DEAD ECONOMISTS AS INSPIRATORS OF LIVING SOCIAL ECONOMISTS

An attempt is made in this article to demonstrate that Alfred Marshall and John Maynard Keynes erected a number of signposts that point in t he direction of a normative, institutional and policy-oriented social economics of labor. They opined that dysfunctioning institutions had t hrown most members of the working class into an abyss of poverty. Acco rding to Marshall, poverty was caused by institutional neglect of educ ation for the masses. Hence he recommended a drastic overhaul of those institutions that impinged on education. Keynes argued that the renti ers were the villains because they had intentionally reduced their fun ding of entrepreneurial investments. Consequently, investments dwindle d and unemployment caused working-class poverty to rise above its cust omary levels. Keynes's solution was public investment in private enter prises, which he called socialization of investment. This would cause euthanasia of the anti-social rentiers. Because of their recommendatio ns, Marshall and Keynes called themselves socialists.