"An optimist who lived at a time when the world economy was running so badly that clever gimmicks could still work wonders, Keynes's object was to save capitalism from itself. In the end, his prescription in its most simple form self-destructed, as the obligation to run a full-employment humanitarian state caused modern economies to succumb to the new disease of stagflation - high inflation along with joblessness and excess capacity. Economists of the most diverse views are constantly asking themselves: What would Keynes advise if he were now alive. And usually - whether the economist is a free-marketeer like Friederick von Hayek or one with strong interventionist leanings like John Kenneth Galbraith - they pay Keynes the supreme compliment of believing that if brought back to earth, Maynard would be favoring just what each of them happens to favor. One also might wonder what Lord Keynes would prescribe for the huge structural deficit of Ronald Reagan, with the crowding out of investment that it implies once the American economy reattains high levels of employment."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesJews from the United StatesEconomists from the United StatesNobel laureates in EconomicsPeople from Gary
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"The House That Keynes Built", The New York Times (May 29, 1983)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Samuelson
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Paul Samuelson
Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist. He was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.
119 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Paul Samuelson →
Related Quotes
"The General Theory caught most economists under the age of 35 with the unexpected virulence of a disease first attack…"
"Herein lies the secret of the General Theory. It is a badly written book, poorly organized; any layman who, beguiled …"
"Just as Hegel is said to have understood his philosophy for the first time when he read its French translation, Vilfr…"
"I was lucky to enter economics in 1932. Analytical economics was poised for its take-off. I faced a lovely vacuum tha…"
"The existence of analogies between central features of various theories implies the existence of a general theory whi…"
"The general method involved may be very simply stated. In cases where the equilibrium values of our variables can be …"
"In the preface to the reissue of Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Frank Knight makes the penetrating observation that und…"
"Figure 12-6 pulls together in a simplified way the main elements of income determination. Without saving and investme…"
"I think the acceptance of "mathematical expectation of utility" or its "arithmetic mean" was an unthinking carryover …"
"Science is not art. Yet, despite the lack of complete identity between art and science, there is much in common among…"