[lbo-talk] Re: wotsit madder

Ted Winslow egwinslow at rogers.com
Sun Mar 7 07:14:21 PST 2004


Kelley wrote:


> He'd noted that Keynes would understand it that way, but he didn't
> claim to agree with Keyes.

Keynes doesn't understand it that way i.e. his attribution of psychopathology to businessmen isn't a claim that they are, on average, "psychopaths" as this is defined in DSM-IV.

The average degree of psychopathology he does attribute to them is found in his assumptions about their conventional breliefs and behaviour, assumptions that provide the psychological foundation of his economics.

He didn't believe this average was characteristic of all businessmen, however. Here, for instance, is what of says of his friend and sometime investment confidant Walter Case:

"He had been associated with a number of constructive undertakings, including the rehabilitation of the Southern Railway (U.S.A.) after the war, the Rhodesian Copper Mines in their early days, and various recent ventures in modern scientific prospecting in all parts of the world. As time went on his temperament led him increasingly into projects where entrepreneurship and pioneering courage were required, and he came to regard the purely financial and Stock Exchange sides of his business as mainly useful, in so far as they provided him with funds for the active development of the world's resources. He was outstanding among American financiers of the present generation for his almost fanatical enthusiasm for the application of science to business affairs, whether it was economic theory, chemistry, metallurgy, geology, or meteorology; and he was lavish in his expenditure on obtaining the best possible assistance and advice. He had built up a remarkable staff and organisation round him, his principal partner being Mr Walter Stewart, who had formerly acted as adviser to the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Board.

"While he was an avid reader of memoranda and expert reports and a lover of debate, he never wrote a letter or put pen to paper, and was addicted to the long-distance phone even beyond ordinary American usage. He visited London almost every year, and this summer his friends were delighted to find him recovered, as he thought, from a long period of serious illness; but a return to activity proved after all too much for him. There was no more charming or fascinating figure in the Wall Street of to-day. He was an exceptionally able financier and speculator, but his heart was never satisfied except when he was engaged in the actual direction of concrete things. His boisterous, shrewd ways, his mixture of boldness and caution, and his delight in scientific ideas and new discoveries made him an outstandingly delightful companion in exploring the pregnant possibilities of modern enterprise for those who can still keep something of the old pioneering spirit and of capitalism in its best embodiment." (Collected Writings, vol. X, pp. 326-7)

Ted



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