[lbo-talk] David Harvey v. Brad DeLong

Mike Beggs mikejbeggs at gmail.com
Thu Feb 19 17:32:05 PST 2009


On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Joshua Bregman <melodiousthunk at gmail.com>wrote:


>
> http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2009/02/david-harvey-vs-brad-delong-dustup.html
>
> Apologies if this already went out. Just thought it would be of interest.
>
> I do think DeLong has a valid point that the question of 'will they keep
buying American Treasury debt?' should be put in terms of 'at what interest rate?', and that so far there are no signs of strain. But Harvey's quite right in that there is a constraint on the US authorities such that the interest-rate and exchange-rate consequences of a stimulus big enough to raise demand enough _might_ be unbearable. Nobody really knows the dynamics behind the demand for Treasuries, and it's hardly radical to make this point; the Economist, for example, has been saying the same thing, even while noting, again, that there are so far no signs of strain.

The rest of DeLong's tirade is pretty unfair to Harvey and (in combination with his truculence in the comments against people who defended Harvey) makes him look pretty foolish. It is a case of people from different traditions talking past one another, and DeLong's implication that Harvey is just talking gibberish says more about DeLong than Harvey. But then Harvey's response dismissing neoclassical economics in its entirety is unfortunately along the same lines.

The extent to which they are talking at right angles to one another is highlighted by the fact that they clearly have different definitions of 'neoclassical economics'. DeLong seems to think the term means 'the neoclassical synthesis', of which he correctly portrays Hicks's 'Mr. Keynes and the Classics' as the wellspring. But in mainstream history of economic thought, the 'neo-classical synthesis' is, well, a synthesis of some of Keynes with a pre-existing neo-classical tradition going back to Marshall, Walras, etc. - i.e. the marginalists. Which is exactly what Harvey means by 'neo-classical'.

Cheers, Mike Beggs



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