The WSJ carries an interesting piece titled "Keynesians Spin in Circles on Inflation," which of course grabbed my eye. I recommend it.
The historic battle between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich August Hayek in the late 1800s and early 1900s is one of history's most fascinating and unbelievable conflicts.
Hayek was a Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science who spent most of his academic life at the London School of Economics. Keynes had no education in economics, only took a single course under Alfred Marshal, and then rejected the entire course. Instead, he embraced the economic principles of government control set forth by Karl Marx and openly embraced the principles of what we now know as Fascism. In 1911, despite lacking any qualifying degree, he was given a position as editor of the Cambridge "Economic Journal" solely due to nepotism, his father being on the faculty of Cambridge.
As editor of the prestigious "Journal," he controlled the published materials to allow only papers conforming to his views. Early on, his ideas were considered "Crackpot" by his peers, but crackpot or no, if you wanted to be published in the Journal, you did it his way. The result is that his unscientific ideas of economics became imbued with a patina of authority. As a result, today's mindset accepts Keynes as valid and sound despite mountains of contrary evidence.
Hayek, on the other hand, possessed a solid economics background. He founded the Austrian Institute of Business Cycle Research and was on the London School of Economics faculty. He well understood the role and value of the unfettered free market.
Hayek and Keynes fought a truly epic battle of ideas. Their battle was even the subject of a comedic "Rap Battle" video produced by Economics Professor Russ Roberts, titled "Fear the Boom and Bust," wherein "Keynes" and "Hayek" square off for a "Battle of the Century."
Although Hayek's ideas are based on sound economic science and promote freedom and prosperity, academia warmly embraces Keynesian economic theories. Authoritarians of every stripe and the ignorant followers of academic orthodoxy embrace Keynes, giving pseudo-intellectual cover to ideas that common sense should otherwise profoundly reject.
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