Brad´s response raises an important issue: the legitimisation of discourse with the taint of argumentum ad hominem.  Mises and in his own way Keynes were enemies of civilisation in this context: by posturing as Defenders of Civilisation they encouraged their followers to believe that the rules of civil discourse should no longer apply for "the duration". Equally, one (non-ideological) contributor to this list appears to be motivated entirely by generalised malice towards the human race - he and (almost) he alone is the adjudicator of what is an HET craven image. 

With inadequate self-censorship perhaps the long-suffering moderator should return inflamatory contributions with a standard SHOE flag of "BOOT" (a hint that a rewrite is called for).  Overlong contributions should be returned with a standard SHOE flag of "SHOE!!" (a hint that shortening is required). 

Gresham´s Law punch-ups (which can squeeze out some merit) should be conducted between consenting adults in private.  But having spent much of the last year in Popper-related archives, economists are comparative saints of moderation in this regard.

RL 
 
----- Ursprüngliche Mail -----
Von: "Brad Bateman" <[log in to unmask]>
An: [log in to unmask]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 10. November 2011 21:24:22
Betreff: Re: [SHOE] Backhouse and Bateman, "Wanted: Worldly Philosophers"

It is difficult to respond to someone like Steve Kates who is rude about your ideas ( calling them "rancid") and relentlessly insistent that they, and they alone, know the truth and that you will address their work immediately and in the detail they demand. Prudence suggests walking away from the opportunity.

Before I say anything else, however, I would like to say that some of the best work done in the history of economic thought comes out of Australia. I have been engaged all my professional life with Australian historians of economic thought. While I was in my long cycle of service on the HES executive committee, I was a signatory to the letter of protest sent to the research body that tried to diminish the status of the history of economic thought in Australian research assessments. Thus, I refuse to take Kates' comments about his citizenship seriously. Frankly, they have no place in a post on this list.

I suspect that I should say very little else to Kates' demands. In his critique of our op-ed piece, he continually returns to his understanding of Keynes's ideas and insists that anything we have said about Keynes must be interpreted through the frame of his understanding of Keynes. I find Kates' understanding to consist largely of caricature. It is a straw man and I refuse to argue with him about his straw man. I have written for many years trying to explain why the figure that Kates is so intent on beating in public is a straw man. I have also argued against several other interpretations that I believe are inaccurate. As best as I can tell, Kates has ignored in his own work everything I have written on Keynes's policy ideas; but now he demands that I address his work point by point. There is an odd asymmetry in his demand.

Brad Bateman


On 11/10/2011 3:23 AM, Steve Kates wrote:
> It is interesting to see just how relentlessly Roger Backhouse and Brad
> Bateman choose to ignore what I wrote. That was the reason I thought I
> would bring Allyn Young into the conversation since I understand
> perfectly well that some faraway economist living in the antipodes would
> have no standing in such discussions but I thought Allyn might.
> Nevertheless, I do wish to impress upon them once again that what I am
> writing about is a direct response to the issues they raised. And since
> the only compass in which these issues can be properly discussed is the
> evolution of economic theory over the past  hundred years, in every way
> this is a subject matter for this site.
>
> Going back to the original NYT article, let me take the final sentence
> as the core point Backhouse and Bateman wished to make. What they wrote
> was: “If economists want to help create a better world, they first
> have to ask, and try to answer, the hard questions that can shape a new
> vision of capitalism’s potential.” To do this, they argued, economic
> theory should include a major recognition of government and its role. To
> emphasise how important this point is, they criticised Hayek and
> Friedman for ignoring the important contributions of government,
> writing:
>
> “In the 20th century, the main challenge to Keynes’s vision came
> from economists like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, who envisioned
> an ideal economy involving isolated individuals bargaining with one
> another in free markets. Government, they contended, usually messes
> things up. Overtaking a Keynesianism that many found inadequate to the
> task of tackling the stagflation of the 1970s, this vision fueled
> neoliberal and free-market conservative agendas of governments around
> the world. That vision has in turn been undermined by the current
> crisis.”
>
> Well, what I am trying to tell them is that I have attempted in my book
> on “Free Market Economics” to do exactly what they have argued needs
> to be done. It is not perfect but what is?  And  because of the book's
> hostility to Keynes and what he stands for, I fear that if they read it
> they would unlikely find much in it that would give them pleasure. But
> (a) it is obviously about capitalism (although the word does not appear
> anywhere in the book) and (b) it provides a vision of the world in which
> economic actions are of necessity buried inside a political structure.
> Don’t believe it? Here are the opening three paragraphs of the book:
>
> “This is a book about the market economy.
>
> “A market economy is one in which overwhelmingly the largest part of
> economic activity is organised by private individuals, entrepreneurs,
> for personal profit. Such entrepreneurs are private citizens not
> government employees. They make decisions for themselves on what to
> produce, who to hire, what inputs to buy, which machinery to install and
> what prices to charge.
>
> “There are, of course, in every nation state legislative barriers put
> in place by governments which limit every one of these decisions. No
> market is or ever has been even remotely laissez-faire. Entrepreneurial
> decisions are circumscribed by the laws, rules and regulations that
> surround each and every such decision.”
>
> My aim in writing the book was to explain to governments, and to their
> citizens, how an economy can be run so that prosperity for the largest
> number is the result. This is not a book about how governments should be
> kept away from economic interactions. This is a book that embeds within
> the text the very necessity for governments to intervene to make free
> markets work. The point that I try to make is that since governments not
> only are going to intervene but must, they should do so in a way that
> actually does some good.
>
> But Backhouse and Bateman do not just say we need a new vision and
> leave it at that. In their article and subsequent post, they are
> promoting a book with the title, “Capitalist Revolutionary: John
> Maynard Keynes”. In their view, it is in Keynes that we ought to find
> that vision. Well the point I wish to make is that it is precisely in
> Keynes that we will not find that vision, and that if we economists had
> any sense we would abandon Keynesian theory and policy root and branch.
> To draw some inference from Keynes that capitalism is in constant need
> of reform is about as vacuous a statement as I can imagine. The need for
> institutional adjustment to the changing nature of the world is hardly
> some great insight.
>
> The Keynesian policy vision has created a global nightmare both
> politically and economically, a nightmare whose end is nowhere in sight.
> There may be an old guard that wishes to cling to such rancid and
> outdated ideas but by now it ought to be obvious beyond argument that
> Keynesian policies do not work. There is not a single economy in the
> entire world that is safe from the ravages that the stimulus has caused.
> By all means, let us find a new vision, but for heaven sake, the last
> place we should be looking for that vision is in the works of John
> Maynard Keynes.
>
>
> Dr Steven Kates
> School of Economics, Finance
>      and Marketing
> RMIT University
> Level 12 / 239 Bourke Street
> Melbourne Vic 3000
>
> Phone: (03) 9925 5878
> Mobile: 042 7297 529