Sure, they sound like interesting books.

However, what does any of this really have to do with the validity of the arguments by people, in the current environment, who attack Keynes individual choices as a defacto way of trying to make an argument about time preference?

To put it in context, attacking current ideas of time preference with regards to Keynes lifestyle makes as much sense as attacking current views on entrepreneurship on the basis of Schumperer’s implied antisemitism [a inference you could also apply to Keynes and Hayek I will gladly admit]. Furthermore, there is at least a reason for moral outrage relating to these ideas of antisemitism – the fact someone liked to have consensual homosexual relationships has, in of itself, no fair moral implication if you were to accept negative liberty as a moral basis.

Well try checking the quote. Page 275 of Schumperer’s “Ten Great Economists: From Marx to Keynes”. While you are at it try pages 6-7 of the chapter “The revolt against the Victorians” by Robert Skidelsky in “The End of the Keynesian Era: Essays on the Disintegration of the Keynesian Political Economy” edited by Skidelsky.

Originally I had modern economists – but I decided to broaden it a bit 😉

To be fair, there are many economists who do include the depression in analysis. Friedman and Bernanke are the clearest examples. And the appropriateness of popping it in does depend on the “question being asked”. But I used to fret (along with many others who held a preference towards history) that ignoring the period could lead us to a path where we repeated old mistakes – by 2007 I had convinced myself this was unlikely. The global financial crisis was quick to correct me on that 😛

Indeed – although without context I can’t really talk about the appropriateness of those comments either. If they were simply written in biographical terms about his policy prescriptions during the GD then they would be closer to appropriate.

If they are out of context, then I don’t really care if Adam Smith came back from the grave to say them – I would still call it out as ad hominem crap. To introduce further inappropriate generialisations, I was raised in an Irish family to put very little weight on arguments that rely on appeal to authority 😉

“He was the English intellectual, a little deraciné and beholding a most uncomfortable situation. He was childless and his philosophy of life was essentially a short-run philosophy.”

Somewhat Ferguson like, no?