Outside the Pale

Economists have always worshipped living Titans, but since the death of Keynes there have been none to worship (although Schumpeter had an odd posthumous flurry). So our economists have had to settle for a Grand Old Man, and J. M. Clark clearly has all the qualifications.

He is the son of J. B. Clark, an authentic Titan, thus linking us with a happier past. He pegs along as a charming fount of moderate and correct thought, gently chiding the various sects for their extremism. Above all, Clark is a comfortable economist; in his capacious and eclectic world, all schools of economic thought, including mutually inconsistent ones, find some sort of home. All schools that is, but one—laissez-faire. Laissez-faire is the only doctrine that really arouses Clark’s ire, the only one Outside the Pale. And this, of course, is Clark’s crowning qualification for the title of Grand Old Man.

MR

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Murray N. Rothbard

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Economists have always worshipped living Titans, but since the death of Keynes there have been none to worship (although Schumpeter had an odd posthumous flurry). So our economists have had to settle for a Grand Old Man, and J. M. Clark clearly has all the qualifications.

He is the son of J. B. Clark, an authentic Titan, thus linking us with a happier past. He pegs along as a charming fount of moderate and correct thought, gently chiding the various sects for their extremism. Above all, Clark is a comfortable economist; in his capacious and eclectic world, all schools of economic thought, including mutually inconsistent ones, find some sort of home. All schools that is, but one—laissez-faire. Laissez-faire is the only doctrine that really arouses Clark’s ire, the only one Outside the Pale. And this, of course, is Clark’s crowning qualification for the title of Grand Old Man.