{"id":25672,"date":"2017-09-15T05:39:29","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T10:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25672"},"modified":"2017-09-15T05:39:29","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T10:39:29","slug":"keynes-a-master-of-confused-and-confusing-prose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25672","title":{"rendered":"Keynes: A Master of Confused and Confusing Prose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keynes: A Master of Confused and Confusing Prose<\/a><\/h3>\n

\"keynes.PNG\"<\/h3>\n
[This article is a selection from Where Keynes Went Wrong<\/em><\/a>]:<\/div>\n
\n

Paul Samuelson, professor of economics at MIT after World War II and author of a best-selling economics textbook, was one of Keynes\u2019s most ardent American disciples. Here is what he has to say about the latter’s\u00a0General Theory<\/em>:<\/p>\n

It is a badly written book, poorly organized. . . . It is ar\u00adrogant, bad-tempered, polemical, and not overly gener\u00adous in its acknowledgements. It abounds in mare\u2019s nests and confusion….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In reading this, one recalls Keynes\u2019s infatuation with paradox. Samuelson, the ardent disciple, is telling us that the master\u2019s book is good because it is bad.<\/p>\n

We do not, however, have to take Samuelson\u2019s word about the bad writing, poor organization, and general confusion of\u00a0The General Theory<\/em>. Following publication in 1936, many lead\u00ading economists pointed to the same problems, although some of them hesitated to criticize or quarrel with Keynes and thus chose their words carefully. Frank H. Knight, a leading American econ\u00adomist, complained that it was \u201cinordinately difficult to tell what the author means. . . . The direct contention of the work [also] seems to me quite unsubstantiated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joseph Schumpeter noted Keynes\u2019s \u201ctechnique of skirting problems by artificial definitions which, tied up with highly specialized assumptions, produce paradoxical-looking tau\u00adtologies. . . .\u201d\u00a0British economist Hubert Henderson privately stated that: \u201cI have allowed myself to be inhibited for many years . . . by a desire not to quarrel in public with Maynard . . . . But. . . I regard Maynard\u2019s books as a farrago of confused sophis\u00adtication.\u201d<\/p>\n

French economist Etienne Mantoux added that the whole thing simply appeared to be \u201crationalization of a policy … long known to be . . . dear to him.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0The General Theory<\/em>\u00a0itself, Keynes has a good word to say about clarity, consistency, and logic.He is quick to pounce on what he considers the errors of others. But he then leads us down a rabbit hole of convolution, needless and misleading jar\u00adgon, mis-statement, confusion, contradiction, unfactuality, and general illogic.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keynes: A Master of Confused and Confusing Prose [This article is a selection from Where Keynes Went Wrong]: Paul Samuelson, professor of economics at MIT after World War II and author of a best-selling economics textbook, was one of Keynes\u2019s most ardent American disciples. Here is what he has to say about the latter’s\u00a0General Theory: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8669,16002,458,7617,16001,7643],"class_list":["post-25672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-history-of-the-austrian-school-of-economics","tag-hunter-lewis","tag-john-maynard-keynes","tag-mises-institute","tag-other-schools-of-thought","tag-world-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25673,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25672\/revisions\/25673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}