Geoff Harcourt: A Portrait (27 June 1931–7 December 2021)

Abstract

Geoff Harcourt's narrative about his connections with the Australian Economic Papers -henceforth AEP -(Harcourt, 2014) is most enlightening, as is the Interview with Dr. Tran-Nam (Harcourt, 2016) also in AEP. This Portrait for the AEP is complemented by them.Although a 'complete' portrait of this remarkable man can only be gleaned from his publishing and academic activities of over 65 years, as a defender and, more importantly, an indefatigable progenitor of post-Keynesianism, his writings and editorial activities of the last seven or eight years are most telling.However, I should emphasise the fact that by choice, Harcourt has avoided axioms, theorems and proofs of a mathematical nature -except in Harcourt (1972; but see p.13), but even in that neither theorems nor proofs are in the index to that book; this is natural for someone who thinks that 'mathematics is a bad master' (Harcourt, 2003, p. 70).In his literally last publication before he, and his wife, Joan, left for Cambridge -which was their home for 28 years -Harcourt paid homage to Lorie Tarshis (Harcourt, 1982a, p. 609, ff 1 ) as an 'early post Keynesian' and referred to it as 'a loose term designed to cover those who either were pupils of and/or worked with and/or were strongly influenced by Keynes.' Tarshis, together with Mabel Timlin, were two Canadians whom he had great respect for as early propagators of the Keynes of the GT, although they had, via Wynne Plumptree, mastered Keynes of the Treatise, as well. In the book of Sinha and Thomas (2019, p. 99), reflecting on his past convictions, he felt able to say that '[he] took a post-Keynesian approach long before [he] knew what post-Keynesian economics was Harcourt (2019, p. 99).' However, the third period in Cambridge -from 1982 to 2010 -consolidated his post-Keynesianism, in particular his allegiance to the methodology and macroeconomic analysis of Keynes, Kalecki and Joan Robinson. Harcourt's adherence to Kahn, Kaldor and Sraffa were also strengthened but they reflected his interests, particularly, in the time-scale and multiplier of macroeconomics, income distribution and returns to scale. He remained wedded to equilibrium, but not necessarily competitive, analysis. Harcourt felt, increasingly, that it was Kalecki who provided the impetus for fiscal and monetary intervention via his distribution considerations, whilst Joan Robinson gave the rationale -with her golden age analysis -the bridge between the economists and the accountants. Keynes, in his path from the Tract to the GT, via the Treatise (and the 'Circus'), provided a much-improved argument for the fallacy of composition in a largely capitalist economy, which cemented the concepts and activism of the post-Keynesians.However, Harcourt continued to rely on one of his earliest inspirations, Rothschild's Clausewitz-inspired oligopolistic analysis to seek a justification for desired values in market economies, tempered by the macroeconomic dominated post-Keynesianism.His sometime colleague in Cambridge, Whittington (2007, p. 92, italics added...