from Journal of the American Statistical Association, Dec. 1936
"A book by Mr. Keynes on the fundamental questions which are right at the heart of the practical discussions of the day is no doubt an event. Those who had the opportunity to witness the expectations of the best of our students, the impatience they displayed at the delay in getting hold of their copies, the eagerness with which they devoured them, and the interest manifested by all sectors of Anglo-American communities that are up to this kind of reading (and some that are not) must first of all congratulate the author on a signal personal success, a success not the least smaller in the cases of negative reaction than in those in which the book elicited fervent admiration. The unfavorable reviews in a sense but testify to the reality of that success, and I for one, who am about to write another of those unfavorable reviews... wish it to be understood that what I am going to say is, in its own unconventional way, a tribute to one of the most brilliant men who ever bent their energies to economic problems...
"The less said about the last book the better. Let him who accepts the message there expounded rewrite the history of the French ancien régime in some such terms as these: Louis XV was a most enlightened monarch. Feeling the necessity of stimulating expenditure he secured the services of such expert spenders as Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry. They went to work with unsurpassable efficiency. Full employment, a maximum of resulting output, and general well-being ought to have been the consequence. It is true that instead we find misery, shame, and at the end of it all, a stream of blood. But that was a chance coincidence."
Take it for what it's worth-- some economists had wit.
--Randall Collins
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