Like him or hate him, you can’t deny Karl Marx’s influence
Who is the greatest? Serena Williams or Margaret Court? Tom Brady or
Joe Montana
… or could it be Slingin’ Sammy Baugh — ahh, if only he’d had Don Hutson to snare his passes?
Ted Williams was my boyhood idol; but, I’d have to give the nod to Babe Ruth.
Any list of the greatest or top 10 lists will inevitably be challenged.
Consider the five most politically influential economists, listed chronologically without any ordering implied: Adam Smith (1723–90), Karl Marx (1818–83), John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) and Milton Friedman (1912–2006). Certainly, my unranked listing will be challenged.
Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations” (1776), more formally entitled “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” for which he is deemed the “Father of Economics”. Like most classics of an earlier age, it is rarely read today. Perhaps too casually interpreted, it is often cited as providing, through the “division of labor” and the workings of an “invisible hand,” the foundational support for laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., an economy free from governmental intervention.
More recently, Smith’s earlier written “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759) has led to a qualified reinterpretation of his views, or sentiments, if you will.
The three volume “Das Kapital” (1867–94), whether in its original German or English translation, is still less frequently read. I’m told, since I’ve never tried it, that it is a difficult slog, both infelicitously and confusingly written. “The Communist Manifesto” (1848), written with Friedrich Engels, is a quick read, if you’re up for it.
Marx, of course, provides the philosophical underpinning for the former Soviet Union, revived Russian Federation and China. I doubt Stalin, Mao, Putin or Xi ever read “Das Kapital,” but you don’t have to read, or understand, something to be influenced by it.
Keynes’s magnum opus, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” (1936) was still required reading when I was a graduate student. And, we were all Keynesians then. Today, I suspect many graduate students in economics know it only by name, if at all. It is easily read, not literally, of course, as providing the support for government intervention in the economy.
If the economy is performing unsatisfactorily, government deficit spending can be used to reduce unemployment and stimulate growth. Today, deficit spending does not require unsatisfactory economic performance. Keynes might not be amused, but Democrats, and now Republicans too, enjoy a deficit. The only difference may be that Democrats like the government spending and Republicans don’t like the taxes. But, even that difference is fading, and either way, you get deficits.
I read “The Road to Serfdom” (1940-43) as a high school student; no, it was not an assigned text. Wikipedia gives a nice summary: “Hayek [warns] of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning. He further argues that the abandonment of individualism and classical liberalism inevitably leads to a loss of freedom, the creation of an oppressive society, the tyranny of a dictator, and the serfdom of the individual.”
The book, in abridgment, appeared in “Readers Digest” and has sold more than 2 million copies. It may be the best selling economics book ever written (textbooks excluded) and, unlike the books referred to above, it is still read. It was read by Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, among others. In 1974, Hayek shared the Nobel Prize with Gunnar Myrdal.
When I was a graduate student, Milton Friedman, outside of the confines of Chicago, was viewed as something of a nut. Yet, upon his death, he was hailed by The Economist as “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century … possibly of all of it.”
He won the Nobel Prize in
1976. Within the economics profession, his classic, “A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960” (1963), co-authored with Anna Schwartz, would likely be considered his most important work. And, like most of the classics mentioned above, it is largely unread today.
If he still enjoys popular memory, it is likely because of the 10-part PBS series “Free to Choose,” done with his wife, Rose, which was subsequently published as a bestselling book. Through his writings and personal advice, he influenced Reagan, as well as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
But “is the age of Milton Friedman over?” That question is raised in a December edition of The Economist in a review of Jennifer Burns’ new book, “Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative.” It may prove an enjoyable way to pass a long winter’s night or whisper of spring evening, or maybe not.