Niall Ferguson, historian, buys in on the anti-Keynesian debate with the totally superfluous comment that Keynes developed his theory of the short run because of his absence of children and etc. And what about all those fathers of six who thought that Keynesian theory was the answer to our economic problems? I just wish people would concentrate on the theory and leave the rest alone. Ferguson has apologised but so what. One more distraction away from what really needs a bit of discussion: the harm that Keynesian theory is doing and the reason why his theories are so economically unsound. The rest is trash.

Here is an article on Ferguson’s claim, “Sex, Economics, and Austerity“. The one useful bit that I did pick up was this:

As Mark Blyth has shown in his new book Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, the power of arguments for austerity come from the fact that they invoke the traditional moral system of the West, a way of thinking that is rarely questioned because it seems like common sense. Implicit in austerity are all sorts of moral adages: no pain, no gain; suffering builds character; thrift is virtue.

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea! I fear life is too short but I suspect that if I run across it on a shelf I will pick it up just because. We are ruining our economies before our eyes by this madcap spending but it’s austerity that’s the dangerous idea. Well so far as dangerous economic theories are concerned, I came first with my Dangerous Return of Keynesian Economics in Quadrant in March 2009. Four years later and I wouldn’t add a word or change a comma.