Keynes and his Cambridge pupils and colleagues

Abstract

Thank you very much for coming and for showing such stamina. We’ve had three fascinating, but long and concentrated days, so it’s really good of you to come here. But, as I said last night, I’m the stick and dinner at 6:30 is the carrot. I’d like, especially, to thank Masao Fukuoka, Joan’s and my old friend and host from Keio University for coming to the lecture. I much appreciate it. It’s lovely to see him again. He and Denzo Kamiya were so kind and helpful to me when we lived in Keio and they’ve been such good friends. It’s amazing. You can go many years without seeing friends, but as soon as you see them, it’s as though time has never passed. Of course, that would be understandable to Masao because he’s a general equilibrium theorist, but I think I can make it as a Veblenesque remark. I’m just going to make some observations and tell some stories about Keynes and his Cambridge colleagues. Now, obviously, I was born well before Keynes died. I was born in 1931, at the height of the Depression, with a twin brother. And, as I tell everyone, my father came in with a bucket and said to my mother, “Which one do you want to keep?” It was the only time my mother, who had very set views, couldn’t make up her mind. So I am, in a sense, a product of the famous ass of antiquity, except that as we were regarded as equally delectable bundles of hay, we were brought up by our mother and father as a result. I want to start off with two anecdotes, which are rather naughty, but I think they’re worth telling. Once, I was in the coffee room named after Richard Stone in the Austin Robinson Building of the Cambridge Faculty. Joan Robinson was talking to John Kenneth Galbraith. As I’m sure you all remember, John Kenneth Galbraith was 6-foot-8-inches high, a very tall man. Joan was not a short woman; she was medium height for an Englishwoman of her class. Nevertheless, she was looking up to Ken and one said to the other – I can never remember which way it went, but it doesn’t matter – one said to the other, “Do you ever think there will be another generation like ours?” And the other one said, (remember he’s 6-foot-8-inches), “No, they’re all pygmies now!” And now – senior moment – I’ve forgotten what the other story was that I was going to tell you, but perhaps it will come back later. I went with Joan – Joan Harcourt, I must be specific here – to Cambridge in 1955 to do a Ph.D, initially with Nicky Kaldor as my supervisor. That, I have to say, for reasons I won’t go into, was an

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