Keynes vs Hayek: The Cambridge vs. LSE Debates, 1932

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob:

Enclosed are two letters that appeared in the London "Times" in October 1932.

To my knowledge, they have never been reprinted.

On the "left" is a letter signed by Keynes, Pigou & Co. on the case for "stimulus" spending.

On the "right" is a letter signed by Hayek, Robbins, & Co., on the case against such spending and for freeing markets.

The battle continues . . . today!

Yes, indeed, the battle continues. This could be Krugman, Mankiw, Blinder [representing the Cambridge camp] versus Ebeling, Wenzel, Murphy, W. Anderson [representing the LSE camp], in 2010, with one exception. I believe that everyone in the the Ebeling camp would be even more hardcore anti-central bank intervention than even the LSE camp, in that they would not be anti-deflation. They would all back up the Murray Rothbard insight that the markets should simply be allowed to work out any deflation and that deflation, itself, is a great thing.

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