Getting Published; M. Skousen

Dr. Skousen is an economist at Rollins College, Department of Economics, Winter Park, Florida 32789, and editor of Forecasts & Strategies, one of the largest investment newsletters. A reprint of "The Perseverance of Paul Samuel son's Economics" (including ProfessorSamuelson's response) is available from FEE for $3.00, postpaid. Dethroning the King of Keynes There are two major stories that come out of my study. First, Samuelson's Economics-the most popular textbook ever published, with over 4 million sold and translated into 41 langua ges-taught students a lot of bad economics. Until recently, the MIT professor taught students that high saving rates were bad for the country, federal deficits and progressive tax rates were beneficial, and Soviet central planning could work. In my review of his 15 editions, which covers the entire postwar period, I point out that Professor Samuelson spent whole chapters discussing the failed economics of the Soviet Union and China, while writing little or nothing on the success stories of West Germany, Japan, the East Asian Tigers, or Chile. He had numerous sections in his textbook on "market failure"

while offering very little on "government failure." He constantly highlighted the economics of Keynes, but downplayed the economics of Friedman, Hayek, and other free-market economists. Samuelson's Economics: From Keynes to Adam Smith Not everythingwas negative in my reviewof Samuelson's textbook. On the positive side: Samuelson frequently declared his optimism about the future of capitalism and rejected doomsayers' predictions of another Great Depression or national bankruptcy. He reg576 ularly defended free trade and free markets in agriculture. And he was highlycritical of Karl Marx and Marxian economics. The most amazing discovery I made in my study is that Samuelson, under the influence of coauthor William D.Nordhaus (Yale) and recent events, has had a change of heart and is gradually shifting back to classicaleconom ics. In more recent editions, he has reversed his position on a number of important issues.

In the most recent edition, for example, Samuelson states that Soviet central planning was a "failed" model, that national savings is too low and needs to increase, and that the national debt is excessive. (For more on Samuelson's transformation, see my article, "Another Shocking Reversal in Macroeco nomics," The Freeman, February 1996.) The JEP also published a rejoinder by Samuelson, which was surprisingly reserved and anemic in response to my blistering critique. "I am pleading no alibi nor extenu ations," he wrote. "My present-day eyes do discern regrettable lags in sloughing off earlier skins."3 He only denied that he was antisaving, one thing he is famous for. My study of Samuelson's Economics points to the real need for a college-leveltextbook on sound economics. That is my primary goal right now. My forthcoming textbook is called Economic Logic and I hope to finish it next year. I'll keep you posted.

Past Prejudices Against Austrians Austrian economists have had a long strug gle in getting recognized by the profession. The mainstream has shown little interest if not disdain for a school that is laissez faire in government policy and critical of mathemat ical modeling and empirical econometrics. 577 Following the postwar Keynesian revolution, the economics establishment was unreceptive to the works of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. In the 1960s,Austrian econ omists depended on the conservative pub lisher Regnery and the engineering publisher D. Van Nostrand & Co. to get published. Future Is Brighter Gratefully that's all changing. Today Aus trians hold a small but growing number of positions at major universities (George Ma son, Auburn, NYU, University of Georgia, California State at Hayward, etc.), get pub lished by major university and academic presses (Cambridge, Chicago, Oxford, NYU, Kluwer, Routledge, and Edward Elgar, among others), and are getting accepted in major journals (Journal of Economic Litera ture, History of Political Economy, Journal of Macroeconomics, and Economic Inquiry).

Still,other "free-market" schools (the mon etarists and the new classicists)have advanced much further because of their mathematical and empirical approach. The Austrian school still largely remains a "book culture," as Peter Boettke puts it, and needs to devote more efforts to "strategic" publishing in the journals rather than preaching to the choir if it wants to have an impact.4 Happily, things are look ing up. 0 1. Todd G. Buchholz, From Here to Economy: A Shortcut to Economic Literacy (Dutton, 1995), p. 238. Buchholz's popular history, New Ideas from Dead Economists (Plume, 1990), com pletely ignores the Austrians because Hayek and Mises weren't discussed at Harvard. 2. Mark Skousen, "The Perseverance of Paul Samuelson's Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 11, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 137-152. 3. Paul A. Samuelson, "Credo of a Lucky Textbook Author," JournalofEconomic Perspectives,vol. 11, no. 2 (Spring 1997),p. 155.

4. Peter J. Boettke, "Alternative Paths Forward for Austrian Economics," The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics (Ed ward Elgar, 1994), pp. 601-15.

New Edition of a Classic History THE CONSERVATIVE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT IN AMERICA: SINCE 1945 George H. Nash $24.95 hardback, 455 pages New Sections Include: • Preface • Epilogue chapter, entitled ConservatismAscendant:The Age of Reagan and Beyond • Bibliographical Postscript To Order: Send check payable to lSI to the below address, or for VISA or MasterCard orders, call toll-free 1-800-526-7022.Please add 50 cents per copy for postage. Book information can be requested via fax: (302) 652-1760. I n this revised and updated edition of what Insight magazine recently called "the stan dard work" on the history of post-World War II American conservatism, George Nash shows how an exceedingly diverse group of think ers-among them William F. Buckley, Jr., Richard M. Weaver, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Frederick Hayek, and Russell Kirk formed a number of distinct, yet highly influ ential, positions toward politics and life in America. The Conservative Book Club, in choosing the title as a featured main selection, hails this work as "the book that picks up where Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind leaves off."

"In an epilogue to the 1996 edition ...biographer historian Nash describes the conservative forces emerging over the last 20 years, or what he calls 'the age of Reagan.' He describes the growing conservative commitment to restoring civil society from the bottom up." -LEE EDWARDS, Policy Review "This book is a masterful study that can be read for pleasure as well as edification by people on the entire range of the political spectrum. " -FORREST McDONALD author of The AmericanPresidency INTERCOLLEGIATESTUDIES INSTITUTE P. O. Box 4431 • Wilmington,DE 19807-0431 (Visit the lSI web page at www.isi.orgfor a completebook list.) BOOKS Poor Policy-How Government Harms the Poor by D. Eric Schansberg WestviewPress. 1996.244 pages. $25.00 Reviewed by George C. Leef A s Thomas Sowellcorrectlyobserves,before one can be a partisan of the poor, he must first be a partisan of the truth. Unless we understand the truth about the causes of poverty and the truth about the effects of what are called "anti-poverty programs," we are not going to be able to do anything to help the poor. Indeed, trying to aid the poor without an accurate analysis of the causes and the effects of the proposed cures, we are apt to make their condition worse. In medieval times, doctors used to bleed people suffering from dis eases on the assumption that bad blood was caus ing their distress; this was almost never beneficial and fatal in many cases. Could it be that govern ment policy today toward poverty is on a par with bleeding?