ABSTRACT
John Law, a Scottish financier who settled in London, is in a class of his own. Swashbuckling on that scale is sufficient, in itself, to place him in the very front rank of economists. But there is one outstanding quality which raises him above all the rest: he is neither an academic nor a philosopher. James Maitland is one of the few admirers of Smith’s philosophy with the perception to recognise that most of Smith’s economic analysis is rubbish and the honesty to say so. Like countless economists, Law makes uses of the proverbial desert island as a simplification of a complex economy. J. S. Mill does not take the risk of contaminating his Principles with even a mention of Law’s name. The Monetarist attitude to the twenty-five Keynesian years of low inflation and low unemployment from 1945 until 1970 can be summed up fairly accurately by the adaptation of an old story.
