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
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