Henry Simons saw Keynes’s General Theory as a potential fascist economic bible.

Evidence

The tensions between Lippmann’s critique of collectivism and his positive proposals for reform are evident in the responses he received from the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. Both Frank Knight and Henry Simons extolled the book as a major event and a brilliant contribution to contemporary debates about the appropriate scope of governmental interference in the economy, but expressed concerns that it was— paradoxically—excessively optimistic in its interpretation of the prospects for reform and insuffi ciently critical in its accep tance of certain laissezfaire principles. “I was a bit annoyed,” Henry Simons wrote in a private letter, “both by your tribute to Keynes and by those few pages in the text which refl ect his infl uence.” Keynes was “irresponsible and untrustworthy” to members of the liberal movement, he warned, and the General Theory had potential as an “economic bible of a fascist movement.” Knight worried, in a review published in the Journal of Po liti cal Economy, that “many of the author’s proposals of lines of reform involve diffi culties which are both staggering and obvious to the student of economics, so that his suggestions seem optimistic to the point of naïvety.” But if Lippmann had “given Keynes more than his due,” Simons continued, he might “have also been too generous toward his arch enemies in the academic world, Professors Mises and Robbins.” Knight echoed Simons’s complaint about Lippmann’s positions “taken over from the theorists of extreme laisser faire, of whom Professor von Mises is an extreme example,” including an unsubstantiated assertion of the “impossibility” of effective collectivist economic planning and an inattention to the perils of monopoly. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 161

Categorization

• XREF: The MPS milieu’s early hostility to Keynes fits the reader’s Mont Pèlerin history interest — this pre-dates the later Keynesian synthesis debates. — connects to: Keynes wrote the General Theory to save capitalism from fascism and socialism — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 2048; Henry Simons independently converged on Hayek’s politics-economics synthesis in the 1930s — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 135; Henry Simons was the most politically engaged of the 1930s market economists. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 136 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Why would Simons — a Chicago liberal — brand Keynes’s General Theory a potential ‘fascist’ bible? Worth chasing the specific reasoning.
• DEEPTHINKING: flagged by the selector, no supporting note recorded

Broader Connections

• Keynes wrote the General Theory to save capitalism from fascism and socialism #responds-to (0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 2048
• Chicago economists in 1937 saw Keynes as a fascist threat. #corroborates (0.85) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 161
• Henry Simons independently converged on Hayek’s politics-economics synthesis in the 1930s #corroborates (0.80) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 135
• Henry Simons was the most politically engaged of the 1930s market economists. #qualifies (0.75) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 136
• Keynes’s economics angered market economists by validating populist policy instincts. #complicates (0.75) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 77