A lot of things seemed to died today.
Who/what else died? Btw, Yuri Maltsev publish a great piece on Samuelson, in the Mises.org blog.
You’re not going to get much loves for Keynes and those who helped perpetuate his ideas here. I’m not saying that to agree with one side or the other. It’s more of a, “you should known better,” statement. In any case, Samuelson’s economic leanings should not give any justification towards anybody being pleased with his death. The day before his death his legacy was just as strong as it would have been had he survived for one day longer. Irregardless, although I am not familiar (at all) with his work I am sure that he had some good material.
Not a day too soon.
I beg to differ. Though, the pleasure is limited by his death being not nearly enough.
I completely agree.
Lol!
He’s pretty good when it comes to international trade theory. The HOS model (S=Samuelson); factor price equalization and natural endowment theory of trade. Krugman’s not bad when it comes to international trade either, though he stole his main thesis from Say’s law (how ironic). The New Trade theory is about as old as you get in economics.
that’s…a little creepy
Good grief. Are some of you always this callous about people you have political disagreements with???
Paul Samuelson was a scientist, by which I mean he used his energies primarily to try and better understand the world we live in. Being human, he could be wrong from time to time, but that is one of the risks that comes with the occupation. A scientist cannot hope to learn anything about the world if he isn’t free to be wrong.
In general, I am not convinced by arguments that follow the pattern “well, his ideas lead politicians to do X and I think X was very bad.” They remind me too much of the arguments that try to ascribe to Darwin all the sins of eugenisits that were inspired by his work on evolution (a common ad hom tactic amongst creationists).
Samuelson cannot be held accountable for the actions of others. As a scientist, his only responsibility was to pursue knowledge to the best of his abilities. If that led him to conclusions you find politically uncomfortable, well I am not sure I have much sympathy. I do not think it is the duty of any scientist to stroke my political preconceptions. If I disagree with their conclusions, I will argue with them, but I would never ask that they restrict themselves to only presenting results I find comforting.
With regards to the specific claim on Samuelson’s support and work with the Philips Curve, I can say that Samuelson recognized that there may not be a long-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment (he wasn’t particularly convinced, at least in the 1960s, but he did recognize the possibility). If politicians were not as foresighted, so much the worse for them. Samuelson deserves no blame.
That is all I am going to say. [:|]
Samuelson only saw what he wanted to see, in such a way that he ended up making the 2 worst presumptions of economic history IMO.
1st - When the WWII was ending, he claimed that the economy would collapse, since all the war-industry wouldnt have to be greatly reduce. So yeah, according to him millions of people going to stop killing and being killed was bad for the economy.
2nd - He firmly believed that the Soviet Union was an oasis of prosperity, and I consider ok to think that during the 60s or 70s, but he still thought that during the 80s, when there was plenty of evidence on how flawed the Soviet System was. He still tried to went full retarded saying “How would I know it was all fake?”, because the guy couldn’t survey some germans who scaped to the West Germany.
Samuelson simply ignored human suffering, as long the numbers he would gather were making him feel good about his own intelligence.
Now compare him to Mises. While Samuelson with all his math couldn’t see the Soviet trainwreck in 1988, Mises could see it in as early as 1922 with some “crude” sound reason.
Do you have any proof for the first clause, or do you just believe that it is find not groundings accusations of such gravity?
Is it really difficult finding citations for these assertions?
Crude ad hominem with not supporting evidence.
Non sequitur, especially compared with Student’s comments that while Samuelson may not have had the greatest ideas, it is still abhorrent to cheer at his death. Really, you just argued past Student, whom you had quoted, rather than actually engaging what he said.
In the end, it is still callous to cheer at Samuelson’s death despite the fact one might not have agreed with him about anything. In fact, one of the best lessons that I learned from my professor of American Politics last year was this little tip: One’s enemies are neither stupid nor evil, so do not fool oneself into thinking that they are. Of course with the note: even if one’s enemies are evil, it does one no good to believe they are Satan’s spawn.
I completely agree that Samuelson does not deserve to have his death cheered, as I have already tried to argue. In regards to his views on the U.S.S.R. Yuri Maltsev recently said similar comments on his blog post:
When I was learning economics in the USSR in the 1970s Samuelson was the only Western economist whose textbook was translated into Russian. I remember his famous graph depicting dynamics of per capita GNP in the Soviet Union and the United States according to which the USSR would surpass the US in the standard of living by 1990. He frankly admitted to me that that was mistake. “Who could know that it was all fake?”
Making mistakes is okay when you actually progress versus regress over time. Making mistakes is ok you actually give a half-assed attempt at pretending integrity versus gobbling up every morsel of bs tossed out at you from behind an iron curtain.
But, hey, he can’t be held responsible for the actions of others, just like Stalin, Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Pol Pot Mao, Jong Il, none of whom shot anyone. We should write eulogies for them as well and take back all of the bad movies and books made about them. They don’t deserve their death cheered. They were merely scientists doing their best seeking truth. Things are just things. Stuff is just stuff. Nothing means anything. Their are no values.
To show that we aren’t callous guys, I propose a Swastika on the homepage.
Keep it classy guys.
The Darwin-eugenics analogy would be great… if only Darwin advocated eugenics.
wow, thats a clever ruse,…
drop in that people think its a crime along with the statement that people think its comparable to mass murder, and by having people laugh at the ‘fools’ who think that advocating ‘progressive’ government policy is anything at all like participating in a murder, the thoughts of its criminality, or ‘wrongness’-of-any-stripe are laughed away too…
He deserves to have his death forgotten, as it soon will be.
The comical thing is I didn’t even compare Samuleson to anyone. I applied Student’s and John’s argument to other people. Though I expect John would concede that point, Student maintains nonetheless unblinkingly that moronic attempt at sterilizing his legacy. You could almost suspect that Student is Krugman, if Krugman had time for insignificant ants.