Economic Heresy as Deviant Science

John Maynard Keynes had something of a taste for unorthodox economic ideas, which he indulged more freely in the Treatise than in the General Theory. A large part of the chapter in the Treatise on ‘The Management of Money’ is given up to a dialogue between a monetary heretic and an orthodox banker. Keynes leaves little doubt as to where his sympathies (if not his analytical convictions) lie: At any rate, we cannot be right to ignore them altogether. For when, as in this case, the heretics have flourished with undiminished vigour for two hundred years — so long in fact as representative money has existed — we may be sure that the orthodox arguments cannot be entirely satisfactory. The heretic is an honest intellectualist, who has the pluck to stick to his conclusions, even when they are surprising, so long as the line of thought by which he reaches them has not been refuted to his own understanding. When, as in this case, his surprising conclusions are also of such a kind that, if they were true, they would resolve many of the economic ills of suffering humanity, a moral enthusiasm exalts and strengthens his obstinacy. He follows, like Socrates, with unbowed head wherever the argument leads him. He deserves respect; and it must be the duty of anyone who writes on this subject to make the attempt to clear the matter up and to reconcile heretics and bankers in a common understanding.1