'Blaming Keynes'

Simon Wren-Lewis:

Blaming Keynes: A few people have asked me to respond to this FT piece from Niall Ferguson. I was reluctant to, because it is really just a bit of triumphalist Tory tosh. That such things get published in the Financial Times is unfortunate but I’m afraid not surprising in this case. However I want to write later about something else that made reference to it, so saying a few things here first might be useful.

The most important point concerns style. This is not the kind of thing an academic should want to write. It makes no attempt to be true to evidence, and just cherry picks numbers to support its argument. I know a small number of academics think they can drop their normal standards when it comes to writing political propaganda, but I think they are wrong to do so. ...