| |
Headline: Nobel Prize in Economics Awarded Posthumously
to Jean-Baptiste Say
[Daily Mial 31 November 1932, p. 1]
Despite the controversy that it is the Bank of Sweden (BS), not the Nobel Committee, making the award, it was announced that the Prize in Economics for 1932 would go to the late-great French economist and visionary Jean-Baptiste Say (on the 100th anniversary of his death). Insiders report that while those making the award were not favorably disposed to M. Say's opposition to Napoleon's dictatorship (suggesting that if alive today he might oppose fascism), this was outweighed by the Frenchman's consistent support for free trade and unregulated markets.
Indeed, overwhelming all else was M. Say's irrefutable demonstration of "the mere circumstance of creation of one product immediately opens a vent for other products" (Traité d'économie politique 1803, 179), frequently shortened to "supply creates its own demand". Especially at this critical moment, after the temporary adjustment in financial markets almost exactly three years ago (vulgarly called "Black Thursday" by communists and their fellow-travelers), the BS'ers considered it essential to assert clearly the virtues of free markets by honoring M. Say post-humously.
Sources close to the BS report that great concern arose after the defeat of President Hoover by the populist Roosevelt. It is hoped that the choice of M. Say will help induce the new American president to keep faith with free markets and non-intervention in economic matters.
Jean-Baptiste Say with anarchy in the background.
That governmental resolve for free markets might falter in Europe and the United States is considered a serious danger by the captains of finance. Their fears arise in part from the irresponsible interpretations by some of current unemployment rates, 25% in the United States and 30% in Germany (despite, in the latter country, of commendable efforts by the Weimar government to balance the public budget).
Most shocking have been absurd suggestions by the notorious currency speculator Maynard Keynes (who has personal links to the degenerate "Bloomsbury Set"), that government action might somehow reduce unemployment. Having made much of the increase the number of unemployed from 1.5 million in January of this year to the present 2.6 million, Mr. Keynes should make himself aware that "the rise is to a large extent owing to the temporary closing down of works for extended holidays" [note: actual quotation from The Guardian, 7 January 1931]. It is difficult to believe that some suggested Mr. Keynes himself for the Nobel!
So completely mad is Mr. Keynes that his "solution" to the current "problem" of unemployment is to bury money in coal mines! [See below] All sensible people have the BS to thank for this selection of M. Say to remind us that the current "depression" is an illusion exaggerated by the forces of disorder, and soon to be rectified, as always, by our vigorous private sector.
If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well tried principals of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.
(J M Keynes, Collected Writings, Book 3, p. 129)
|
|
