Well, she was a very special case, but I would argue that Joan Robinson moved further left over the course of her life and career. Barkley Rosser On Wed, 23 Sep 1998 10:07:27 -0700 James Devine <jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu> wrote:
> At 08:42 AM 9/23/98 -0700, you wrote:
> >Ellsberg was always relatively leftist the way he tells it. He was an
> >enthusiastic union activist before Harvard and Vietnam.
> >
> >Among economists, I can only think of John Gurley who moved to the left in
> >response to Vietnam. I believe that he was a Quaker.
>
> how about Leonard Rapping, who went from writing with the new classial
> Robert Lucas to writing with the radical James Crotty? or did he write for
> the former because he was a grad. student serf, needing a publication to
> beef up his resume?
>
> BTW, it's often said that profs. sometimes "come out of the closet" as
> leftists when they get tenure. But I don't know if that's true. Further, I
> think that the indoctrination of grad. school, struggling to publish & get
> tenure, etc. affects the _kind_ of leftist one is when one gets the big T.
> The long and hard effort to get tenure encourages academic and elitist
> leftism, employing all sorts of obscure jargon or math, dealing with arcane
> questions, believing strongly in the divisions between and within academic
> disciplines, etc.
>
> Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu &
> http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html
>
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu