It never ceases to amaze me as to the statements made by Krugman apologists in the comments sections of various EPJ posts. The latest craze is to suggest that Murray Rothbard offered a criticism of The General Theory by John Maynard Keynes without ever reading the book.
Rothbard's book collection is held in open stacks at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. The last time I visited, I happened upon Rothbard's copy of The General Theory. It contained Rothbard's distinctive heavy underlining with notes in the margins. It also contained extensive doodling and drawings on the front and back pages suggesting that the copy was probably also used by Rothbard in a class he took, where he might have been very bored. But the book was clearly read from cover to cover.
UPDATE: Here are pics of Rothbard's copy of The General Theory.
Wasn't it Keynes who did a review of a book and later admitted he didn't read it bc he didn't speak the language?
ReplyDeleteYes, it was Mises' Theory of Money and Credit.
DeleteThe legend goes something like: Keynes barely had a working knowledge of German and the only things he could understand or recognize were ideas he was already familiar with.
There was much of ToMaC that Keynes couldn't understand and he arrogantly said that there was nothing original in the book but failed to disclose he couldn't actually understand any of the material that would have been new to him.
Mises.org once again comes to the rescue:
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=52
So it is very interesting that the fans of krugman and keynes are accusing someone else of not reading a book when their hero is the one guilty of that!
Deletesigh...
ReplyDeletehttp://archive.mises.org/13966/rothbards-personal-copy-of-the-general-theory/
Anonymous was right. The book was Mises' "The Theory of Money and Credit". At first, Keynes said there was nothing new or original in the book. Later, he admitted that his German wasn't that good and didn't really understand much of what he had read in it.
ReplyDeleteslightly off topic here, but I am going to be in Alabama in April. Can i visit the Mises institute?
ReplyDeleteThe fans of Krugie are desperate to deflect after his predictions on Brazil and Argentina have blown up in his face. Not to mention the great timing of saying that cops are a public good and citizens don't need to be armed right before the LAPD stuff happened. LOL
ReplyDelete