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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Posner and Keynes, sitting in a tree...

I never thought I'd see that day, that Chicago-school idolater Richard Posner became a Keynesian (not to be confused with NEW Keynesian - which isn't real Keynesianism anyway). The day has come.

One of the most poignant quotes from his "New Republic" article:

"Baffled by the profession's disarray, I decided I had better read The General Theory. Having done so, I have concluded that, despite its antiquity, it is the best guide we have to the crisis. And I am not alone in this judgment."

A couple things strike me: (1) I was saddened (though not altogether shocked) that someone so intellectual had never even bothered to read Keynes' opus before. (2), happiness that someone who I have, in the past, deemed intellectually brainwashed could muster enough fortitude to break through the mainstream economic morass.

Another glimmering quote:

"Keynes wanted to be realistic about decision-making rather than explore how far an economist could get by assuming that people really do base decisions on some approximation to cost-benefit analysis."

So true Professor, so true.

If this is a foreshadowing of how economics, and mainstream economics, might go, I only wish I was born today, so that I could grow up in an academic economics environment a little more accepting of real thought, and a little less accepting of trying to make everything fit a 'rational' mathematical model.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you're too generous to Richard Posner in calling him intellectually brainwashed. It makes him sound like an innocent dupe. His recent article in The Atlantic and the controversy it caused showed that he is reluctant to take responsibility for his misstatements and is all too willing to impugn the motives of those who point out his inaccuracies.

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Well, numbers were created by people so you can expect that they aren't perfect. I think that there are a lot of things involved that you have to take into acoount.

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