Think Tank Memories — Karl Fitzgerald interviews Michael Hudson

Michael Hudson tops himself in this one. Sort of oldie, but goodie.

Later, think tanks began to be formed on the right-wing. A military think tank, the RAND Corporation, was founded in California. Herman Kahn came from there, and then the Department of Defense funded his ideas at the Hudson Institute at Croton-on-Hudson, New York. He was the model for Dr Strangelove. I joined him as the number two man and economist in 1972, just as my Super-Imperialism was published. It proved to be a big hit with the Defense Department in Washington, which used it as a “How to do it” book. My first job was to explain just how America was using monetary imperialism to get a free ride from other countries. Herman said that this was part of the “good news” that he wanted to spread. 

Herman and I actually disagreed on almost every policy. We’d go around the country together arguing. He’d talk about the glass being half-full and he said I talked about it being half-empty, but I said, “No, you guys are peeing in it.” So then he talked about the economy being an expanding pie – he was into calculating GDP growth at doubling times to show that in time every economy could become a leisure economy. My job was to ask, “Who’s actually making the pie? And who’s going to eat it?” He didn’t focus much on distribution and polarization of wealth.

Michael Hudson
Think Tank Memories
Karl Fitzgerald interviews Michael Hudson