. Hansen believed that through the IS-LM model (which he helped create) you could deal with inflation and support employment with changes in the money supply i.e. interest rates, etc. Galbraith was very much against this (and the letters will show a long correspondence about this with Tobin) where he insisted that  the institutional approach of price controls were better to deal inflation than monetary policies through the IS-LM model. Galbraith was very hawkish on inflation, but no monetarist or followed the MIT method, but instead an institutionalist.  Finally about Harris, who Galbraith had a lot of respect for, in the same letter to his widow Galbraith wrote:

“Except for a tragic accident of history Seymour Harris would have ended his career a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. It would have been fitting; one of Seymour’s first major works was a two-volume history of the System and its policies. In the late summer of 1963 there were two vacancies to be filled. One was to go to a comparative conservative. Those who were present remember President Kennedy’s delight in announcing that the other vacancy was to go to Seymour Harris. It was thought politic to make the conservative appointment first. President Kennedy was killed in Dallas before he could make the second appointment” (Letter from JKG to Dorothy Harris, December 16, 1974).

Ric


On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Roger Sandilands <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
This reminds me that Galbraith's close friend Lauchlin Currie told me that Harvard only appointed Alvin Hansen to the Littauer chair in 1937 because of his apparently very orthodox credentials. They were discombobulated when from his secure position he then revealed his heretical tendencies (teaming up with Currie to make a joint presentation before the TNEC to explain the fiscal causes of the 1937 recession).



Roger Sandilands



________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] on behalf of Ric Holt [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 5:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [SHOE] Galbraith's writing voice

In January 1955 Galbraith gave testimony before the Joint Committee on the Economic Report for 1955, titled "Fiscal Policy and the Economic Prospect." The 1950s was a grand decade for Galbraith where he turned from just publishing one co-authored book up to the age of 41 to publishing a plethora of them. It was also the decade where he truly found his "writing voice." Below is a short piece from his testimony that shows that voice we all know. It's amazing what tenure will do.  He finally was awarded tenure in November, 1949 at Harvard after a difficult struggle for the second time -- and his cheerful but sardonic voice never stopped after that for another fifty years. Luck us.
Ric Holt

"Let me turn now to two or three specific questions on which the Committee has asked for suggestions. (I pass over some of these because I am not sufficiently informed. Thus I have never been sure that I fully understand the doctrine of percentage depletion, although what I have heard of it sounds very nice. It would seem to me important that it be promptly applied to professors. There is no group where depletion of what is called intellectual capital proceeds so immutably and leaves a more hideous void. Surely we should be permitted to deduct from our taxes each April an allowance for this annual deterioration. I am told that Powers models have an analogous case.)"