Perry Mehrling asked: > Who first thought it was a good idea to pretend that all was > darkness before Keynes brought light? Keynes himself hinted (and sometimes explicitly suggested) that: see e.g. the preface to the French edition of the General Theory. This induced Robertson to complain as follows, in a letter to Harrod: "But in my heart I do think (though I don't expect you to agree) that Ch. 23 of the General Theory is rather an outrage. If K [eynes]. was going in for Dogmengeschichte at all at this stage, he had no business to stop short at Mummery and Gesell, thereby giving the impression that apart from a handful of dead cranks he was the first person to question the alleged 'classical' hypothesis of an automatically and instantaneously self-righting economy. He ought to have gone on to say something serious and appreciative of the work of his contemporaries, ???the Swedes, Haberler, myself; and a repetition of the pat on the back for Abbati would then have been in place. K. found it easier to be generous to cranks than to professional economists, but I think it is not unfair to say that he preferred even his cranks to be dead" (4 April 1950) Daniele Besomi