Then you might also be interested in his short autobiographical essay entitled "Beginnings" in J.A. Kregel ed. _Recollections of Eminent Economists, Volume 1_ (NY, NYU Press, 1989, 169-179). Minsky discusses his associations with Lange, Leontief, faculty at the University of Chicago, and others. Besides Lange, he was influenced by a number of others who considered themselves to be socialists. E.g. while a student he became "quite close" to Maynard Kreuger, who was the Socialist Party candidate for Vice-President one year. He also attended some meetings sponsored by the Socialist Party of Chicago and The Socialist Club at the University of Chicago. One meeting of The Socialist Club was chaired by Paul Douglas (of Cobb-Douglas production function fame) at which Angelica Balabanof, who was then touring the US, gave the main talk. After the meeting, Douglas hosted a reception at his apartment and Lange introduced Minsky to Abba Lerner. It seems that Lerner had just returned from Mexico "where he apparently tried to convince Trotsky that Marxism needed to be revised in the light of the new insights due to Keynes". (Perhaps we should see Lerner as a forerunner to Steve K?). I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting with Trotsky -- I imagine that the meeting did not go very well! Given the extent to which the C-D aggregate production function was such a major target in the Cambridege Controversies that came later, it is interesting to note, as Minsky did, how Douglas was influenced by Utopians like Owen and the Webbs. Anyway this essay makes entertaining reading as do much of the other essays in this two- volume collection. Other recollections by Hicks, Kaldor, Weintraub, Shackle, Tinbergen, Steindl, Wallich, Triffin, Goodwin, Tsuru, and Demaria are included in Volume 1. Volume 2 includes recollections by Perroux, Machlup, Streeten, Georgescu Roegen, I. Adelman, Kindleberger, Rostow, H.P. Brown, Baumol, Brunner, Giersch, Buchanan, and Malinvaud. What's particularly nice about these volumes is the diversity of authors since many heterodox economists are included. I guess this shouldn't be surprising given that the editor was J.A. Kregel. In solidarity, Jerry
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