William Krehm Remembers Forgotten Economists
Several forgotten 19th-century economists had things to say that remain pertinent to the economy today. William Krehm, a member of the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform or COMER, talks of these experts, their published works and the reasons behind their pertinence to contemporary financial issues.
Transcript
William Krehm: Great forgotten economists who have literally been expunged from ever having existed:
Without an ever-evolving free discussion of economic theory, democracy becomes a lost cause. The great forgotten French economist, Francois Perroux, pointed out that in every society the revenue of the class in power is seen as the dominant revenue, determining the welfare of society as a whole. That may appear so, he maintained, from the angle of vision of that ruling group. But should power pass to another group, economic theory would be re-jigged to present its revenue as dominant revenue.
When you can take over the funds of the insurance companies—when a banker can take them over—he adds that, since it is all in cash or near cash, to his cash reserves and on that builds a multi-story after the stock brokers—all of the large stock brokers have been taken over by banks since the 1970s. The banks were not allowed to touch a mortgage until the 1970s.
The world has reached the point where the compulsion of ever-accelerating growth has become a requirement of the speculative financial sector and is leaving little room for the survival, not only of other social groups, but for society itself.
And here we come to our second great forgotten economist, who never saw the inside of a university. He was an American, born 1820-something, Henry George. In 1879 he published his Progress and Poverty and he almost was elected mayor of New York in the following year because of the tremendous success of that book.
The move to include investments in human capital as well as in physical capital: That happens to have been recognized by another great economist, Theodore Schultz, take down the name. He also was awarded the Bank of Sweden’s Nobel Prize, which has nothing to do with the Nobel Prize.
The suppression of the very memory of all of the great economists of the past deprives society to learn of our past mistakes, indeed of society’s memory. It has become a world of amnestics racing towards the final cliff. COMER shall, within the limitation of personnel and budget, attempt to resurrect every pertinent suppressed economic thinker whose ideas are most urgently in need today.
