The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

58 THE FREEMAN Janu.aryof poverty and adversity. The Hindus,with their caste system, permittedno invigorating circulationof elites. So it was the West, withits legend of Prometheus, who stolefire from the gods, that was left topush the idea of progress.Now, even as they revile us, theIslamic, Confucian and HinduworIds are clamoring for all thebenefiits that the West has developedthrough three millennia ofthe activist attitude. We need notbegrudge them their desires. Butthe notion that the West needapologize for its history is too ridiculousfor words.~ POLITICALLY IMPOSSIBLE ... ?by W. H. Hutt (London: The Instituteof Economic Affairs, 1971),100 pp. ($1.80).Reviewed by Henry HazlittW. H. HUTT is one of the outstandingeconomists of our age. Born inLondon, professor and later deanof the Faculty of Commerce at theUniversity of Cape Town, and recentlyvisiting professor at a numberof American universities, hehas published half-a-dozen booksof which the two most influentialhave been his short Theory of CollectiveBarga.ining in 1930 and the446-page Keynesianism - Retrospectand Prospect in 1963.His work has been distinguishednot only for remarkable acumenbut for no less remarkable independenceand courage. The presentpaperback is devoted to trying toinstill some of his own candor andcourage into ~is professional colleagues.For what Professor Hutt findsis that most 'of these colleagues,particularly in the last forty years,have become increasingly pooreconomists in the effort to become"realistic" politicians. Wheneveran honest economist has come upwith a recommendation, based onprinciple, for the outright repealof some entrenched bad law or discontinuanceof some other disruptivegovernment policy, not onlythe political demagogues but hisown colleagues have dismissed hisrecommendation as "politically impossible."As a result, more andmore economists have abandonedcandor, refrained from even suggestingthe "politically impossible"proposal, and instead have' putforward compromise proposalsthat they think have a politicalchance of being adopted. Or theyhave sought a reputation for influenceby recommending whatthey thought was going to be doneanyway. Or they have resorted tooutright demagogy in calling forsome new form' of inflation, control,soch'llism, or seizure. The resulthas been a deplorable degenerationin economic thought.