WEBVTT NOTE A Note On Books 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.840 A Note on Books 2 00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:18.720 There must be hundreds of economic books that may be variously described as Keynesian, Pro-Keynesian, 3 00:00:18.720 --> 00:00:27.180 Quasi-Keynesian, Semi-Keynesian, or Post-Keynesian, and there must be thousands of such pamphlets 4 00:00:27.180 --> 00:00:34.980 and Articles, but there is a great dearth when we come to any literature since 1936 5 00:00:34.980 --> 00:00:43.740 that may be described as definitely anti-Keynesian, in the sense that it is explicitly and consistently 6 00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:48.340 critical of the major Keynesian doctrines. 7 00:00:48.340 --> 00:00:56.460 In the works of such writers as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Wilhelm Röpke, Frank 8 00:00:56.460 --> 00:01:05.140 H. Knight, Jacques Ref, and others, we do indeed have an impressive non-Keynesian literature 9 00:01:05.140 --> 00:01:13.740 based on neo-classical premises, with occasional explicit criticism of Keynesian tenets, but 10 00:01:13.740 --> 00:01:20.700 Full-length books exclusively devoted to a critical analysis of Keynesianism may be 11 00:01:20.700 --> 00:01:24.780 counted on the fingers of one hand. 12 00:01:24.780 --> 00:01:31.420 First among them I should like to mention L. Albert Hahn's The Economics of Illusion, 13 00:01:31.420 --> 00:01:39.460 a collection of essays originally published separately on various Keynesian themes. 14 00:01:39.460 --> 00:01:47.420 The same author's Common Sense Economics is mainly devoted to developing a unified constructive 15 00:01:47.420 --> 00:01:56.020 doctrine, but involves explicit as well as implied criticism of Keynesian doctrine. 16 00:01:56.020 --> 00:02:04.620 A small volume by V. Orville Watts, Away from Freedom, especially emphasizes the moral and 17 00:02:04.620 --> 00:02:09.140 political weaknesses of Keynesianism. 18 00:02:09.140 --> 00:02:17.360 And not even the shortest anti-Keynesian bibliography should omit Arthur W. Marger's monumental 19 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:26.720 study The Theory of Prices, two volumes, 1,426 pages. 20 00:02:26.720 --> 00:02:34.640 This work is distinguished both for its penetrating comment and for the immense range of its scholarship, 21 00:02:34.640 --> 00:02:41.240 but its relentless prolixity and disheartening length have caused it to miss the influence 22 00:02:41.240 --> 00:02:44.600 it might otherwise have had. 23 00:02:44.600 --> 00:02:51.240 Not until I had finished the present book did I have the good fortune, through his generosity, 24 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:58.640 to spend an hour over the manuscript of a work in preparation by W. H. Hutt, now Dean 25 00:02:58.640 --> 00:03:05.240 Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. 26 00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:11.340 This will be both a thorough and a thoroughly admirable work, which I am convinced will 27 00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:15.000 make a deep impression when it appears. 28 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:22.480 Meanwhile, I feel encouraged and corroborated in my own analysis by the numerous points 29 00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:39.960 David McCord Wright, Dow Professor of Economics and Political Science at McGill University, 30 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:48.400 Montreal, is now also engaged, I am informed, on a book on the Keynesian system. 31 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:54.560 Starting from his article, Mr. Keynes and the Day of Judgment, which appeared in Science 32 00:03:54.560 --> 00:04:02.320 of November 21, 1958, this book will throw much added light on the problems with which 33 00:04:02.320 --> 00:04:05.240 it deals. 34 00:04:05.240 --> 00:04:12.600 Individual volumes have appeared devoted to criticism of single aspects of Keynesian doctrine. 35 00:04:12.600 --> 00:04:20.640 Among these, W. H. Hutz, The Theory of Idle Resources and George Turbors, The Bogie of 36 00:04:20.640 --> 00:04:28.280 Economic Maturity are outstanding. Milton Friedman has devoted a critical and careful 37 00:04:28.280 --> 00:04:36.800 study to The Theory of the Consumption Function, and Ernst W. Swanson and Emerson P. Schmidt 38 00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:45.040 and Economic Stagnation or Progress have written a critique of doctrines on the mature economy, 39 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:49.680 over savings and deficit spending. 40 00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:56.240 But much of the best critical analysis of Keynesian doctrines has appeared merely in 41 00:04:56.240 --> 00:05:05.000 individual chapters in a few pages of works by such writers as Benjamin M. Anderson, Arthur 42 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:16.540 F. Burns, Philip Courtney, Gottfried Haberler, F. A. Hayek, Frank H. Knight, Ludwig von Mises, 43 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:26.220 Melchior Pauli, Charles Rist, Wilhelm Repke and others, and in widely scattered articles 44 00:05:26.220 --> 00:05:36.660 Mainly in Learned Journals by Harry Gunnison Brown, W. H. Hutt, Frank H. Knight, L. M. 45 00:05:36.660 --> 00:05:46.580 Lachman, Joseph Stagg Lawrence, Etienne Manteau, only in French, Franco Modigliani, Edwin G. 46 00:05:46.580 --> 00:05:58.500 Norse, Melchior Pauli, Jacques Reff, Jacob Weiner, R. Gordon Wasson, John H. Williams, 47 00:05:58.500 --> 00:06:02.580 David McCord Wright, and others. 48 00:06:02.580 --> 00:06:09.260 These articles would have a far greater impact on current thought than they have had if they 49 00:06:09.260 --> 00:06:16.020 could be collected and made readily available between the covers of a single book. 50 00:06:16.020 --> 00:06:24.940 I have not mentioned any pro-Keynesian literature because it is so vast and so easily available. 51 00:06:24.940 --> 00:06:32.180 But Seymour Harris appends a bibliographic note to his laudatory book on John Maynard 52 00:06:32.180 --> 00:06:40.860 Keynes, Economist and Policymaker, in which he lists seventeen volumes, mainly sympathetic, 53 00:06:40.860 --> 00:06:47.380 of which I should especially like to mention Dudley Dillard's The Economics of John Maynard 54 00:06:47.380 --> 00:06:55.740 Keynes and Elvin H. Hanson's A Guide to Keynes because they are so much better organized 55 00:06:55.740 --> 00:07:00.220 and so much more lucid than the general theory itself.