Sylvia Nasar, autorica biografije Johna Nasha i mislim prva, ako ne i jedina koji je intervjuirala famoznog Grigoria Perelmana, ima novu, knjigu o galeriji ekonomista, Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius. Gornji video ilustrira.
U NYT piše o Keynesu. Svi znamo da su Keynesove ideje imale snažan utjecaj na ekonomsku ulogu i politiku države, posebno njenu intervenciju tokom poslovnog ciklusa, kao i na smjer (makro)ekonomske znanosti kroz drugi dio 20. stoljeća. Bez obzira da li se slažemo ili ne oko pitanja da li državna intervencija može popraviti ekonomiju u (dubokoj) recesiji, poanta, piše Sylvia Nasar, je da su Keynesov optimističan stav, ideje i retorika preokrenuli tok ekonomije kao dismal science. Keynes je više od bilo kojeg drugog ekonomista vjerovao da se nešto ipak može napraviti. Robert Skidelsky, ‘vrhovni’ biograf Keynesa, nije bez razloga nazvao drugu od tri knjige The Economist as Savior. Keynes je, kao osoba i ekonomist, imao vedriji pogleda na budućnost od mnogih svojih suvremenika, pa i većine današnjih ekonomista, gdje cinizam služi kao iskaznica članstva.
Iz NYT članka:
… rather the Winston Churchill of economics, radiating optimism when things looked bleakest, never so happily engaged as in a national or global emergency.
…
On what, exactly, did Keynes’s faith in the future rest, apart from his upbeat temperament and can-do British spirit? Confidence in the “apparatus of the mind,” his term for thinking like an economist. His great innovation was to create — in parallel with America’s Fisher — an “economics of the whole” that was useful for understanding and treating temporary but dangerous economic breakdowns.
KEYNES straddled the Old World notion that the best a member of the working classes could do was to accept his station in life, and the New World order in which it was accepted that nations and people could make their own destinies. By the time he settled on economics, the once dismal science had become, if not exactly gay, then no longer grim, hopeless or resigned.
Dodatni izvadak iz knjige ovdje, Hayek, Keynes and How to Prevent Economic Crises: Sylvia Nasar.
Recenzija knjige iz WSJ ovdje.
Cronomy.org 