Would You Have Kids Today? Economist's Dark Warning About the Future | PBD Podcast #835

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:00)
As an economist, how should we judge economists?

**Steve Keen** (0:03)
As frauds. The only people that get considered for a position at the Fed are conventional economists. They don't even understand how money is created.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:11)
Who's Karl Marx to you, and who's Milton Friedman?

**Steve Keen** (0:13)
You better explain that question.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:15)
Do you think Karl Marx was a con man?

**Steve Keen** (0:17)
Because I regard Marx as far superior thinking at the most.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:21)
Is it fair to say Marxism, communism miserably failed? His theories, his ideas?

**Steve Keen** (0:25)
No, no, it's not.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:27)
What countries would you say tried to follow Marx's philosophy and miserably failed?

**Steve Keen** (0:32)
Marx's belief and the belief of the Soviets was that socialism would grow so much faster that it would overwhelm capitalism.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:39)
Say, well, capitalism produced this, what the communism produced? Not much. And even, you know, when you're talking about China.

**Steve Keen** (0:46)
Capitalism basically says, you know, everybody out for themselves.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:50)
I'm surprised the level of tension you have in defending communism.

**Steve Keen** (0:55)
I'm surprised by this stuff, mate, you are not letting...
This is... I'm sorry, but I'm finding this a very black and white conversation when I prefer to preserve work in the shades of grey, as I've said before. Feel free to make it colorful. The best example of free market failing America is your health system. Would you agree with that?

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:08)
No, I don't think so. I think we have a great health system.

**Steve Keen** (1:11)
Do you now?

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:12)
How do you feel about RFK?

**Steve Keen** (1:13)
I think it's a fool.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:14)
But what do you disagree with them on?
The average kid would get five vaccines. Now they're getting anywhere between 50 to 72 vaccines. What number of kids were getting autism?

**Steve Keen** (1:26)
Those stats are nonsense.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:28)
You know, you talk about health care.

**Steve Keen** (1:29)
You ask me about John Kennedy. What do you expect me to say back?

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:31)
I'm glad you did.

**Steve Keen** (1:32)
Sunshine or God knows what else is part of the factor.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:34)
You think sunshine caused autism?

**Steve Keen** (1:36)
I'm just saying it's a silly argument and I don't see any point in having this conversation.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:41)
So you don't think the future looks bright?

**Steve Keen** (1:43)
No, I don't think it looks bright.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:44)
Oh my God, that's scary. So you think it looks catastrophic? If you were 25 today, would you have kids today? No.
Man, they really got a hold of you.

**Steve Keen** (1:54)
No, reality got a hold of me and I can see what they're seeing coming and I'm fucking terrified.

**Patrick Bet-David** (2:09)
Steve Keen, great to have you on the podcast today.

**Steve Keen** (2:11)
Thank you for the invitation.

**Patrick Bet-David** (2:13)
Yes. So, Steve, you know, as an economist, you know, where you were famous for making quite a few different predictions, one of them being in 2008, and your work's been documented all over the place. How do you think we, the average people who read and study economists, how should we judge economists?

**Steve Keen** (2:34)
As frauds, in so many words.
Not that they're conscious of their frauds, but fundamentally, all the economic theories seem to be, with the exception of the School of Thought that I'm part of, which are called, just for historical reasons, called post-Keynesian. They tend to be people who got sick and tired of left-wing versus right-wing views from other economists, and say, we simply want to understand how the economy works. And so there's less ideology in the post-Keynesian school, but you get Marxists to one end who think capitalism's gonna give way to socialism. You get neoclassicals and Austrians at the other end who think that capitalism is the best possible social system, and those ideological biases drive their analysis more than logic and more than data do.

**Patrick Bet-David** (3:17)
Got it. And so how do you view...
I've seen the work in the things you've said about Karl Marx versus Milton Friedman. Who's Karl Marx to you, and who's Milton Friedman to you?

**Steve Keen** (3:29)
Pardon me, you better explain that question.

**Patrick Bet-David** (3:32)
Yeah, who is Karl Marx to you, and who is Milton Friedman?

**Steve Keen** (3:35)
Well, Karl Marx, both of them are caught up with some sense of ideology. I regard Marx as a far superior intellect to Friedman.
But just like other ideological branches of economics, Marx had a set of conclusions he wished to reach. When his logic didn't reach those conclusions, he twisted his own logic. Milton Friedman does the same thing. I don't know how anybody takes him seriously. When you take a look at his detailed work, the stuff he puts across at the political level, the standing on a podium giving a speech level, can be persuasive. But if you look at the arguments behind his logic, they're just mythical, completely mythical. There's a wonderful put down of people like Friedman by Joseph Schumpeter, who is the great non-orthodox Austrian economist and historian of economic thought. He talked about what he called the Ricardian vice. He said, that's when you set up a set of assumptions that leave the conclusion you wish to reach as the only possible conclusion, you're conning people that way. And that's what Friedman does. It's what Ricardo did as well.