Thursday, January 22, 2009
Liquidation vs. Stimulus: Lionel Robbins From 1934
Another sneak peek from my forthcoming book... Check out this awesome quote from Lionel Robbins' The Great Depression:
Nobody wishes for bankruptcies. Nobody likes liquidation as such. If bankruptcy and liquidation can be avoided by sound financing nobody would be against such measures. All that is contended is that when the extent of mal-investment and over-indebtedness has passed a certain limit, measures which postpone liquidation only tend to make matters worse. No doubt in the first years of depression, to those who held short views of the disturbance, anything seemed preferable to a smash. But is it really clear, in the fourth year of depression, that a more astringent policy in 1930 would have been likely to cause more disturbance and dislocation than the dislocation and disturbance which have actually been caused by its postponement?—Lionel Robbins, 1934
Comments:
I think we have to embrace the term "liquidationists" rather than play footsy with an allegedly unpalatable label. When Goebbels called the Aussie troops who held out against Romell in the seige of Trobruk "the Rats of Trobruk", they wore the badge with honor. Similarly early American revolutionaries made the abusive term "Yankee" one they were proud of.
Of course we Liquidationists no more want to see economic misfortune than the most ardent Keynesian, this is (or should be) a debate about means not ends. Our opponents of course will not concede this point, so we should counter. Maybe call them "Depression Extensionists".
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Of course we Liquidationists no more want to see economic misfortune than the most ardent Keynesian, this is (or should be) a debate about means not ends. Our opponents of course will not concede this point, so we should counter. Maybe call them "Depression Extensionists".
# posted by 
: January 25, 2009 at 7:00 PM
: January 25, 2009 at 7:00 PM Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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