At the London School of Economics in the 1930s, when Hayek and Robbins were together on the faculty and Austrian businesscycle theory was prevalent, "the dominant view was that the depression was an inevitable result of the prior boom" and that "the only sound policy was to let the depression run its course, bring down money costs, and eliminate weak and unsound fi rms." Such fatalist rhetoric, Friedman believed, was unsalable in a world searching for dynamic solutions. In contrast, the news of Keynes's interpretation of the Depression "must have come like a fl ash of light on a dark night. It offered a far less hopeless diagnosis of the disease. More important, it offered a more immediate, less painful, and more effective cure in the form of bud get defi cits. It is easy to see how a young, vigorous, and generous mind would have been attracted to it." Ironically, it was Friedman's observation of the ascent of Keynesianism that demonstrated to him the importance of providing the public with policy proposals that offered practical solutions to the felt problems of the day.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 490