Re: Lord Skidelsky

[WesWid@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 98-08-14 17:15:09 EDT, you write:

<< Date:	98-08-14 17:15:09 EDT
 From:	GN842@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Greg Nowell)
 Sender:	owner-pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 Reply-to:	pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 To:	pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT)

 No joke, he's a lord.  I found him on a website.  Is
 this serious that he's working on Keynes' theory of the
 state?  Does anyone more widely read in Keynes than I
 know of any materials to which we may impute a
 Keynesian theory of the state?

 --
 Gregory P. Nowell
  >>

Well, I may not be as widely read in Keynes, I am a political scientist who
sees direct parallels between "constructivist" approaches to international
relations and post-Keynesian economics.

Constructivists argue that intersubjective understandings (most importantly
norms regarding sovereignty -- the purposes and subjects of state authority)
form the bases of state interests.

Similiarly, post-Keynesians argue intersubjective understandings (in this
case, "conventions" regarding fundamentals) inform market agents' expectations
and interests.

So, in a nutshell, a Keynesian/constructivist theory of the state stresses the
importance of intersubjective understandings in defeining the purposes and
subjects of authority.

In my dissertation I am merging these arguments to argue that Keynesian
understandings of prices as functions of expectations legitimated the exercise
of controls (on capital movements, interest rates, and wage-price movements)
to fix expectations.

As an aside, has anyone read anything on Keynes' proposals for a international
commodity control besides what is in Collected Writings?  It's a neglected
subject, but he proposed integrating a buffer-price institution with the
Clearing Union to stabilize commodity prices.  I then argue more recent
understandings of prices as endogenous to monetary fundamentals has
legitimated the use of monetary mechanisms to influence the supply and demand
for credit, currencies, etc.

Wes Widmaier
UT Austin