Nall Ferguson & his Keynes "conspiracy theory"

[Jan Klimkowski]

Niall Ferguson, Harvard History Prof, apologist for Empire and fan of the Iraq War, articulated his own "conspiracy theory" about John Maynard Keynes to an audience of investors and financial analysts.

Ferguson's views on Keynes were leaked.

And the Prof recently called a financial "poseur" by Paul Krugman, is now in full groveling apology mode.

Niall Ferguson apologises for remarks about 'gay and childless' Keynes

In speech at conference, Harvard professor implied economist lacked foresight because he was childless and gay

Paul Harris in New York
The Observer, Saturday 4 May 2013 19.36 BST
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Niall Ferguson apologises for anti-gay remarks towards John Maynard Keynes
In his apology Niall Ferguson explained: 'I had been asked to comment on Keynes's famous observation "In the long run we are all dead."' Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

Historian and author Niall Ferguson has apologised "unreservedly" for "stupid and tactless" remarks in which he implied that John Maynard Keynes did not care about future generations because he was childless and gay.

Ferguson, a professor at Harvard, was speaking at the Altegris conference in California, which attracts an audience of investors and financial analysts, when he was asked questions about the influential British economist. "I made comments about John Maynard Keynes that were as stupid as they were insensitive," he said in a statement emailed to the Observer and also posted on his website.

The apology came after reports emerged from bloggers and financial reporters at the conference that Ferguson claimed Keynes's economic philosophy was influenced by his homosexuality. Lance Roberts, a reporter for the website StreetTalk Live, posted a transcript of notes taken from Ferguson's speech and a question-and-answer session afterwards.

Roberts said Ferguson appeared to allude to a theory that Keynes's long-term economic theories were flawed because he was gay and had no children. "Keynes was a homosexual and had no intention of having children. We are not dead in the long run … our children are our progeny. It is the economic ideals of Keynes that have gotten us into the problems of today," Roberts wrote in his notes of Ferguson's remarks.

Another reporter, Tom Kostigen of Financial Advisor, gave a longer account. Kostigen wrote that Ferguson had also made mention of the fact that Keynes had married a ballerina, despite his gay affairs. "Ferguson asked the audience how many children Keynes had. He explained that Keynes had none because he was a homosexual and was married to a ballerina, with whom he likely talked of 'poetry' rather than procreated," Kostigen wrote. He added that the audience at the event went quiet when the remarks were uttered.

The account was also backed up by a Twitter message posted by conference attendee and journalist Daniel Jamieson, a senior editor at Investment News. "Ferguson … Keynes didn't care about the long-run 'cause he was a homosexual, had no children'," he wrote.

In his apology Ferguson explained: "I had been asked to comment on Keynes's famous observation 'In the long run we are all dead.' The point I had made in my presentation was that in the long run our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are alive and will have to deal with the consequences of our economic actions."

He added: "I should not have suggested in an off-the-cuff response that was not part of my presentation that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay. This was doubly stupid. First, it is obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations. Second, I had forgotten that Keynes's wife Lydia miscarried."

Kostigen left little doubt in his account that he found Ferguson's remarks offensive. "Apparently, in Ferguson's world, if you are gay or childless, you cannot care about future generations nor society. This takes gay-bashing to new heights," Kostigen wrote.

Ferguson insisted he was not anti-gay. "My disagreements with Keynes's economic philosophy have never had anything to do with his sexual orientation. It is simply false to suggest, as I did, that his approach to economic policy was inspired by any aspect of his personal life. As those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice, sexual or otherwise," he said.

"My colleagues, students and friends straight and gay have every right to be disappointed in me, as I am in myself. To them, and to everyone who heard my remarks at the conference or has read them since, I deeply and unreservedly apologise," he added.

Ferguson's retracted assessment of Keynes's outlook echoes arguments previously aired by American historian Gertrude Himmelfarb. She wrote that the economist's links to the Bloomsbury set known for their philosophy of living for the moment were reflected in his economic theories. Himmelfarb, too, mentions Keynes's "in the long run" pronouncement and cites Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter who once referred to Keynes's "childless vision".

Ferguson, a Scot, is an outspoken figure who has written numerous bestselling books on history and economics including Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World and The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.

He has fought in public with other well-known figures, including Nobel prizewinning economist Paul Krugman over the economic policies of Barack Obama, and writer Pankaj Mishra. Mishra had been critical of Ferguson's book Civilisation in the London Review of Books and Ferguson accused him of labelling him as a racist and threatened to sue for libel.

Ferguson's views, often criticised for placing too much of a positive spin on western empires and imperialism, have won high-profile support among some rightwing politicians, especially the British education secretary, Michael Gove.

[Kenneth Kapel]

Even before Ferguson spoke this drivel I just suspected him of being a complete a**h*l*, know I knew and also a nutjob. But if you are a spokesman for Mammon you can say of do anthing and still be rewarded. If Ferguson is ever on "Hardball" again I'm sure Chris Matthews will just gush over him.

[Magda Hassan]

Ferguson, as well as being homophobic is an appalling historian and no economist. Just a neo-con tool. But what can we expect from some one who takes money to sit in the Laurence A. Tisch chair? Laurence A. Tisch, a 'self made' billionaire? Now there's a conspiracy theory!. Ferguson also sold his credentials to support McCain and Romney. Say no more.

From Michael Barker whose work I quite respect and no friend of Keynes.

Keynes: being gay and caring for the future of our grandchildren


Apparently, right-wing Harvard Professor and author Niall Ferguson says John Maynard Keynes didn't care about future generations because he was gay and didn't have children. Speaking at the Tenth Annual Altegris Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., in front of a group of more than 500 financial advisors and investors, Ferguson responded to a question about Keynes' famous philosophy of self-interest versus the economic philosophy of Edmund Burke, who believed there was a social contract among the living, as well as the dead. Ferguson asked the audience how many children Keynes had. He explained that Keynes had none because he was a homosexual and was married to a ballerina, with whom he likely talked of "poetry" rather than procreated. The audience went quiet at the remark. Ferguson, who is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, says it's only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an "effete" member of society. Apparently, in Ferguson's world, if you are gay or childless, you cannot care about future generations nor society.
Ferguson's remarks not only reveal a level of puerile homophobia but even more a complete ignorance about Keynes's ideas and interests. Anybody who reads this blog knows that Keynesian ideas come in for a bashing at regular intervals. But to argue that Keynes was not interested in the prospects for future generations (let alone whether being gay is relevant) has not read Keynes. Back in 1930 at the depth of the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes made a short lecture to students at Cambridge University. Later in 1931, this lecture was revised and published as a short essay, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, in his Essays in Persuasion.
When formulating the final draft of his essay, Keynes commented "The fact is a fact not yet recognized by the great public that we are now in the depth of very severe international slump, a slump which will take its place in history amongst the most acute ever experienced" (Harrod 1972, p. 469, quoted on p. 2). But even so, JMK wanted to convince his student audience, many of whom were under the influence of Marxist ideas at the time, that they should be optimistic about the future potential of the capitalist mode of production. In his view, as argued in the essay/lecture, capitalism would have progressed so that by 2030 the standard of living would be dramatically higher; people would be liberated from want and would work no more than fifteen hours a week, devoting the rest of their time to leisure and culture. So, contrary to Ferguson, Keynes did look ahead beyond the long run when we are all dead' for his generation to the interests of our grandchildren', despite being gay, effete and only interested in poetry, according to Niall Ferguson, who probably considers himself a red-blooded male who plays rugby and never goes to the ballet.
JMK started his lecture by saying that the words: "We are suffering just now from a bad attack of economic pessimism. It is common to hear people say that the epoch of enormous economic progress which characterised the nineteenth century is over; that the rapid improvement in the standard of life is now going to slow down at any rate in Great Britain; that a decline in prosperity is more likely than an improvement in the decade which lies ahead of us. The prevailing world depression, the enormous anomaly of unemployment in a world full of wants, the disastrous mistakes we have made, blind us to what is going on under the surface to the true interpretation. of the trend of things. For I predict that both of the two opposed errors of pessimism which now make so much noise in the world will be proved wrong in our own time the pessimism of the revolutionaries who think that things are so bad that nothing can save us but violent change, and the pessimism of the reactionaries who consider the balance of our economic and social life so precarious that we must risk no experiments. In quite a few years in our own lifetimes I mean we may be able to perform all the operations of agriculture, mining, and manufacture with a quarter of the human effort to which we have been accustomed." Thus Keynes wanted to convince his students that the terrible depression of capitalism in the 1930s would be rectified and capitalism would prove to be greatest show on earth. But he also wanted to refute the pessimism of the right-wing (like Ferguson now) who attacked Keynes for his unorthodox' experiments in economic theory and policy.
Well, as we head towards 2030, was JMK right? Has capitalism taken human civilisation forward economically since 1930? JMK reckoned that GDP would quadruple in the lifetime of the Cambridge students he was talking to and would rise eight times by 2030. Well, that prediction may have been close for some advanced capitalist economies. But it was too optimistic for the world economy as a whole.
Anyway, it's not GDP that matters, it is GDP per head. So if we assume that a Cambridge student of 20 years in 1930 lived another 60 years (relatively generous for life expectancy then), did real GDP per head quadruple by 1990? Well, according to the invaluable Angus Maddison studies, in 1930 real GDP per head in the JMK's Britain was $5441 (PPP basis). It reached $8240 in 1960 and then $16430 per head in 1990. So there was a tripling of per capita GDP in the UK's real GDP. Not bad but by no means four times higher. And if we look at the world economy as a whole (something JMK does not explicitly distinguish from the advanced economies), then world per capita GDP rose only about 2.5 times by 1990. JMK was far too optimistic.
Keynes's second prediction was for a rise of real GDP by eight times from 1930 to 2030. "Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that a hundred years hence we are all of us, on the average, eight times better off in the economic sense than we are to-day. Assuredly there need be nothing here to surprise us." Again JMK seems to consider that the advanced economies constitute the whole world's population. But was he right anyway? Were the British or American people eight times better off in 2030?Well, world real GDP rose from $4.5trn in 1940 to about $50trn now. But per capita real GDP was $1958 in 1940 and reached $7614 in 2008. That's much less than four times. As for the population, there has been an explosion. In 1940, there were 2.2bn people in the world. It looks as though it will reach 8.4bn in 2030. Assuming a generous 3% growth in real world GDP from now until 2030, something that many reckon will not be achieved, world GDP will be about $97trn then. That gives a per capita level of $11770 compared to $1958 in 1940, or a rise of six times.
You might argue this is quibbling. After all, a six-fold rise in per capita GDP from 1940 to 2030 is still amazing in the history of human social organisation. But capitalism will not meet the targets expected by Keynes. And can we assume that we will not experience major wars or depressions in the next 20 years that could bring the outcome even lower?
Like Marx, Keynes looked to solve the economic problem' of scarcity and toil. The difference was that Keynes reckoned it could be done under the capitalist mode of production, as the only possible way: "I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem' may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not if we look into the future the permanent problem of the human race." But the capitalist mode of production, like other class societies, cannot avoid wars and it has not avoided famine and poverty for the majority of the world. Within a decade, Britain was engaged in a world war that killed millions of armed and unarmed people and destroyed the livelihoods of millions of others. And since 1945, there has not been a day where there has not been armed conflict somewhere in the world, even in this period of relative world peace' between the major powers both during and after the so-called cold war.
Moreover, in his address, Keynes totally ignores inequalities of income and wealth. Per capita income for a country is merely an average. The majority do not reach that average (if it is a mean average). Although average living standards have continued to rise, the living standards at the bottom of twenty percent of the income distribution have stagnated or declined for the last 30 years. Inequality of income and wealth was at a high in 1930 after the 1920s credit and stock market bubbles, back to levels not seen since Victorian times. The post-war recovery and the welfare state with its higher tax rates did reduce inequalities in the major capitalist economies for a while. But the neo-liberal period of reaction from the mid-1970s onwards, discussed much in this blog, pushed inequalities back to new heights, especially in the US and the UK right up to the point of the Great Recession. Now we are in a very similar state economically and socially, in terms of equality, as we were when Keynes made his speech. So no change at all there.
Then there is the issue of work and leisure. Keynes argued that "for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well." Keynes predicted superabundance and a three-hour day the socialist dream, but under capitalism. Well, the average working week in the US in 1930 if you had a job was about 50 hours. It is still above 40 hours (including overtime) now for full-time permanent employment. Indeed, in 1980, the average hours worked in a year was about 1800 for the the advanced economies. Currently, it is about 1800 hours so again, no change there.
Keynes reckoned that once the economic problem had been solved the terrible morality of money-making (the root of all evil) could be dispelled. "The love of money as a possession as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard." Here Keynes believed that the flaw in capitalism, the instability and inefficiency of finance capital, would gradually disappear. There would be the euthanasia of the rentier (the coupon-clipping money capitalist) and thus no need for the replacement of the capitalist mode of production itself. Once there was control of population growth, an end to wars and a trust in science and technology, then the rate of accumulation would balance between production and consumption and there would be no more recessions and depressions. It was a sort of utopianism that Marxism is usually accused of.
For Keynes, no major revolution in the social mode of production was necessary, as long as economic specialists like himself could be taken seriously: "the economic problem.. should be a matter for specialists like dentistry. If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people, on a level with dentists, that would be splendid!" This humble' plea for the role of economics and economists was necessary in 1930 because in the depth of the depression, so many were disillusioned with economists who had failed to predict the crash and the slump, could not explain how it had happened afterwards, and had no policies to solve it, except to accept the punishment (the Ferguson solution). Again no change there! Maybe Niall Ferguson should try dentistry rather than economics or history to learn some humility.
Addendum: Niall Ferguson eats humble pie and apologises:
During a recent question-and-answer session at a conference in California, I made comments about John Maynard Keynes that were as stupid as they were insensitive. I had been asked to comment on Keynes's famous observation "In the long run we are all dead." The point I had made in my presentation was that in the long run our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are alive, and will have to deal with the consequences of our economic actions. But I should not have suggested in an off-the-cuff response that was not part of my presentation that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay. This was doubly stupid. First, it is obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations. Second, I had forgotten that Keynes's wife Lydia miscarried. My disagreements with Keynes's economic philosophy have never had anything to do with his sexual orientation. It is simply false to suggest, as I did, that his approach to economic policy was inspired by any aspect of his personal life. As those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice, sexual or otherwise. My colleagues, students, and friends straight and gay have every right to be disappointed in me, as I am in myself. To them, and to everyone who heard my remarks at the conference or has read them since, I deeply and unreservedly apologize. Niall Ferguson.

http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/20...dchildren/

[Jan Klimkowski]

Niall Ferguson is a pseudo-historian for hire.

An audience of "financial analysts" was perfect for his pseudo-intellectual drivel.

I hope he's declared the tax on his doubtless whopping fee for entertaining the banking classes....

[Jan Klimkowski]

The fool Ferguson back with more bloodthirsty banality.

The left's irrational fear of American intervention

In Syria, as elsewhere, US military might is the best available means of preventing crimes against humanity

Niall Ferguson
The Guardian, Friday 6 September 2013 16.15 BST
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Protesters in Seattle pictured during a march against US intervention in Syria. Photograph: Rick Barry/Demotix/Corbis

Not for the first time, human rights violations by a Middle Eastern tyrant pose a dilemma for leftists on both sides of the Atlantic. On the one hand, they don't like reading about people being gassed. On the other, they are deeply reluctant to will the means to end the killing, for fear of acknowledging that western meaning, in practice, American military power can be a force for good.

Ever since the 1990s, when the United States finally bestirred itself to end the post-Yugoslav violence in the Balkans, I have made three arguments that the left cannot abide. The first is that American military power is the best available means of preventing crimes against humanity. The second is that, unfortunately, the US is a reluctant "liberal empire" because of three deficits: of manpower, money and attention. And the third is that, when it retreats from global hegemony, we shall see more not less violence.

More recently, almost exactly year ago, I was lambasted for arguing that Barack Obama's principal weaknesses were a tendency to defer difficult decisions to Congress and a lack of coherent strategy in the Middle East. Events have confirmed the predictive power of all this analysis.

To the isolationists on both left and right, Obama's addiction to half- and quarter-measures is just fine anything rather than risk "another Iraq". But such complacency (not to say callousness) understates the danger of the dynamics at work in the Middle East today. Just because the US is being led by the geopolitical equivalent of Hamlet doesn't mean stasis on the global stage. On the contrary, the less the US does, the more rapidly the region changes, as the various actors jostle for position in a post-American Middle East.

Syria today is in the process of being partitioned. Note that something similar has already happened in Iraq. What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Middle East of the 1970s. This could be the end of the Middle East of the 1920s. The borders of today, as is well known, can be traced back to the work of British and French diplomats during the first world war. The infamous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 was the first of a series of steps that led to the breakup of the Ottoman empire and the creation of the states we know today as Syria and Iraq, as well as Jordan, Lebanon and Israel.

As we approach the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war, there is no obvious reason why these states should all survive in their present form.

It is tempting to think of this as a re-Ottomanisation process, as the region reverts to its pre-1914 borders. But it may be more accurate to see this as a second Yugoslavia, with sectarian conflict leading to "ethnic cleansing" and a permanent redrawing of the maps. In the case of Bosnia and Kosovo, it took another Democrat US president an agonisingly long time to face up to the need for intervention. But he eventually did. I would not be surprised to see a repeat performance if that president's wife should end up succeeding Obama in the White House. After all, there is strong evidence to suggest Obama agreed to the original chemical weapons "red line" only under pressure from Hillary Clinton's state department.

Yet the president may not be able to sustain his brand of minimalist interventionism until 2016. While all eyes are focused on chemical weapons in Syria, the mullahs in Iran continue with their efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. The latest IAEA report on this subject makes for disturbing reading. I find it hard to believe that even the pusillanimous Obama would be able to ignore evidence that Tehran had crossed that red line, even if it was drawn by the Israeli prime minister rather than by him.

The Iranian factor is one of a number of key differences between the break up of Yugoslavia and the breakup of countries like Syria and Iraq.

The Middle East is not the Balkans. The population is larger, younger, poorer and less educated. The forces of radical Islam are far more powerful. It is impossible to identify a single "bad guy" in the way that Slobodan Milosevic became the west's bete noire. And there are multiple regional players Iran, Turkey, the Saudis, as well as the Russians with deep pockets and serious military capabilities. All in all, the end of pan-Arabism is a much scarier process than the end of pan-Slavism. And the longer the US dithers, the bigger the sectarian conflicts in the region are likely to become.

The proponents of non-intervention or, indeed, of ineffectual intervention need to face a simple reality. Inaction is a policy that also has consequences measurable in terms of human life. The assumption that there is nothing worse in the world than American empire is an article of leftwing faith. It is not supported by the historical record.

So, as a professional academic historian, Ferguson acknowledges that current borders and regimes in the middle east are a result of western meddling, and writes about the geopolitics of the region thus:

Just because the US is being led by the geopolitical equivalent of Hamlet doesn't mean stasis on the global stage. On the contrary, the less the US does, the more rapidly the region changes, as the various actors jostle for position in a post-American Middle East.

Syria today is in the process of being partitioned. Note that something similar has already happened in Iraq. What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Middle East of the 1970s. This could be the end of the Middle East of the 1920s. The borders of today, as is well known, can be traced back to the work of British and French diplomats during the first world war. The infamous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 was the first of a series of steps that led to the breakup of the Ottoman empire and the creation of the states we know today as Syria and Iraq, as well as Jordan, Lebanon and Israel.

As we approach the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war, there is no obvious reason why these states should all survive in their present form.

(snip)

While all eyes are focused on chemical weapons in Syria, the mullahs in Iran continue with their efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. The latest IAEA report on this subject makes for disturbing reading. I find it hard to believe that even the pusillanimous Obama would be able to ignore evidence that Tehran had crossed that red line, even if it was drawn by the Israeli prime minister rather than by him.

The Iranian factor is one of a number of key differences between the break up of Yugoslavia and the breakup of countries like Syria and Iraq.

The Middle East is not the Balkans. The population is larger, younger, poorer and less educated. The forces of radical Islam are far more powerful. It is impossible to identify a single "bad guy" in the way that Slobodan Milosevic became the west's bete noire. And there are multiple regional players Iran, Turkey, the Saudis, as well as the Russians with deep pockets and serious military capabilities. All in all, the end of pan-Arabism is a much scarier process than the end of pan-Slavism. And the longer the US dithers, the bigger the sectarian conflicts in the region are likely to become.

So, it's all about geopolitical advantage.

But somehow America and Israel are not playing geopolitics. Ferguson expects us to accept that "American military power can be a force for good", as moral arbiters untainted by geopolitical concerns.

What a tool.