Hayek faced the prohibitive challenge of advocating for quiescence in the face of an economic catastrophe that Keynes claimed he could solve. His colleague John Hicks later observed, “It is in its application to defl ationary slumps that the Hayek theory is at its worst; and it is a terrible fact that it was in just such conditions— in 1931– 2—that it was fi rst propounded.” Hicks recalled that in the absence of a forceful reply to Keynes, Hayek’s theories gradually “slipped through our fi ngers” as economists turned their focus toward what they perceived to be more urgent problems. Students at the LSE were hesitant to accept a theory that seemed to offer no clear route out of the crisis.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 81