>
> So maybe the thinness had a good side? The modern fraternity - it's almost
> all male at the top, isn't it? - would never have allowed Keynes to rise to
> this level of prominence. Or he would have been forced to go through an
> orthodox program, which might have driven him into art history.
Yeah, I agree. Or he could have spent his career estimating consumption functions. I think the thinness meant economics was open to this kind of charismatic reinvention, in a way it certainly isn't today. There's a good book by G. L. S. Shackle about economics in the decade before the General Theory that shows how much big questions were still being debated: 'The Years of High Theory: Invention and tradition in economic thought, 1926-39' [1967]. The professionalisation of economics is really a post-WWII phenomenon.
Cheers, Mike