James Farmelant wrote:
> Would you say that Paul Samuelson was a leading
> "bastard Keynesian"? Didn't he win the Nobel Prize
> for attempting to reconcile Keynesianism with neo-classical
> economic theory?
>
> Jim Farmelant
>
Sure. But he made a big name for himself by draining all of the juice out of Keynes, making it compatible with capitalist imperatives, and so reaped his reward from the bankers who award the "Nobel" in economics.
> On Fri, 06 Aug 1999 15:18:38 -0700 Roger Odisio <rodisio at igc.org> writes:
> >Seth Ackerman wrote:
> >
> >> Can someone explain to me the salient differences between Bastard
> >> Keynesianism and the more "authentic" versions? do these differences
> >have
> >> any real policy implications?
> >>
> >> Seth
> >
> >I'll take a crack at that from the deep recesses of my memory, Seth.
> >What I
> >can tell you is only one part of the story, and in simplified version.
> >
> >"Bastard Keynesians" is a term coined by Joan Robinson, writing in the
> >50s.
> >Robinson was actually a student of Keynes in the 30s when he was
> >developing
> >the General Theory, and she always retained a sort of protective
> >approach to
> >the corpus of his thought. Hence her reaction when his work was
> >distorted.
> >
> >Keynes attacked the neoclassicals of his day most fundamentally by
> >showing
> >theirs was a static equilibrium theory, complete with automatic
> >tendencies
> >toward that equilibrium. What to do when the economy turned down?
> >Nothing,
> >they said. In the General Theory (he called it the General Theory
> >because
> >he argued that all of neoclassical theory was but a restricted,
> >special
> >case), Keynes wrote of the many fundamental problems left unadressed
> >by
> >neoclassical theory; e.g., disconnects between savings and investment
> >such
> >that you can't save your way to prosperity (the problems of Say's
> >Law),
> >the
> >"liqidity trap" when interest rates got too low, and other such things
> >that
> >clearly showed some of the dissembling possibilities of unfettered
> >capitalism. One way to summarize: Keynes added time to the
> >neoclassical
> >static model (see stuff by GLS Schackle and Robinson explaining this)
> >and
> >studied its effects.
> >
> >According to Robinson (and she's right), first chance they got, the
> >bastard
> >Keynesians took time back out of the theory. They embraced
> >superficial
> >parts
> >like deficit spending to correct short term problems of aggregate
> >demand
> >(so
> >that Nixon could proclaim "we are all Keynesians now"--the extreme
> >form
> >of
> >bastardization, of course; also the point of Doug's reference to the
> >bastard
> >Keynesian state). But they replaced the heart of Keynes' macro
> >insights
> >with
> >static ISLM curves--you tweak the money supply here or savings there
> >and
> >poof! you're back on track toward equilibrated nirvana. In short,
> >they
> >are
> >bastard Keynesians because they grabbed hold of a few trappings, and
> >threw
> >away the insights that call into question how capitalism functions.
> >
> >Policy implications? His analysis led Keynes, a rather conservative
> >fella,
> >who e.g., had little use for Marx, to blurt out that, to deal with the
> >problems he had shown, perhaps it was necessary to have social control
> >of
> >investment. Put another way, don't kid yourself that your are getting
> >the
> >heart of the problem when you debate the effects on growth of a tax
> >cut
> >vs.
> >govt. spending.
>
> ___________________________________________________________________
> Get the Internet just the way you want it.
> Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month!
> Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.