William Beveridge's 'Mock Trial of the Economists:' Experts and Liberalism

The 1933 “Mock Trial of the Economists” is occasionally noticed and then interpreted as popular discontent with economists’s “crime” of “conspiracy to spread mental fog” at evidenced by the dueling letters from the Oxbridge economists (Keynes, Pigou, et al.) and the LSE economists (Hayek, Robbins et al.) From William Beveridge’s archives we provide the written record of the composition. The context that frames the composition, we find in this archival record, is the Soviet trials of experts. We interpret the composition reflecting Beveridge’s concern with a totalitarian suppressing of competing viewpoints. This concern provides a context in which it might be helpful to read his later work on the British broadcasting monopoly.

Keywords: Beveridge, “the gang that calls itself J. M. Keynes,” Mock Trial, mental fog, experts

JEL Classification: B2, B3, P5, Z1

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Levy, David M. and Peart, Sandra J., William Beveridge's 'Mock Trial of the Economists:' Experts and Liberalism (January 23, 2014). GMU Working Paper in Economics No. 14-01, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2384319 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2384319