THE LONG RETREAT: GUSTAV CASSEL AND ELI HECKSCHER ON THE ‘NEW ECONOMICS’ OF THE 1930s

It was not by chance that Gustav Cassel’s and Eli F. Heckscher’s stars stood at their zenith in the 1920s. This was the decade of economic liberalism’s gala performance, and Cassel and Heckscher were the dominant figures on the Swedish scene. Immediately after the middle of the 1920s, however, certain dissonances began to be heard behind the harmonies; dissonances which resonated in permanent high unemployment, deepened in step with the world crisis, and in time set the tone of the entire score.