Hayek’s 1931 LSE lectures were poorly understood yet intellectually exciting

Evidence

During four gatherings Hayek presented to packed crowds the incipient work that would be published shortly thereafter as Prices and Production. Many in the audience struggled to understand Hayek’s argument, fi nding his accent heavy, his pre sen ta tion largely “nonfollowable,” and his ideas confusingly “tangled.” His fi rst lecture, however, demonstrated a knowledge of the history of British monetary theory that would have been extraordinary in a native scholar, let alone one who had been educated within a different national tradition. Further, he drew extensively on ideas from Austrian capital theory that were novel to many members of the audience; although they were diffi cult for scholars unfamiliar with its antecedents to understand, they appeared to hold the potential to address urgent problems in the study of business cycles. Like Keynes, Hayek relied on the Swedish economist Knut Wicksell’s distinction between the natural rate of interest and the market rate of interest, and analyzed the infl uence of the lending activities of banks on the relationship between them. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 66

Categorization

• XREF: Plays against the myth of Hayek’s immediate triumph — useful counterweight in any MPS-origin narrative. — connects to: Fabian commitment to openness let a reactionary economics take root at the LSE — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 52; Hayek’s obscurity in 1931 belied his dense Viennese network — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 65; Hayek was not a prominent figure at LSE, Robbins and Plant dominated — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 455 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Hayek’s LSE critiques made him Keynes’s leading rival by 1932 #expands (0.80) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 70
• Hayek’s obscurity in 1931 belied his dense Viennese network #complicates (0.78) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 65
• Hayek was not a prominent figure at LSE, Robbins and Plant dominated #contradicts (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 455