The debate between J.M. Keynes and F.A. Hayek, both living and teaching in Britain in the 1930s, was one of the great debates of the century. Sadly, the charming globetrotter Keynes had the podium and the audience, to the point of influencing policy the world over even to the present day. Meanwhile, the quiet and studious Hayek never really did gain an audience. Like his colleague and mentor Mises, Hayek wrote in scholarly journals and was heard only by those with skeptical minds, people who doubted the theoretical and policy conventions and looked beneath the surface.
In one sense, then, the debate between these two was one of the most critical for the shape of the world over the last 75 years. In another sense, however, this debate never really occurred, for the Hayekian point of view has been systematically marginalized and kept at bay by the political and economic establishment ever since Keynes was prematurely declared the victor in the late 1930s.
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