Keynes’s biographer, Robert Skidelsky, is going to defend Keynes while Jamie Whyte is going to defend Hayek in a debate at the London School of Econ.
would love to see this debate, or hear it.
Should be interesting.
LSE has been having a lot of interesting lectures lately. Niall Ferguson gave two last year on the cold war that were really good.
does the LSE publish their debates online somewhere?
I don’t know. I know they put a lot of these things on iTunes for free.
I don’t know. I know they put a lot of these things on iTunes for free.
I thought Hayekians were all about price gouging and steal surplus value from the worker?
hahahahaha
well isnt this what most think capitalism is generally?
Is it just me or is it kind of odd that there is a huge Hayek - Keynes dichotmomy going on in pop culture? Why not Schumpeter?
I’ve noticed a general trend that, if cornered, many mainstream sources will cite Hayek as a representative of economic POVs neither mainstream nor Chicago nor Marxist. Even the EconStories vids have this, though probably unconsciously. Could be that he’s more well known outside of the US than Mises, or that he’s an easier spokesman to debate against given his opposition of interventionism was far more lukewarm than Mises’, and thus he’s sort of the economic equivalent of the Mitt Romney to Keynes (or rather, neoclassical-Keynesian synthesis economics who claim to be following in his footsteps) Hillary Clinton.
I suspect the reason Hayek is mentioned is because he won a noble prize, whether one likes it or not most people will see the noble prize for economics and thus see him as someone to take “seriously”.
Hayek and Keynes were the two most well-known economists of their day…and they were contemporaries. They knew each other. They were friendly, but intellectual rivals, and almost total opposites as far as their economics goes. I don’t think there is a better representation of two sides of economic thought in terms of the recognizability of these two and the schools they represent. I’m also not sure you could hope for a better pair for a rivalry. Something like that doesn’t come along very often. Johnson & Bird. Agassi & Sampras. Edison & Tesla. Handel & Buononcini. Sometimes truth can be just as interesting as fiction.
I think the question is “why Schumpeter?”
There’s nothing noble about the Nobel Prize.
Soooooo, they couldn’t get Murphy and Krugman?
Is it just me or is it kind of odd that there is a huge Hayek - Keynes dichotmomy going on in pop culture? Why not Schumpeter?
Because in the 1930s it was a Hayek versus Keynes debate. Lionel Robbins, who at the time was at the head of the LSE, had brought Hayek over as a means of combatting Keynes’ influence in English academia. Keynes, more or less, was at the head of Cambridge (although, I’m not sure who influenced who the most – Keynes Cambridge, or Cambridge Keynes!). And the debate took place during a time of depression. Since today the bands can be said to be forming again, it is a play on that historical series of events.
Krugman won’t debate anyone. His penis shrinks back into his body and his voice gets all shrilly when Peter Schiff of Bob Murphy’s names are mention, let alone if they were on stage together.
All joking aside, has Paul Krugman every debated anyone? I’ve seen him brought on MSNBC and CNN to give his input on economic issues but I’ve never seen him clash with anyone on those shows.
Sure.
He debated Bill O’Reilly on TV back in 2004.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUOFTPbxuWA
He’s also engaged in written debates with plenty of folks across the political spectrum like
Like James Galbraith:
http://www.pkarchive.org/theory/dialogue.html
Or Jude Wanniski:
http://www.pkarchive.org/cranks/lunatic.html
But there are all in popular media. I would say “debates” per se don’t happen much in the academic space. At least not formal debates where you have point/counter-points in front of an audience. Instead, it mostly all happens in journal articles. You write something, someone might write a response disagreeing with it, maybe you’ll get a chance to respond. Or you will just publish an article later that incorporates responses to previous criticisms. At conferences you can talk with attendees, but they are not really “debates”.
That’s why Murphy’s plan for a televised debate kinda confused me. No one really settles theoretical arguments that way.
Last time I saw Krugman on TV was on Charlie Rose a couple years ago. The show may as well have been renamed “Krugman Pontificates”.
Student,
Thank you for the links. This is going to sound out of left field, but did Keynes and Hayek ever debate publicly? I know they had a bit of a back-and-forth in terms of articles and personal letters.
Quite frankly, it doesn’t appear to be a serious debate. Skidelsky is not a serious economist, and old-school Keynesianism has been theoretically and empirically invalidated in every possible way. There’s no way that Skidelsky is going to defend the new-Keynesian position. This is more of a show than anything else.
Esuric, would you mind distinguishing the Keynesian and neo-Keynesian positions for me? It’s my understanding that the neo-Keynesians abandoned certain theoretical points established in The General Theory, but I’m rather ignorant on the subject.