=================== HES POSTING ==================== Apropos the comments of McCloskey and Leeson on Keynes and history. perhaps Leeson is being too kind to Keynes one could take the quotes lightly if Keynes had demonstrated more familiarity with history. he didn't. Jim Crotty (JEI, 1990) has argued that Keynes marshalled some impressive 'stylised facts', but the stylised variety is about as far as he got. One can use Keynes for his seminal contribution, but when the attraction turns to idolatry, we run into trouble. The trouble becomes systemic if one sees the spectrum of opinion in economics as running from the neoclassics to Keynes (as many are wont to do, not least from those who want to resurrect Keynes as providing all the answers to current intellectual and policy impasses). There's no interest in history across the spectrum. Marshall and his "privat docent" Pigou had already put paid to the English historical 'school' by the time Keynes came to join the team. And that's where history stayed for future generations, who got, at best, an apologetic single course in 'economic history', marginally tacked onto an uncompromising theoreticist core syllabus. As for Pigou, I quite like his disarming candour in the preface to his 'The Veil of Money' (1949). I quote: " ... the book is general and academic in character. It is not a discussion of current problems. Some readers confronted with it can hardly fail to 'regret that the writer has thrown little light, or at all events little direct light, on the grave economic difficulties with which our country is at present confronted' - or some other such cliche. Alas, I must leave them to their regret. An author is entitled to choose in (sic) his own topics, and potential readers who prefer other topics have a very simple remedy." Precisely. Which is why I'm presently reading Thorold Rogers, and not Pigou or Keynes, as TR knew a good deal more about history, his knowledge at present mostly gathering dust in second hand book stores. Evan Jones ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]