I hesitated to bring this up on this list but now I suppose it may be 
worthwhile. Keynes seems to have become a kind of deity and his books 
like a holy book. There seem to be a number of economists who have 
made a living off of identifying hidden messages in Keynesian text. 
Of course, Keynes is not the only economist who has inspired this 
kind of following. But I think that it is worth remembering the 
extensive criticism of Keynes's theory of money by Hayek. What is 
important, of course, is not the fact that Hayek criticized Keynes 
but that Keynes ultimately capitulated.

Hayek, F. A., "Reflections on the Pure Theory of Money of Mr. J. M. 
Keynes," Economica, August, 1931 and February, 1932.

Hayek regretted not having dealt with the "General Theory" in the 
same way as Keynes's book on money. Hayek claimed that he did not 
write a similar criticism of the General Theory because he expected 
that Keynes would capitulate again. At the time, he reasoned, what is 
the point of persuading colleagues that their ideas are wrong if they 
proceed to invent new wrong ideas just as fast as one can critique them.

Hayek, F. A., "The Keynes Centenary: The Austrian Critique," The 
Economist, June 11, 1983.

In a world of mutual interest in advancing science, such maverick 
activity would presumably be shunned by other scientists. But the 
world of the University and political persuasion is different, as we 
are learning from the climate research scientists.

I bring this up because it is related to the issue of probability 
theory, which I take it has become another object of reverence and 
holy book research. When I read Steve's message, I immediately 
thought of Mises, which is not unusual since his Human Action is my 
"holy book" so to speak. That is where I found the reference to Mill. 
Using the reference, I went to the internet and discovered the 
passage to which Mises referred when discussing the distinction 
between class probability and case probability.

Strange it is that while the "Keynesians" would not have identified a 
reference to Mill's probability theory in Englander Keynes's work 
(correct me if I am wrong), I would have found it in the work of the 
Austrian Mises.

Indeed, in rereading some of Mill's writings, I was fascinated to 
discover the same kinds of complex sentence structure that has 
intrigued readers of Hayek's works over the years. One wonders about 
the extent to which Hayek and perhaps Mises learned how to express 
their economic ideas in English from Mill.

Pat Gunning