On Jan 29, 2012, at 1:29 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> But there is a book or several to be written on the various
> intellectual sympathizers with fascism &/or Nazism & the strange ways in
> which the actual 'things' were reflected, channeled, distorted in their
> writing.
There's also the case of Keynes, who wrote this in the preface to a 1936 German edition of the General Theory. Modern Keynesians, especially of the lefter variety, squirm when this is cited:
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/foregt.html
> I may, therefore, perhaps expect to meet with less resistance on the part of German readers than from English, when I submit to them a theory of employment and production as a whole which deviates in important particulars from the orthodox tradition. But could I hope to overcome the economic agnosticism of Germany? Could I convince German economists that methods of formal analysis constitute an important contribution to the interpretation of contemporary events and to the shaping of contemporary policy? It is, after all, a feature of German character to find satisfaction in a theory. How hungry and thirsty German economists must feel having lived all these years without one! It is certainly worthwhile for me to make the effort. And if I can contribute a single morsel to a full meal prepared by German economists, particularly adjusted to German conditions, I will be satisfied. For I must confess that much in the following book has been mainly set forth and illustrated in relation to conditions in the Anglo-Saxon countries.
>
> The theory of aggregated production, which is the point of the following book, nevertheless can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state [eines totalen Staates] than the theory of production and distribution of a given production put forth under conditions of free competition and a large degree of laissez-faire. This is one of the reasons that justifies the fact that I call my theory a general theory. Since it is based on fewer hypotheses than the orthodox theory, it can accommodate itself all the easier to a wider field of varying conditions. Although I have, after all, worked it out with a view to the conditions prevailing in the Anglo-Saxon countries where a large degree of laissez-faire still prevails, nevertheless it remains applicable to situations in which state management is more pronounced.