Adumbration

Something recently reminded me of certain similarities between developments of the current economic crisis, and the one we call the Great Depression.  How they both start under the tenure of a Republican, who is replaced in the next election by a Democrat.  How the R is perceived as a free-marketeer, but whose policies are matched in so many ways by the D successor.  How those policies end up causing the crisis to last longer than most other economic reversals.

Most of what communication talent I might have is verbal, and whatever I sense of poetry comes with no small labor.  The majority of my practice of writing is in technical communication, which perhaps accounts for my occasional reductions to first principles.  At any rate, I was reviewing some of my old notes and came upon brief comments on these two podcast episodes that together feature a completely different approach toward raising questions about the causes of the ongoing economic crisis.

The first concludes with the song "Fear the Boom and Bust", from the fantastic rap video that Roberts made with John Papola.  One can tell from this discussion that the portrayals in that song of the intellectual differences between Keynes and Hayek are pretty fair to the two of them, in so far as 7m33s duration can represent.  Fifteen months later, Roberts and Papola made a second rap song about the differences between Hayek and Keynes - "Fight of the Century".  This podcast has the two discussing some of what it was like to create these videos, the ideas they are trying to express with them, and the strengths and limitations of this art form as an entertainment and educational tool.  I like how they spend a little time getting deep with Say's law, and recount how some of this debate has recurred every hundred years or so.

Keynes and Hayek were engaged in this intellectual exchange back with the Great Depression.  It is somewhat remarkable that some of the same questions of political economy continue to be raised 80 years later.

Hayek and Money (2/1/2010) - Larry White of George Mason University talks about Hayek's ideas on the business cycle and money. White lays out Hayek's view of business cycles and the role of monetary policy in creating a boom and bust cycle. The conversation also explores the historical context of Hayek's work on business cycle theory--the onset of the Great Depression and the intellectual battle with Keynes and his work. In the second half of the podcast, White turns to alternative ways to provide money, in particular, the possibility of private currency and free banking explored by Hayek late in his career. White then describes his own research on free banking and in particular, the more than a century-long experience Scotland had with free banking. The podcast concludes with the economics rap "Fear the Boom and Bust," recently created by John Papola and Russ Roberts. The song itself can be downloaded at EconStories.tv where viewers can also watch the video, read the lyrics, and find related resources on the web for Keynes and Hayek.

Papola on the Keynes Hayek Rap Videos (5/2/2011) - John Papola of Emergent Order talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about their collaboration creating rap videos based on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek. Their first was "Fear the Boom and Bust" which was released January 25, 2010. This past week they released "Fight of the Century." The latest video discusses the overarching differences between the philosophies of Keynes and Hayek and their views on whether government spending promotes recovery from an economic downturn and whether it leads to prosperity. In this conversation, Papola and Roberts discuss some of the underlying ideas in the video--whether the military spending of World War II ended the Great Depression, the debate between Malthus and Say and their influence on Keynes and Hayek, and the fundamental differences between Keynes and Hayek in how economic prosperity is created.