On Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:09:02 -0500 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
>
> 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 re!
> lation 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.
Keynes's point would still seem to stand. Isn't China the one country that was able to successfully mount a Keynesian response to the current economic downturn?
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math ____________________________________________________________ 53 Year Old Mom Looks 33 The Stunning Results of Her Wrinkle Trick Has Botox Doctors Worried