DOI
10.1108/S0743-4154(2012)000030B004
Abstract
How do we understand a one-sided controversy? In the 1940s, the teachings
of technical economists were attacked by public intellectuals. The best-known
controversy occurred when the “individualist” public intellectuals, Rose Wilder
Lane and V. Orval Watts, wrote against the new generation of Keynes-influenced
textbooks. The economists did not respond to the attacks publicly. The controversy
is remembered only as a one-dimensional attack over policy, the scope
of government activity. If it were that simple then its consequence would be
largely personal, destroying the market for the first of the Keynesian textbooks
(Lorie Tarshis’s) and presenting the second (Paul Samuelson’s) with a de facto
monopoly. Once, however, we start to distinguish among the targeted textbooks,
this all-inclusive policy orientation is not helpful (Levy & Peart, 2011). Moreover,
there is another economist with a rather different political point of view, Ludwig
von Mises, who also was attacked publicly by the same individualists but who,
unlike his Keynesian contemporaries, replied in private.
Document Type
Restricted Book Chapter: Campus only access
Publication Date
2012
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. This book chapter first appeared in Documents on Government and the Economy, 2012, Vol.30 Part 2, p.1-116, Article 1.
The definitive version is available at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/s0743-4154(2012)000030b004/full/html
Recommended Citation
Levy, David M., et al. “Economic Liberals as Quasi-Public Intellectuals: The Democratic Dimension.” Documents on Government and the Economy, vol. 30 Part 2, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2012, pp. 1–116, https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-4154(2012)000030B004.
