I was just reading "Economics for Real People" by Gene Callahan online at mises.org and I came accross this tidbit that I couldnt quite get:
Some people feel that these questions should be answered on a “practical,” case-by-case basis. They claim to disdain the use of theory in resolving them. The English economist John Maynard Keynes saw the error in such thinking: The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist. (The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money) call me dense but I didn't quite get what keynes was saying when he said that people whoe don't use theories are "slaves of some defunct economist"
Some people feel that these questions should be answered on a “practical,” case-by-case basis. They claim to disdain the use of theory in resolving them. The English economist John Maynard Keynes saw the error in such thinking: The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist. (The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money)
call me dense but I didn't quite get what keynes was saying when he said that people whoe don't use theories are "slaves of some defunct economist"
As I see it, he means economists and political philosophers - who is not a "political" philosopher is not clear to me ) have a pretty good leverage when it comes to push states toward their ideas (right and wrong), and that those that do not buy his theory, being people that do not like to be influenced by intellectuals, are slaves of those economits that where before him and therefor all dead wrong
In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded.
Terry Pratchett (on the big bang theory)
People tend to have ideas of how the world works, and these ideas tend to issue from the mind of some intellectual or other. Some of these ideas are so common that their origin becomes imperceptible, but they are there nonetheless. Keynes probably means most people are thus under the sway of some intellectual or other, without even knowing it.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Jon Irenicus:Keynes probably means most people are thus under the sway of some intellectual or other, without even knowing it.
Unfortunately, Keynes was amazingly accurate with his statement. Today, most people are under the sway of Keynesianism without knowing it.