by Was Hyman Minsky a communist? Was Minsky a communist? Definitely not. Was Minsky a socialist? Definitely yes. His daughter Diana remembers that, “in eighth grade, the Social Studies teacher, Mr. Snodgrass, was engaging the students in conversation about political parties and dialogue in the United States, so we were all asked to bring home a list of questions. One was our family’s political allegiance, not answering was an option—plus Democratic or Republican or Independent. Daddy had me write in ‘Radicals.’” Though he did not specify socialist on that occasion, he always portrayed himself in this way … The University of Chicago where Minsky was introduced to economics, though not yet the University of Chicago of Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas, was
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Was Hyman Minsky a communist?
Was Minsky a communist? Definitely not. Was Minsky a socialist? Definitely yes. His daughter Diana remembers that, “in eighth grade, the Social Studies teacher, Mr. Snodgrass, was engaging the students in conversation about political parties and dialogue in the United States, so we were all asked to bring home a list of questions. One was our family’s political allegiance, not answering was an option—plus Democratic or Republican or Independent. Daddy had me write in ‘Radicals.’” Though he did not specify socialist on that occasion, he always portrayed himself in this way …
The University of Chicago where Minsky was introduced to economics, though not yet the University of Chicago of Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas, was certainly not full of radicals. I had the chance to be the Head of the Department of Economics at my university, the University of Bergamo, exactly when the department took the name Hyman P. Minsky. Minsky was a mentor and friend to some of us, as he decided to live in our city part of the year beginning in the late 1970s, with his wife Esther, his son Alan, and his daughter Diana. The homage to Minsky disappeared in the 2010s when a new department was created. What is more important is that Minsky’s tradition, as well as the other heretic political-economy traditions, was increasingly deserted by economists, except, Minsky would have probably said, by the usual suspects. The homage may well reappear in the future, but the substance of the research and teaching is going elsewhere, gravitating toward the mainstream with some imperfections. I am convinced that this is unfortunately true almost everywhere in Italy.