Re: Zygmund Dobbs (#117011)
by FRANK DOBBS on December 18, 2007 at 6:01 PM

My father, Zygmund Dobbs, was a well-read autodidact of high intelligence who started out as a radical Trotskyite who was active in the UAW. Being the rare radical from a working class background, he joined those who were disillusioned with radicalism and devoted his life to fighting the illusions of the left.

After a picaresque life spent in union organizing, intelligence work, politics and much else, he settled down into doing research on Fabian Socialism for many years.

Keynes at Harvard was written at the suggestion of a Yale Economics professor, Olin Glenn Saxon. Professor Saxon felt that certain truths about Keynes, and others, could only be written by an outsider.

The work was sponsored by the Veritas Foundation, which was an organization of disaffected conservative Harvard alumni ('Veritas' being Harvard's motto.)

Fascinating as the questions concerning Keynes' sexual orientation no doubt must be (and my Dad was nothing if not a thorough researcher), the interesting issue the book raises is Keyenes' Fabianism, and how it was Fabian policy to conceal their socialist intentions and excellent relations with Russian communists. This is not a small matter. When one listens to the Democratic presidential candidates today, they are, knowingly or ignorantly, all espousing latter day Fabianism.

Someone who worked for me in the late 70's and who had an MBA and PhD from Chicago, said Keynes at Harvard had been required reading at Chicago business school.