Re: A rethorical complaint and two questions

[Clifford Poirot <cpoirot@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Javier,

I have made a similar argument myself (to some degree). Perhaps I can
clarify matters though by anticipating the response of some on this list (I
hope correctly). Some would argue that Keynes' method is significant in and
of itself, not because Keynes wrote it, but because Keynes wrote what is
correct. As Paul has argued, Keynes was providing a methodology/theoretical
framework for economics that would be similar to that provided by Einstein
for physics. Thus a departure from Keynes' "General Theory" framework is
seen as a departure from the intent and meaning of the Keynesian Revolution.

I take a different approach. I see Keynes as providing some important
insights but needing to be supplemented by others-Veblen, Schumpeter and
many others. To me, the acid test of a theory is its ability to explain. I
don't think we can have a "General Theory" of the sort that Paul is after
and I have offered some epistemological and ontological reasons why I think
the "fundamentalist" approach to economic theory is wrong.

Anyway, perhaps that clarifies the issue-I trust in an honest and fair way.

-----Original Message-----
From: Javier Finkman [mailto:finkman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 1:02 PM
To: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: A rethorical complaint and two questions


The passion on the debate about "what Keynes really said" (or intended to
say) amazes me. Maybe it is not much different from what happen in other
disciplines such us "what Freud really said" or "what Marx really said" but
still amazes me.

I think that the history of thought is fundamental, do not get me wrong but
could we just discuss economic views/interpretations/models/cosmologies/etc.
as they are? Meaning, could we just discuss
Hicks/Coddington/Davidson/Leijonhufvud/Clower/Johnson/Friedman/Tobin/Patinki
n/etc. views of the economy by themselves? How well they correspond to
reality?/How useful they are? Or the view of the economic reality that those
talented/gifted economists have is inextricably linked with their
(presupposed) intelectual inheritance?

By the way, there are not equivalent strands in physics about "what Einstein
really said", are there? Any suggestion on the latter?

Another question: I am trying to track the intelectual origins of the
banking multiplier. What is the relationship with Keynesian multiplier? (by
the way, I already read Patinkin´s Keynes and the Multiplier chapter on
Anticipations of the General Theory?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gunnar Tomasson" <gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "pdavidso" <pdavidso@xxxxxxx>
Cc: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 11:35 PM
Subject: Re: Quo Vadis 2003? - Follow-up


> Paul:
>
> Please refrain from shouting - I shall be pleased to engage you in
> substantive debate on the points at issue.
>
> Gunnar
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "pdavidso" <pdavidso@xxxxxxx>
> To: "Gunnar Tomasson" <gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 3:45 PM
> Subject: RE: Quo Vadis 2003? - Follow-up
>
>
> > >===== Original Message From Gunnar Tomasson
<gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > =====
> > >Re. my earlier 'Quo Vadis 2003?' message, a fellow Gang8 member
suggested
> > that:
> > >
> > >1. Keynes' "General Theory" was not good enough to deserve such a
> > presumptious title; it was designed for a specific time and place, not
for
> all
> > times and all places.
> > >
> >
> > What sheer nonsense!  As Robert Skidelsky and Jamie Galbraith has both
> noted,
> > Keynes chose the titile "THE GENERSL THEORY" to msker it comparable with
> > Einstein's "GENERAL THEORY of relativity", i.e., a theory that replaced
> the
> > more classical theory [Newtonian in Einstein's case] where the classical
> > theory required additional restrictive axioms!
> >
> > Keynes's theory is "general" in the sense that it requires fewer
> restrictive
> > assumptions as Keynes himself declared!
> >
> > >Here is my reply:
> > >  Yes - in fact, it was not "theory" as much as advocacy for a
particular
> > approach to the economic and political problems of the times.
> >
> > This is also nonsense -- as Keynes demonstratede when he used his
"general
> > theory" to explain "HOW TO PAY FOR THE WAR"!!  A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
> > POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEM THAN EXISTED IN THE EARLY 1930S.!
> > >
> > >  Indeed, as "theory" it reduces to a variation on the Say's Law theme
> which
> > Keynes had spelled out in his 'banana economy' fable in the Treatise:
that
> any
> > 'saving' out of Factor Incomes generated in a One-Commodity (banana)
> economy
> > would set off a downward spiral of reduced employment, incomes, and
output
> as
> > banana producers responded to the shortfall in 'effective aggregate
> demand'
> > from the Factor Supply Cost of bananas in an attempt to cut their
losses.
> >
> > nONSENSE -- THE BANANA PARABLE LEAD TO WINDFALL PROFITS AND LOSSES AND
NOT
> TO
> > PLANNED (EXPECTED) PROFIT INMCOME FLOWS!
> >
> >
> > >
> > >  Substitute Goods and Services for Bananas and you have the General
> Theory.
> >
> > nONSENSE -- SEE ABOVE!
> > >
> > >  Alas, Keynes could not admit to the game he was playing with his
> Cambridge
> > peers - and, once the cat was out of the bag, the American 'keynesians'
at
> > Harvard and MIT, whose elevation of the General Theory to the status of
> Holy
> > Writ was craftily designed to serve their socio-political ends.
> >
> >
> > yOU SHOULD READ cOLANDER AND lANDRETH'S BOOK "HOW KEYNESIANISM CAME TO
> > AMERICA" TO UNDERSTAND THAT IT WAS ROBERT BRYCE'S NOTES AND NOT KEYNES'S
> > GENERAL THEORY THAT BECAME THE BASIS OF HARVARD AND MIT "KEYNESIANISM".
> > >
> > >  With respect to the latter, Lawrence Klein's Ph. D. thesis written
> under
> > Paul Samuelson at MIT during World War II and given pre-publication
> publicity
> > by Samuelson in his memorial article on Keynes in Econometrica (July,
> 1946),
> > described Keynes as 'glorifier of the bourgeois life' who was so
befuddled
> > that he dismissed Soviet Economics as "religion" and failed to see that
> his
> > own General Theory was precisely exemplified by the Full-Employment
Soviet
> > System.
> > >
> >
> > I WON'T EVEN BOTHER TO COMMENT ON THIDS-- GUNNAR, PLEASE READ cOLANDER
AND
> > lANDRETH'S BOOK !
> >
> >
> > >  Even as late as the 1976 edition of his Economics, Samuelson
continued
> to
> > sing the praises of Soviet Economics - while promoting mainstream
> > Credit-Bubble Economics as an offshoot of the General Theory.
> > >
> > >  Hence Keynes' rueful remark on return to his Washington hotel in 1943
> after
> > a dinner with American 'keynesians' to the effect that he had been the
> only
> > non-keynesian present.
> >
> > ABOUT THIS SEE COLANDER AND LANDRETH.
> >
> > pAUL
> > >
> >
> > Paul Davidson
> > Editor, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics
> > University of Tennessee
> > SMC 503
> > Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0550
> > phone # (561)369-1951; fax #(561)369-1951;
> > email pdavidson@xxxxxxx
> > http://econ.bus.utk.edu/davidsonextra/Davidson.html
> >
>
>
>