Joan Robinson: A Foreign Visitor to Keio University

2017/12/12

The late Joan Robinson, a prominent British economist from the University of Cambridge and a leading figure in the Keynesian school, passed away in 1983. As a female economist, she was one of only two great stars, alongside Rosa Luxemburg.

It was in the summer of 1956 that she first visited Japan and our Keio University. At that time, she gave a public lecture for the general Keio students titled "A Re-examination of Marxism." I happened to be assigned as the interpreter for that lecture, and perhaps because I was very nervous standing on the podium with her, I remember the content of the talk well. Marx predicted that revolutions would occur in countries where the capitalist economy was most mature and that socialist systems would take over. Contrary to this, however, revolutionary states actually emerged in countries like Russia and China, where capitalism was still weak or had hardly developed. This was because a centralized revolutionary government is far more effective than a free private enterprise system for carrying out a program to build an industrial nation as quickly as possible and catch up with advanced countries. Broadly speaking, that was the gist of her talk.

At the reception, Professor Kentaro Nomura, who had studied at Cambridge in the past, was also present, and the conversation blossomed with nostalgic stories. It became a very lively gathering, with a debate on the labor theory of value arising between Ms. Robinson and Professor Kyuzo Asobe, a scholar of Marxian economics. I still have several snapshots from that time, and looking at them now, I am struck by how youthful and radiant Ms. Robinson looked. Moreover, both Professor Nomura and Professor Asobe have already passed away, and I cannot help but feel the swift passage of time and a sense of loneliness.

Ten years passed after this interaction on Mita Hilltop Square, and in 1966, it was my turn to spend about a year at the University of Cambridge, Ms. Robinson's stronghold. Since we were already acquainted, she treated me very warmly. At that time, she was an undisputed heavyweight in the British economic community and reigned as a virtual queen within the Cambridge faculty. At the Faculty of Economics on Sidgwick Avenue, in typical British fashion, there were tea gatherings at 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Faculty staff present that day would gather in the lounge for small talk, and she was always the central figure in the swirl of conversation. She also invariably led the room with sharp questions during faculty seminars. There was an air of untouchable dignity and elegance about her as she immersed herself in debate, her white hair catching the light from the window.

Ms. Robinson lived in a grand residence facing Grange Road near the university. What surprised me upon arriving was finding that Ms. Carmen Blacker—who had previously studied the thought of Yukichi Fukuzawa at Keio University and has already appeared in this column—was lodging on the third floor of the Robinson house. Since I had been close friends with her since her time studying at the Juku, I visited frequently during my stay in Cambridge whenever invited, and was treated to her homemade ramen. I could easily go up the stairs from the back entrance to her room without having to ask for guidance at the main entrance of the Robinson home. Naturally, Ms. Robinson often came up in conversation. I remember as if it were yesterday Carmen telling me how, while looking out at the garden from her third-floor window, she saw birds coming to peck at Ms. Robinson's hair as she dozed on a chaise longue.

Ms. Robinson left behind a vast body of academic work, but its character changed significantly between her early and later periods. In the early phase, she made several important contributions to orthodox fields, as seen in "The Economics of Imperfect Competition" (1933) and "Essays in the Theory of Employment" (1947). In contrast, as she moved toward her later period, starting around "The Accumulation of Capital" (56), her academic style gradually lost its former positivity and instead took on a markedly nihilistic character. A kind of "Decline of the West" style pessimism toward economics in general began to drift in, and at the same time, her thoroughly negative stance toward orthodox mainstream economics became blatant.

Perhaps it was the stubbornness of old age, but her spirit of defiance was extraordinary. For example, neoclassical arguments that explained interest on capital through the marginal productivity of capital based on a macro production function were targets of her scathing criticism. Therefore, if one wanted to discuss a certain point with her, it was forbidden to bring up macro capital concepts midway through; it was impossible to proceed to the essential conclusion without, so to speak, sugar-coating the pill. Once, while we were debating in her office, she even pointed to the door and told me to leave for the day because she didn't want to talk to "one commodity people" (those who speak as if capital consists of only one type of good).

Under such circumstances, it was a natural progression that a prominent conflict arose between Ms. Robinson and the scholars of the British Cambridge school who supported her, and the scholars of the American Massachusetts Cambridge school who upheld the position of orthodox mainstream economics, leading to fierce debates. "Cambridge versus Cambridge" refers to the rivalry between the British Cambridge school—consisting of Robinson, Kahn, Sraffa, Kaldor, Pasinetti, and others—and the American Cambridge school, featuring Samuelson, Modigliani, Solow, and others. From the mid-1950s through the 60s, intense sparks of controversy flew between the two over various issues, starting with the validity of the macro production function.

One issue that became a seed of this controversy was the debate over whether so-called "reswitching" occurs. Here, reswitching refers to the possibility that, while mainstream common sense suggests that lower interest rates should lead to the adoption of more capital-intensive production methods, in some cases, a fall in interest rates might actually reverse the switch back to the original, more labor-intensive production method. The possibility of such reswitching had been pointed out by Robinson and Sraffa on the British Cambridge side from a fairly early stage. However, in the 1960s, a young scholar named Levhari on the American Cambridge side published a paper in a Harvard journal "proving" that such a reversal could never happen. This triggered a debate between the two Cambridges over its validity. Pasinetti from the British Cambridge side immediately wrote a rebuttal to Levhari's paper, pointing out that Levhari's claim was incorrect.

This was certainly a loss for Levhari; his "proof" contained a few mathematical slips, and there was no room for doubt that the advantage lay with Pasinetti's side. In other words, as far as this debate was concerned, the victory clearly went to the British Cambridge side. Being in Cambridge at that time, I was able to feel their triumphant mood firsthand. I can still clearly see the look of utter triumph on Sraffa's face at a faculty morning tea gathering as he sat down heavily in front of me with a grin, fluttering a letter and saying, "A letter of total surrender came from your teacher, Samuelson, this morning."

The year after I returned from Cambridge, I was asked by the Keio Gijuku Koizumi Memorial Fund for the Advancement of Education and Research to send a letter inviting Ms. Robinson to visit the Juku again. She graciously accepted and set foot on Mita Hilltop Square once more in 1968. Her public lecture on this occasion was titled "A Re-examination of the Theory of Value." Since the Japanese translation is included in the Koizumi Memorial Lecture Series, I will omit a summary here due to space constraints.

Perhaps because it was her second stay in Japan, she was completely relaxed at her accommodation in the New Otani. She was energetic enough to order a second gin and tonic while keeping company with me, even though I am not much of a drinker. It was also during this visit that she spent a day hiking up Mount Kintoki in Hakone. Also, perhaps thanks to Carmen's excellent preparation, her immersion in Japanese culture was remarkable; I even found myself listening to her lecture on the Noh play "Nodate." According to her, Kabuki was "too bloody," so she preferred the profound, subtle movements of Noh.

As those days passed, her scheduled stay eventually drew to a close, and the day finally came to say goodbye at Haneda Airport. A few days later, a letter posted from Singapore arrived. In addition to her thanks for the hospitality during her stay, it contained the words: "Plant the flag of Sraffa on the hill of Mita."