Steindl's speech

Steindl, Josef

Bibliographic data

Works

Document type:: Works

Collection:: Josef Steindl Collection

Title:: Steindl's speech: Symposion in Honour of Josef Steindl, Vienna, May 21-22, 1992

Author:: Steindl, Josef

Scope:: Typoskript, 2 Blätter.

Year of publication:: 1992

Language:: English

Description:: "Dear friends, I have had so far the privilege of leaning back and listening only..." (Auszug, S.1) Participants: T. Scitovsky (Stanford University): The Political Economy of Josef Steindl; G.C. Harcourt (University of Cambridge): Josef Steindl – What He Means to my Generation; A. Roncaglia (University of Rome): Josef Steindl’s Relations to Italian Economics; A. Guger, E. Walterskirchen (WIFO): Steindl at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research; K. Cowling (University of Warwick): Monopoly Capitalism and Stagnation P. Sylos-Labini (University of Rome); J. A. Kregel (University of Bologna): Some Reflections on Technical Progress in Financing Small Firms; H. D. Kurz (University of Graz): Growth and Distribution; P. Rosner (University of Vienna): Josef Steindl on Marx; K. Laski (WIIW): Effective Demand and the Transition Process in Eastern Europe; G. Chaloupek (AK-Wien): The Concept of Maturity and the Transformation of Economic Systems; G. Tichy (University of Graz): Steindl on Instability and Stabilization Policy; E. Matzner (University of Technology): The Context in Economic Policy.

Subject:: Steindl, Josef <1912-1993>

Note:: Titel und Untertitel fingiert. Dankesrede von Josef Steindl anlässlich des ihm gewidmeten Symposiums in Wien, 21-22.Mai, 1992.

Related work:: Steindl, Josef: Maturity and Stagnation in American Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1952

Topic:: Economic history,economic theory,current developments

JEL Classification:: B31 [History of Economic Thought: Individuals]

Shelfmark:: S/M.77.5

Access:: Free access

Dear friends, I have had so far the privilege of leaning back and listening only. If I now talk it is only to thank everybody who has contributed to this symposium: I thank my friends from abroad for coming in spite of the heavy work load which most of them have in the middle of term. I thank the Austrian Institute of Economic Research and Dr Kramer as well as the other institutions who have contributed to the funds - Bundesministerium fur Wissenschaft und Forschung, Rammer fur Arbeiter und Angestellte Wien and the Bank fur Arbeit und Wirtschaft AG. My most hearty thanks are due to my friend Lois Guger who organised the whole undertaking single handed with great circumspection. I am naturally touched by the interest which my work gets such a long time after it was written when at first a large response to it was sadly missing. The economic profession, always strongly impressed by the contemporaneous scene, was happy to forget all about the depression. May be my disappointment was not without my own making. Not only was the book badly presented but I left Oxford the moment I had finished it (and I had finished it in haste adding at the end a mathematical chapter which I wish I had never written). I abandoned it like a new borne babe (Kindesweglegung it is called in lawyers German ). Thus the publication took three years and the few people who were interested in it and wanted to talk to me did not find me in Oxford ( Vienna was at that time out of the way, a frontier town, end stop of the Orient Express ). I turned to other questions and did not work for many years on the problems raised in the book. When interest in the book began to emerge I did not notice it for quite a while. I was very puzzled that it came from unexpected quarters - for example from Japan. AS one of my Japanese collegues explained to me later, a mixture of Keynes and Marx was just the diet which many Japanese economists wanted. Also the mixture of empirical data and theoretical argument was well received there. Little did I think at that time that Japan would fairly soon advance on the road to maturity and have a structural crisis already in the 90s resulting from the inexorable decline in the growth rate. The other areas of interest in M St were Latin America especially Brasil, and in Europe it was Italy. Some of these countries may have been more open to new and unconventional ideas just because the native traditions were not as strong as in anglo saxon countries. Where traditions are strong readers are accustomed to well marked out ways which they do not want to leave because beyond it is wilderness. I do not very much like the well trodden paths. My friends are often victims of this prejudice; when they walk with me in the woods I tend to lead them astray. Indeed, I seem to have the idea that a hike is not a hike if you don’t loose your way and have to make an effort finding it again. You may guess that my friends are people with great patience and forbearing. It fits in with that that I am also very fond of disorder, and inclination which has somewhat increased with age. This shows on the one hand in my surroundings where it is usually impossible to find a book or a record when I want it and on the other hand in my memory where the random access meets with similar difficulties. The people who advise you on training your memory lay much stress on a one to one relation between the objects of your daily surroundings and the things your want to keep in your memory. Unfortunately with me the relation is between chaos and chaos. These things also predispose me to be hostile to the computer. In fact of all the plagues of my old age few are worse than the computer. It is an invention of the devil to distract people from proper work. Some people are very enthusiastic about communications, but I have my reservations about that. One of my favorite night mares is of a world in

Works

Cite and reuse

Works

Image

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation