Friedman i Abba Lerner

Abba Lerner je bio Hajekov i Robbinsov student 1930ih na London School of Economics. U početku sledbenik Austrijske teorije, pod uticajem svojih mentora, sa pojavom Kejnzove Opšte teorije, postaće doktrinarni kejnzijanac, i čak "tržišni socijalista". Evo, kako u svojoj autobiografiji, "Two Lucky People", Lernerovu konverziju vidi Milton Friedman, i kako objašnjava zašto on, Friedman, za razliku od Lernera nikad nije postao kejnzijanac:

We were affected very differently by the Keynesian revolution—Lerner becoming an enthusiastic convert and one of the most effective expositors and interpreters of Keynes, I remaining largely unaffected and if anything somewhat hostile…Lerner was trained at the London School of Economics, where the dominant view was that the depression was an inevitable result of the prior boom, that it was deepened by the attempts to prevent prices and wages from falling and firms from going bankrupt, that the monetary authorities had brought on the depression by inflationary policies before the crash and had prolonged it by “easy money” policies thereafter; that the only sound policy was to let the depression run its course, bring down money costs, and eliminate weak and unsound firms. 

By contrast with this dismal picture, the news seeping out of Cambridge (England) about Keynes’s interpretation of the depression and of the right policy to cure it must have come like a flash of light on a dark night… It is easy to see how a young, vigorous, and generous mind would have been attracted to it…

The intellectual climate at Chicago had been wholly different. My teachers regarded the depression as largely the product of misguided policy—or at least as greatly intensified by such policies. They blamed the monetary and fiscal authorities for permitting banks to fail and the quantity of deposits to decline. Far from preaching the need to let deflation and bankruptcy run their course, they issued repeated pronunciations calling for governmental action to stem the deflation—as J. Rennie Davis put it, “Frank H. Knight, Henry Simons, Jacob Viner, and their Chicago colleagues argued throughout the early 1930′s for the use of large and continuous deficit budgets to combat the mass unemployment and deflation of the times.”

There was nothing in these views to repel a student; or to make Keynes attractive. On the contrary, so far as policy was concerned, Keynes had nothing to offer those of us who had sat at the feet of Simons, Mints, Knight, and Viner.

Shvatate? Lerneru su Hajek i Robins isprali mozak svojim likvidacionističkim besmislicama, i u takvim uslovima Kejnz je za mladog Lernera po Friedmanu morao biti "zrak svetla u mračnoj noći". Ali, njima, starim asovima i znalcima u Čikagu, koji su čitali Henry Simonsa i Frank Knighta, nije trebao Kejnz da shvate da masovno štampanje para i veliki budžetski deficiti te spašavanje banaka predstavljaju jedini izlaz iz recesije. Oni nisu živeli u mraku neznanja, njima Hajek i Robins nisu isprali mozak.

Ne sumnjajte uopšte da su Paul Krugman i Brad de Long odmah preneli ovo i podvukli,koliko su republikanci zastranili kad su njima ideje Miltona Friedmana radikalni socijalizam. Upravo onaj mehanizam o kome sam ovde pisao: uzmeš polovičnog i nedoslednog zagovornika neke doktrine, koji u ključnim tačkama podržava tvoje teze, i onda ga proglasiš za glavnog predstavnika te doktrine, i kažeš: svako ko se ne slaže sa ovim je ekstremista jer čak i ovaj najekstremniji liberal Friedman kaže da je Kejnz car u odnosu na Hajeka .

Jasno je da u ovom trenutku postoji samo spor između kejnzijanaca i Austrijanaca u stvarima ekonomske politike. Pri tome postoje nekoliko kejnzijanskih frakcija koje se nazivaju različitim imenima (kejnzijanci, novi kenjzijanci, tržišni monetaristi, obični monetaristi, itd), ali to ništa ne menja na stvari. Engleski kejnzijanizam 1930ih razlikovao po imenu od čikaškog modela ali kao što smo videli ne po suštini; spor je kao i 1930 između onih koji veruju u inflaciju, deficite i bailoute kao izlaz iz krize na jednoj strani (kakvim se god imenima zaodevali), i onih koji veruju u tržišnu strogu pravdu i pasivnost države, na drugoj. Zbog nepopulanrosti i ogoljenosti pljačke poreskog obveznika koju je donela nova era kejnzijanizma pod Bušom i Obamom, mnogi bivši desni kejnzijanci polako prihvataju austrijsku retoriku i preporuke šta da se radi (tj ne radi), iako možda ne i austrijsku teoriju.  I to je ono što toliko "baguje" Krugmana i De Longa: oni vide da uticaj "likvidacionističkih" ideja raste, posebno u "laičkoj" javnosti, uprkos univerzitetima, uprkos Fedu, uprkos medijima, uprkos libertarijanskim think tankovima koji glorifikuju i beatifikuju Friedmana. I zato skoro svaki dan imate po neki napad na Austrijance ili neku odu mudrosti Miltona Friedmana. Klatno se pomera u desno, i oni su toga svesni, i čine sve da ga zaustave stalnim podsećanjem ljudi koji generalno imaju pozitivan stav o Friedmanu da je ovaj po njihovim kriterijima bio socijalista. Klade se na to da će ljubav prema Friedmanu biti jača od mržnje i otpora prema njima. Mislim da je to dosta tanka i nerealna nada.