Keynes and Hayek, the Great Debate (Part 1): Nicholas Wapshott

The greatest debate in the history ofeconomics began with a simple request for a book. In the earlyweeks of 1927, Friedrich Hayek, a young Viennese economist,wrote to John Maynard Keynes at King’s College, Cambridge, inEngland, asking for an economic textbook written 50 yearsbefore: Francis Ysidro Edgeworth’s exotically titled“Mathematical Psychics.” Keynes replied with a single line on aplain postcard: “I am sorry to say that my stock of’Mathematical Psychics’ is exhausted.”

Why did Hayek, an unknown economist with little experience,approach, of all people, Keynes, perhaps the best-knowneconomist in the world? For Keynes, Hayek’s request was justanother item in his bulging postbag. Cambridge’s economicsprodigy retained no record of Hayek’s request, even though hewas so conscious of the contribution he was making to posteritythrough his daring approach to the study of political economythat he had taken to hoarding each scribbled note and every lastletter. His posthumously published papers, even when edited,fill dozens of volumes.