I suppose that it might be considered good news that libertarianism is now at the point where Slate--the website for pointless contrarianism--thinks that libertarian-bashing is part of their pointless contrarianism mission.
But I read, in Slate, from Stephen Metcalfe, that:
Stephen Metcalf: The Dilettante: In the decades after the war, a kind of levee separated polite discourse from free-market economics. The attitude is well-captured by John Maynard Keynes, whose scribble in the margins of his copy of The Road to Serfdom reads: "An extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in Bedlam"...
and I wince.
Now Keynes did write, of one of Hayek's books:
The book, as it stands, seems to me to be one of the most frightful muddles I have ever read, with scarcely a sound proposition in it beginning with page 45 [Hayek provided historical background up to page 45; after that came his theoretical model], and yet it remains a book of some interest, which is likely to leave its mark on the mind of the reader. It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam...
But Keynes did not write this on the margin of any book. He did not write it by hand. He said it in print--"Keynes at his witty bitchy best", as Bruce Caldwell puts it. Keynes published it in 1931 in the journal Economica--13:34 (November), pp. 387-97, "The Pure Theory of Money: A Reply to Dr. Hayek", and it was of Hayek's Prices and Production. It was about Hayek's business-cycle theory (where, Milton Friedman used to say, Hayek "was not a great economist") and not about his moral philosophy (where, I would argue, he was a great albeit flawed economist).
What did Keynes think of The Road to Serfdom?
Here are three comments he made:
In my opinion it is a grand book.... Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement...
What we need therefore, in my opinion, is not a change in our economic programmes, which would only lead in practice to disillusion with the results of your philosophy; but perhaps even the contrary, namely, an enlargement of them. Your greatest danger is the probable practical failure of the application of your philosophy in the United States...
You admit here and there that it is a question of knowing where to draw the line. You agree that the line has to be drawn somewhere, and that the logical extreme is not possible. But you give us no guidance whatever as to where to draw it...
So how did Metcalfe come up with the idea that "how... a remorseless logician can end up in Bedlam" was Keynes's judgment of The Road to Serfdom?
If you--or at least if I--google "Keynes road to serfdom" the first four results are the "grand book.... deeply moved agreement" quote.
If you--or at least I---google "Keynes a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam" I am led rapidly as I chase links either to the Economica original or to the reprint of "The Pure Theory of Money: A Reply to Dr. Hayek" in Contra Keynes and Cambridge...
Can't anybody play this game?
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
