Anti-Semitism of Certain Famous Economists

[Justin Schwartz]

The remarks of Schumpeter are very dismaying. Keynes' vile attitudes are of 
course well-known, and, as Doug says, characteristic of his class and 
milieu. I do not think that Hayek's comment even pushes the envelope. I can 
understand how someone might resent being such out of conversation on a 
subject matter. If that is the worst thing he can be stuck with in over 80 
years, he was no anti-Semite. I am not sure that any of this has any 
implications for the economics of any of these figures. The political views, 
yes: as Doug says, Keynes' attitudes reflect the elite clubbishness of the 
self-appointed Masters of Mankind; Schumpeter's, those of Lueger's Vienna 
transposed to Harvard of the Jew quota era. It's good that he kept that 
stuff to himself. Hayek emerges with honor: his libertarianism, although 
hateful in its attitude towards the poor, is consistent in rejecting racism 
and other pseudo-natural-hierarchies,a further tribute to the real if 
limited virtues of classical liberalism. --jks


>      [Hayek speaking as part of an oral interview in mid-1980s)
>      "Not my family, my family is on [sic] the purely Christian
>group; but in the university context I entered into the mixed
>group.  And there were several things which I must confess
>I resented among our Jewish friends.  The worst was that I
>was not allowed to speak about Jewish things; they did that
>all the time. Even the theme of 'Has he a Jewish accent?'
>was constantly discussed among them; if I would have said
>a word about it, it would have been bitterly resented."
>       Hayek, of course, strongly supported his mentor, Ludwig
>von Mises, who was Jewish and was a cousin of the three
>quarters Jewish, Ludwig Wittgenstein.
>       Although pushing the envelope, I don't think the above
>quote by Hayek can be viewed as constituting anti-Semitism.
>Barkley Rosser

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