On Keynes as a Practical Economist; J. Simon

THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY On Keynesas a Practical Economist by Julian L. Simon j ohn Maynard Keynes's contemporaries thought that he was the cleverest mortal of the century (putting aside such immortals of physical science as Einstein). Bertrand Russell said of Keynes's intellect that it was "the sharpest and clearest that I have ever known. When I argued with him, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool. "1 Keynes was impressed by his own cleverness, too. In a letter to a friend who named his son "Keynes Don von Eisner," Keynes wrote: He must undertake that he will not only always pronounce the name rightly him self, but will never allow the slightest mispronunciation on the part of others. Tell him firmly that it rhymes with "brains" and that there is no harm in that. Friedrich Hayek, a Nobel-prize winner and Keynes's greatest opponent of the Dr. Simon is the author of The State of Humanity and The Ultimate Resource.

1930s-but also a personal friend-said of Keynes much later, however, that "He was so convinced that he was cleverer than all the other people that he thought his instinct told him what ought to be done, and he would invent a theory to convince people to do it."2 Let us test Keynes as an economist on the subject of natural resources. In his world renowned The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published just after World War I, Keynes wrote that Europe could not supply itself with food and soon would have no where to turn: [B]y 1914the domestic requirements of the United States for wheat were ap proaching their production, and the date was evidently near when there would be an exportable surplus only in years of exceptionally favorable harvest. ... Europe's claim on the resources of the New World was becoming precarious; the law of diminishing returns was at last reasserting itself, and was making it necessary year by year for Europe to offer a greater quantity of other commodities to obtain the same amount of bread. . . .