The Koch Brothers' Favorite Economist Moves to War Keynesianism.

Yesterday, I published an article on Tyler Cowen. I argued that he has gone Keynesian. This of course assumes that he was not previously a Keynesian.

Maybe you thought: “So what?” Today, I want to explain why this is significant.

Tyler Cowen is the director of the Mercatus Center of George Mason University.

The multi-billionaire industrialist Charles Koch is on the Board of Directors of the Mercatus Center.

The Kochs gave $3.7 million to the Center, 2007-2011. They are its major supporters.

I can understand why the Kochs gave $10 million to the Institute for Humane Studies. There are lots of non-Keynesian economists who could be funded through IHS. The founder of IHS, F. A. Harper, recruited me to Austrian[amazon asin=B0022NHOSE&template=*lrc ad (right)] economics in 1961. He did his best to see I would not go in a Keynesian direction — a possibility that never tempted me.

In the fall of 1962, Harper sent me a copy of Murray Rothbard’s masterpiece, Man, Economy, and State. Harper had arranged its publication through a subsidy to the publisher.

The Kochs have a reputation of being staunch libertarians. Then why fund an organization run by someone who believes that government spending on the military is a source of economic growth? This is Keynesianism, pure and simple. This is big government conservatism.

Keynesian economists get enough support from the Establishment. They provide the intellectual justification for the Establishment. They don’t need Koch money to get a hearing.

Read the rest of the article

[amazon asin=B00KN0K6EM&template=*lrc ad (left)]

[amazon asin=B00EXTVS0K&template=*lrc ad (left)]

[amazon asin=B007HCCNJU&template=*lrc ad (left)]

[amazon asin=B005S28ZES&template=*lrc ad (left)]