I find Paul Dudenhefer's restatement of his point a puzzle.  He writes:
> My purpose was to bring up again the main points of Brad and Roger's 
> column: there is a place for detailed inquiries into "the business of 
> every day life"; but there is also a place for an examination of the 
> big picture, and the column asks that economists start examining it. 
> Extrapolating from their column, some questions that come to mind are, 
> What kind of economy do we want? What is the purpose of an economy? 
> What relationship should the economy have to the other spheres of 
> life? Indeed, what kind of society do we want and what is the role of 
> the economy in it? No doubt everyone on this list has ready answers to 
> those questions and can quote from any number of authorities in 
> supporting their answers. But I suspect that Brad and Roger's plea is 
> that we perhaps not be so ready with our answers and to think anew 
> about our assumptions, preconceptions, prejudices, axioms, and the like.
Now, Keynes himself, in the Preface to the German edition of the 
/General Theory/ argues that "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, than is theory of the 
production and distribution of a given output produced under conditions 
of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire" (1936, xxvi).  
Members of the Mont Pelerin Society, notably, F.A. Hayek and Milton 
Friedman, well understood Keynes's point and have argued the 
desirability of the competitive or free-enterprise economy to Keynes's 
vision.  Henry Simon (1936) also writes of Keynes's arguments in the 
/General Theory/, "Attempting mischievous and salutary irritation of his 
peers, however, [Keynes] may only succeed in becoming the academic idol 
of our worst cranks and charlatans -- not to mention the possibilities 
of the book as the economic bible of a fascist movement."  Thus, it 
seems to me that historians of economic thought should be the last 
asking us to revisit the question of the preferred economic system as if 
that debate never took place.  Or is such a plea merely an attempt by 
its authors to sneak in their preferred economic organization in the 
guise of asking fresh questions?

James Ahiakpor

-- 
James C.W. Ahiakpor, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Economics
California State University, East Bay
Hayward, CA 94542

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