ABSTRACT
I never met Ludwig Lachmann. I did not even begin corresponding with him until the last years of his life. That was my fault, for I repeatedly delayed taking the opportunity on the insidious excuse that I would have something more interesting to say in a few months’ time. I should have been more aware, because of what I had already learned from his work, that he had many interesting things to say at any time. This was immediately demonstrated when I did write, as was the courtesy and intellectual curiosity that impressed so many who knew him and his work much better than I did. Since his objective was to make what contribution he could-and that was not small-to our common understanding of economic questions, and of the ways in which we might best improve that understanding, it seems appropriate in this chapter to outline the themes that I have taken from his publications and from his correspondence with me. (I shall cite his final book, which offers an admirable conspectus of his vision.) As he would be the first to point out, what follows is an interpretation; but since it is based on some shared points of reference-for example, admiration for the work of George Shackle and George Richardson, similar ideas about the compatibility of some of Keynes’s major ideas with an Austrian view, the need to enquire into what happens in markets-and since parts of this interpretation were tested in our correspondence, I am reasonably confident that, though certainly not definitive, it is defensible.
