As Keynes concluded "The End of Laissez- Faire," he reminded his audience that discussions of abstract economic theory often serve as proxies for debates over the kind of world in which we want to live. The problems of economics cannot easily be severed from the problems of philosophy. The "fi ercest contests and the most deeply felt divisions of opinion," he predicted, "are likely to be waged in the coming years not round technical questions, where the arguments on either side are mainly economic, but round those which, for want of better words, may be called psychological or, perhaps, moral." Debates over economic policy occur on two levels: they encompass considerations of both how to achieve specifi ed ends with maximum effi ciency and what the ends themselves should be. Advocates of a par tic u lar approach to po liti cal economy rarely achieve much traction in the po liti cal arena without devoting close attention and rhetorical emphasis to the latter. Endeavors to transform economic policy almost invariably demand the capacity to reframe the meaning that members of a community derive from, and ascribe to, their world.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 29