World Derelopmenr. Vol. 18. No. 7. pp. 1031-1037. 1990. 0305_75OX;90 S3.00+0.

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Printed in Great Britain. C 1990 Pergamon Press plc

Gunnar Myrdal

PAUL STREETEN
Boston Urkersity

Summary. -The life and ideas of the Swedish Nobel Laureate Gunnar Myrdal are controversial.
After a brief biographical sketch, his three main works, The Political Ekmen~ in rhe Development
of Ecorronric Thteor~, An .dmerican Dilemma and Asian Drama, studies of the foundations of
economics, of blacks in America and underdevelopment. are examined, especially for methodolo-
gical characteristics and their position on political and moral valuations. Five lines of Myrdal’s
criticism of traditional economics are analyzed. The important notion of circular and cumulative
causation is critically examined. The meaning of being an “institutional economist” is brought out.
The final section presents a few anecdotes that round out the picture of the man, his life and his
all-possessin_e work.

If a man has been successively university
professor, government adviser, member of par-
liament, director of a study of American blacks,
cabinet minister, bank director, chairman of a
pl’anning commission, international civil servant.
head of an institute of conflict research, author of
the most important study of Asian development
and a Nobel prize winner: if. a citizen of a small
country, he has occupied these positions in differ-
ent countries, and has traveled east and west, north
and south, we should not be suprised if he comes
to ask himself fundamental questions. Can one be
at the same time objective, practical and idealistic?
What is the relation between uanting to interpret
and wanting to change the world’? How can we free
ourselves from thinking in accordance with one
age or one culture when called upon to think about
a different age or ditTerent culture? How can we
shed the blinkers imposed on us by an intellectual
tradition and the pressures of our profession? How
can thought catch up with changes in social insti-
tutions?
Such questions have been asked by Gunnar
Myrdal ever since his iconoclastic, youthful work
on The Political Element in the Development of
Economic Theory (1930). Other economists are just
beginning to catch up with him.
Gunnar Myrdal was born in 1898 in the province
of Dalarna in Sweden. He attributed his faith in
the Puritan ethics and his egalitarianism to his
sturdy farming background.
He was a student of the giant figures of Knut
Wicksell. David Davidson, Eli Heckscher, GGsta
Bagge and above all Gustav Cassel, to whose chair
in Political Economy at Stockholm University he
succeeded (I 933-39).
At first a pure theorist, Myrdal’s year in the
United States as a Rockefeller Fellow following
the crash of 1929 turned his interests to political
issues. On his return to Sweden from America he,
with his wife Alva, became active in politics. To-
gether, they pioneered modern population policy.
In 1935, he became a member of parliament. His
involvements in Swedish politics between 1931 and
1938 turned him from a theoretical economist into
a political economist and what he himselfdescribed
as an institutionalist. In 1938, the Carnegie Cor-
poration selected him for a major investigation of
the “Negro problem” in America, a project which
resulted in An American Dilemma (1944). He
returned to Sweden in 1942 and for five years was
again involved in political activities. He headed
the committee that drafted the social democratic
postwar program. He returned to parliament and
became a member of the board of directors of the
Swedish Bank, chairman of the Swedish Planning
Commission, and Minister for Trade and Com-
merce (194547). As Minister he arranged a highly
controversial treaty with the Soviet Union and was
also involved in controversy over the dismantling
of wartime controls. In 1947, he became Executive
Secretary of the United Nations Economic Com-
mission for Europe, to which he recruited an out-
standingly able team. After IO years with the com-
mission in Geneva, he embarked on a IO-year study
of development in Asia, the result of which was the
monumental Asian Drama (1968). In 1973 he was
awarded the Nobel prize in economics, jointly with
Friedrich von Hayek.
Methodological questions occupied Myrdal’s
thought throughout his life. They were already
present in the young Myrdal’s Political Element

1031
1032 WORLD DEVELOPMEST

in the Development of Economic Theory (1930, a “temporary interregnum” not a “stable equi-
English edition 1953). It was under the influence librium.” and of the incipient changes. on which
of the remarkable Uppsala University philosopher the prediction of the black revolt in the South was
Axel Hlgerstriim that he had begun to question based.
the wisdom of the economic establishment. Apart from his work on expectations and racial
Myrdal’s doctoral dissertation on price forma- problems. Myrdal is best known for his critique of
tion and economic change (1927, as yet untrans- conventional economic theory applied to under-
lated) systematically introduced expectations into developed countries.
the analysis of prices, profits and changes in capital Throughout his whole work run five lines of
values. The microeconomic analysis focused on criticism of mainstream economic and social
planning by the firm. Many of these ideas were theory. First. his appeal for realism is not a critique
used in his later macroeconomic work, including of abstraction. His criticism is that irrelevant fea-
Monetnry Equilibrium (193 I, English expanded tures are selected and relevant ones ignored
translation 1939). (“opportunistic ignorance”). A second line of criti-
Much confusion had been caused by the lack cism has been the narrow or abstract definitions of
of distinction between expectations and results. development, economic growth, or welfare. The
The concepts e.\- ante and e.y post that Myrdal actual needs and valuations of people, not the
developed greatly clarified the discussion of abstractions of statisticians or the empty concepts
savings, investment and income, and their effects of metaphysics. should be the basis for formulating
on prices.’ In anticipation, intention and planning, aims. His third line of criticism is directed at the
savings can diverge from investment; after the narrow definitions and the limits of disciplines. The
event they must be identical, because the com- essence of the institutional approach advocated by
munity can save only by accumulating real assets. Myrdal is to bring to bear all relevant knowledge
It is the process by which expectations e.r ante are and techniques on the analysis of a problem. In
adjusted so as to bring about the bookkeeping an interdependent social system there are no
identity expost that explains unexpected gains and economic. political or social problems, there are
losses as well as fluctuations in prices. Only in only problems. His fourth line of criticism is
equilibrium are e,r ante savings equal to e.r ante directed at spurious objectivity which. under the
investment, so that there is no tendency for prices pretense of scientific analysis, conceals political
to change. By introducing expectations into the valuations and interests. Myrdal argues that this
analysis of economic processes, Myrdal made a pseudoscience should be replaced by explicit valu-
major contribution to liberalizing economics from ations. He is. of course, aware of the complex
static theory, in which the future is like the past, and nexus bet\veen valuations and facts but ever since
to paving the way for dynamics, in which time, un- his youthful Political Element has constantly
certainty and expectations enter in an essential way. fought the inheritance of natural law and utili-
What is common to his subsequent three impor- tarianism. according to which we can derive recom-
tant books, The Political Element (1930). An Amer- mendations from pure ‘analysis. A fifth line of
ican Dilemma (1944) and Asian Drama (1968) is criticism is directed against biases and twisted ter-
the emphasis on realistic and relevant research, minology. He lays bare the opportunistic interests
whether on economic problems, race relations, or and the **diplomacy” beneath the use of such
world poverty, and with it the effort to purge econ- concepts as “United Nations,” “international,”
omic thinking of systematic biases. “values,” “welfare,” “developing countries.”
Starting on the study of blacks in the United “unemployment,” and “the free world.” The
States, he soon discovered that he had to examine features against which these lines of criticism are
“the American civilization in its entirety, though advanced are combined in the technocrat. The
viewed in its implications for the most dis- technocrat isolates economic (or other technical)
advantaged population group” (introduction to relations from their social context; he neglects
An American Dilemma, Section 4). The way to social and political variables and thereby ministers
reach objectivity was to state explicitly the value to the vested interests that might otherwise be hurt;
premises of the study. The premises were not he pretends to scientific objectivity and is socially
chosen arbitrarily, but were what Myrdal called and culturally insensitive. Since the majority of
the “American Creed” of justice, liberty, and experts, academics and planners are of this type,
equality of opportunity. But while these value Myrdal ruffled many feathers.
premises were chosen for their relevance to Amer- The question may be asked whether the narrow
ican society, they corresponded to Myrdal’s own technocrat cannot be replaced by an approach that
valuations. The major contribution of the book, introduces social variables openly into the formal
which Myrdal regarded as his war service, is the model. Myrdal’s answer would be, yes and no. In
analysis of the six decades after Reconstruction as certain areas. a widening or redefinition of con-

cepts can be successful. The productive effects of
better nutrition can be studied and the line between
investment and consumption can be redrawn. The
influence of climate. of attitudes. and of insti-
tutions can be introduced as constraints or as vari-
ables. An agricultural production function can be
constructed in which health, education, distance
from town. etc., figure as “inputs”. “Capital” can
be redefined so as to cover anything on which
expenditure of resources now raises the flow of
output later.
But there are limits to such revisionism. These
limits apply both to the analysis of facts and to
recommendations of policies. On the factual side,
the reformulation runs into difficulties if the con-
nection between expenditure now and “yield” later
is only tenuous, as in the initiation of a birth con-
trol program or a land reform.
In the analysis of values, the construction
social welfare function is not, in Myrdal’s view, a
logical task. The unity of a social program of
a party is unlike that of a computer program or
a logically consistent system, and more like the
unity of a personality. It is discovered not only
by deductive reasoning but also by empathy,
imagination, and even artistic and intuitive
understanding. Means and ends, targets
instruments, are misleading ways of grasping
the valuations of a class, an interest group or a
whole society, for their unity is not logical but
psychological.
In Asiulz Drama, the explicitly formulated valu-
ations are the “Modernization Ideals.” A list
would include rationality, planning for the future,
raising productivity, raising levels of living, social
and economic equalization, improved institutions
and attitudes, national independence, political
democracy, and social discipline.
An important concept in Myrdals’s arsenal of
ideas is that of Circular or Cumulative Causation
(or the vicious - or virtuous - circle), first fully
developed in An American Dilemma. It postulates
increasing returns through specialization
economies of scale and shows how small advan-
tages are magnified.
The principle goes back to Wicksell who, in
fnteresr and Prices (I 898), had analyzed divergence
between the natural and the market rates of interest
in terms of upward and downward cumulative pro-
cesses, until the divergence was eliminated. Wick-
sell pointed out that if banks keep their loan rate
of interest below the real rate of return on capital,
they will encourage expansion of production
investment in plant and equipment. Since Wicksell
had assumed full employment of labor and capital
capacity throughout the trade cycle, prices will rise
and will continue to rise cumulatively as long as
the lending rate is kept below the real rate.
MYRDAL 1033
The Principle of Cumulative Causation can be
used to show movements away from an equi-
librium position as a result of the interaction of
several variables. ,Myrdal was not always entirely
clear in the formulation of this important principle,
and there has been the suggestion that any form
of circular or mutual causation or interaction is
cumulative and hence disequilibrating. This would
be false. for a series of mutually caused events can,
after a disturbance, rapidly converge either on the
initial or on some other point of stable equilibrium.
In order to get instability, a cumulative movement
away from the initial situation, the numerical
values of the coefficients of interdependence have
to be above a critical minimum size. For example,
an increase in consumption will raise incomes,
which in turn will raise consumption and so on, ad
infinifum. But as long as the marginal propensity
of a to consume is less than unity, the infinite series will
converge on a finite value.
The notion of cumulative causation was applied
by Myrdal most illuminatingly to price expec-
tations in :lfonetar.r Equilibrium (193 I) and to the
relations between regions in Economic Theory and
Underdeeteloped Regions (1957) [American title:
Rich Lands and Poor]. He showed how the advan-
and tages of growth poles can become cumulative,
while the backward region may be relatively or
even absolutely impoverished. This also has impor-
tant implications for international trade.
Myrdal applied cumulative causation to socio-
logical variables, such as the prejudices against
blacks and their level of performance (low skills,
crime, disease, etc.); to economic variables; and,
above all, to the interaction of so-called economic
and noneconomic variables. Thus, the relation of
better nutrition, better health and better education
to higher productivity and hence ability further
to improve health, education and nutrition shows
that the inclusion of noneconomic variables in
the analysis opens up the possibility of numerous
cumulative processes to which conventional econ-
and omic analysis is blind. It also guards against
unicausal explanations and panaceas.
The revolutionary character of the concept of
cumulative causation is brought out by the fact
that interaction takes place not only within a social
system in ahich the various elements interact, but
also in time. so that memory and expectations are
of crucial importance. The responses to any given
variable, say a price, are different according to what
the history of this variable has been. It is this
and dynamic feature of analysis and its implications
for policy that distinguishes Myrdal’s approach
from that of economists who think in terms of
general equilibrium.
In Economic Theory and Underdeceloped Regions
(1957), and later in Asian Drama (1968), Myrdal
 1034 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
used the concepts “backwash” and “spread”
effects to analyze the movement of regions or whole
countries at different stages of development and
the effects of unification. It is a highly suggestive,
realistic and fruitful alternative explanation to that
of stable equilibrium analysis, usually based on
competitive conditions and diminishing returns,
and concluding that gains are widely and evenly
distributed.
Like the Marxists, Myrdal emphasized the
unequal distribution of power and property as an
obstacle not only to equity but also to efficiency
and growth. But his conclusion is not Marxist.
He regarded a direct planning of institutions and
shaping of attitudes (what Marx regarded as part
of the superstructure) as necessary, though very
difficult, partly because he believed that attitudes
and institutions are inert, and partly because the
policies which aim at reforming attitudes and insti-
tutions are themselves part of the social system,
part of the power and property structure. There
are clearly also logical difficulties in operating on
variables that are thought to be fully determined
within the system.
In Asian Drama, Myrdal criticized the kind of
government he called the “soft state.” This critique
has sometimes been misunderstood. It is plain that
“softness” in Myrdal’s sense is quite compatible
with a high degree of coercion, violence and
cruelty. The Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Indians in
Burma, the Chinese in Indonesia, the Hindus in
Pakistan, the Moslems in India, the Biharis in Ban-
gladesh - to take six states he calls “soft” -
would not claim excessively soft treatment. “Soft
states” also go in for military violence, both inter-
nal and external. Their “softness” lies in their
unwillingness to coerce in order to implement
declared policy goals, and to resist the hard local
power ofcaste, land and culture. It is not the result
of gentleness or weakness, but reflects the power
structure and a gap between real and professed
intentions.
Though he is often regarded as an advocate of
central planning and state intervention in the econ-
omy, a reading of Asian Drama shows that Myrdal
thought the Indian economy was overregulated.
The book expounds what has since become con-
ventional wisdom of using prices, rather than
direct quantitative controls, to allocate resources.
At the same time, Myrdal thought that prices
should be an instrument of policy, rather than the
result of the free play of market forces. Govern-
ment intervention is a necessary condition for the
efficient working of markets. In this way he was
not only prescient, but transcended the current
“smelly little orthodoxies.”
Paul Samuelson told Charles Kindleberger that
Myrdal’s Manchester School article of 1951 on
“The Trend Towards Economic Planning” con-
tains the germs of a public choice theory of political
behavior, including the role of pressure groups and
deadweight losses arising from such acttvity.
Myrdal applied his method also to the analysis
of inflation combined with widespread unem-
ployment in the developed countries of the West
in the 1970s and either coined or was one of the
first to use the term “stagflation.” He attributed
the situation to the organization of producers as
pressure groups, to the dispersion and comparative
weakness of consumers, to the tax system which
encourages speculative expenditures. to the struc-
ture of markets, and to the methods of oligopolistic
administrative pricing. He condemned inflation as
a socially highly divisive force.
The approach favored by Myrdal is one of
neither Soviet authority and force nor of capitalist
laissezfaire, but of a third way: that of using prices
for planning purposes and of attacking attitudes
and institutions directly to make them the instru-
ments of reform, including greater responsiveness
to prices. His approach has more affinity with those
socialists who were dismissed by Marx as utopian.
The difficulty is that any instrument, even if used
with the intention to reform, within a given power
structure may serve the powerful and reestablish
the old equilibrium. Even well-intentioned allo-
cations, rationing, licensing and controls may
reinforce monopoly and big business. How does
one break out of this lock? Myrdal did not draw
revolutionary conclusions but relied on the, admit-
tedly difficult, possibility of self-reform that arises,
in both the American Creed and in the Moder-
nization Ideals, from the tensions between pre-
ferred and proclaimed beliefs and actions.
Both An American Dilemma and Asian Drama
are books about the interaction and the conflict
between ideals and reality, and about how, when
the two conflict, one of them must give uay. IMuch
of conventional economic theory is a ration-
alization whose purpose is to conceal that conflict.
But it is bound to reassert itself sooner or later.
When this happens, either the ideals lvill be scaled
down to conform to the reality or the reality will
be shaped by the ideals.
REMINISCENCES
After I had translated The Political Element and
another long essay on Means and Ends. and then
edited Value in Social Theory (1958), Richard Kahn
asked me, “Paul, haven’t you done enough to
encourage that promising young man?” Ever since
Myrdal asked me to translate The Political
Element, I found working with him stimulating,
exciting, and intellectually rewarding. He became
 MYRDAL
;1 good friend and a godfather to my younger
daughter.
Myrdal called himself a cheerful pessimist. By
this he meant that, however small the chances of
success of a desirable reform. every effort must
be made to achieve it. The notion of cumuiative
causation can. of course. give rise to some degree
of hopefulness, for by attacking one factor in a
low-level equilibrium or a downward spiral, it is
possible to turn the system in an upward direction.
If. for example, we assume that for some reason
white prejudicecould be decreased and discrimination
mitigated, this is likely to cause a rise in Negro stan-
dards, which may decrease white prejudice still a little
more. which would again allow Negro standards
rise. and so on through mutual interaction.
Another corollary from our hypothesis is practical.
In the field of Negro politics any push upward
directed on any one of those factors - if our main
hypothesis is correct - moves all other factors in the
same direction and has. through them, a cumulative
effect upon general Negro status.’
rlsiun Drama is a more pessimistic book than
AN Anzericnn Dilemma. Myrdal once told me, over
a relaxed dinner, that when he wrote An American
Di‘lemmn, he could identify with American ideals.
In fact, the Americans came almost as high in the
rank order of creation as the Swedes. (Then came
nothing for a long time; then the English, and only
after them the Europeans.) He called America his
second home. But, he said, “when I saw those half-
naked brown bodies in an Indian textile factory,
they seemed utterly alien to me; I could not find
anything in common with them.”
From An American Dilemma to Asian Drama he
moved from basic optimism to growing pessimism.
I would tease him by saying the third A.D., African
Damnation, remains to be written. At the end of
his life he turned against development aid and
development cooperation, and said in an interview
that the world “was really going to hell in every
possible respect.” But he remained cheerful,
adding “we must not let the injustices of the world
take over.”
Many of his relaxed dinner chats were an oppor-
tunity to vent his pet theories. One of these was that
one should expect young people to be conservative
and to become more radical as they grow older.
One reason for this was that the young had much
to gain from conforming to the existing order and
opinions, and much to lose from dissenting. The
old, on the other hand, had made their reputation
and had nothing to lose. A second reason was that
as one grew older, one began to see the truth, and
the truth lay, of course, with radicalism. He did
not see the contradiction in assuming that the
young had to conform to the views of their elders,
1035
which. on his ou-n argument, would have been
radical.
Gustav Cassel once warned him against his
brashness, “Gunnar. you should be more res-
pectful to your elders, because it is u’e who will
determine your promotion.” “Yes.” the young
Myrdal replied, “but it is we who will write your
obituaries.” Indeed, after Cassel’s death, he did
write his obituary.
One minor virtue of Myrdal was (as David
Wightman reminded me) that he acknowledged
every written communication, whomever from and
however worthless. He would say if people took
the trouble to write to him, they should at least
to receive a polite acknowledgment. David Wight-
man and I agree that this is not a virtue to be found
among young American colleagues.
G&an Ohlin reports a story which Xfyrdal loved
to tell over tea in the Common Room of the Insti-
tute:
Back in 1961 Gunnar used to hold forth during
afternoon tea at his Institute. I wish I remembered his
many Hammarskjiild stories a bir better. But the
best one. I thought, was the one about Slyrdal’s own
dissertation.
It was of course about price formation and econ-
omic change, and today he likes to boast that he does
not understand a word of it. I think there must have
been many who did not at the time. but Cassel was
pleased to have a disciple and he was to sef the grade.
Cassel therefore urged that this admirable dis-
sertation should have the highest grade - laudarur.’
But Giista Bagge - professor at Stockholm Uni-
versity and member of the team that produced the
Carnegie-financed volumes on prices and wages in
Sweden, but also a Conservative politician (almost
forgotten, but recently reviewed in a Suedish journal
as too important to be overlooked) and later lo be
the head of the Conservative party - had only
received the second highest grade for his own dis-
sertation and did not think anybody else could merit
more. So he dissented, which meant he had to submit
a minority report.
Time passed and he had not done it. Easter was
coming up and he had to go off to the mountains
with the rest of the haute bourgeoisie for some rather
leisurely skiing. So he comes to Lindahl H ho was his
“Dozent” and says “you know what I think about
that dissertation, why don’t you write a few pages for
me and send them in.” Lindahl was rather shy and
awkward, and I suppose in those days >ou did not
contradict the professor, so he could nor refuse. But
he had no idea what Bagge thought. nor did he
(Lindahl) feel he understood Myrdal. As he got to
be desperate he finally called Myrdal and explained
the situation and asked Myrdal to write the minority
report himself. Gunnar loved the idea and instantly
put together a few ‘pages to suggest why his dis-
sertation, although a work of genius, did suffer from
some minor flaws which a petty mind might object
to.
1036 WORLD DEVELOPMEST
He gave it to Lindahl who gratefully sent it in. But
that was not the end of the story, for a few weeks later
it was May Ball - white tie and the rest. As Gunnar
enters he notices Bagge who seemed a bit embarrassed
but finally comes up to Gunnar and says, “I hope you
saw my minority report. Don’t you think I was kind
to you?’
Gunnar says one of the things he was really proud of
in his life was that he had never told Bagge the story.
This must have been quite a struggle, especially in the
late ’30s when they were both active in politics and
must have met a great deal.
He had a magnificent way of apparently getting
things slightly wrong in English. while in fact
always hitting a bull’s eye. These sayings might be
called bonapropisms, in contrast to malapropisms,
named after Mrs. Malaprop. Bonapropisms
describe happy mistakes, words or phrases that
apparently are off the mark, but unintentionally
hit it right on the button. When elected to a Fel-
lowship at Oxford’s Balliol College, he said, after
having observed Oxford for a few weeks. “I don’t
like your homosexual colleges,” intending to say
“single-sex colleges.” (In his characteristic way, he
did something sacrilegious, never done before: he
changed from a Fellowship at Balliol to one at
Nuflield, because Nuffield College had offered bet-
ter parking facilities.) He would tell me that Greta
Garbo loved visiting Sweden, because when she
was in her home country “nobody looked after
her,” meaning “gazed at her,” but it makes sense
of her declaration, “I want to be alone.” When
a draft was unsatisfactory, he would say “Let us
tear it up and start from scraps” (meaning scratch).
Swedes have a notorious problem in pronouncing
English “j”s. They make them sound like “y”s. But
the one occasion when Myrdal managed to pro-
nounce the “j” was when he talked of people
suffering “under the colonial joke.”
Bob and Ethel Asher were great friends. They
lived on Cathedral Avenue in Washington, DC.
He would normally stay with them. But on one
occasion their house was full and they put him up
at the Cosmos Club. From there he rang up Ethel,
telling her: “Ethel, my dear, this is Gunnar. It is
so strange to be in Washington and not to sleep in
your bed.” He did, in fact, like women. On one
occasion he told me, “Alva and I sat on our bed
until 4 a.m., talking of all these horrors, and held
hands.” (In their house in Appleviken, where they
lived from 1938-47, the Myrdals had a specially
constructed moving wall between their two beds,
SO that each could go to sleep at a different hour
without disturbing the other, or enjoy solitude
when needed. At the push of a button, the wall was
removed and permitted matrimonial relations to
be resumed.) In their work and their lives, Alva
and Gunnar formed a team whose individual con-
tributions it was often impossible to disentangle.
When both came to see Robert McNamara, then
President of the World Bank, he, like many others,
was more impressed by Alva than by Gunnar.
In the wake of their book on population prob-
lems, there ivas much discussion as to how to stem
the declining birth rate in Sweden. The Myrdals
advocated families in which children were wanted
and cared for. In the public discussions the word
“Myrdal” entered the Swedish language and came
to mean the act of procreation. It was often linked
to some nouns, such as Myrdal houses, Myrdal
couches and Myrdal cactuses, suggesting to the
dirty-minded salacious connotations.
Bob Asher also tells of a visit of Gunnar Myr-
dal’s to Washington in about 1954, when Myrdal
asked Asher to arrange a meeting with Harold
Stassen, a former governor of Minnesota. a per-
ennial candidate for president of the United States.
and, at the time of Myrdal’s visit, administrator of
the US foreign aid program.
When Asher had delivered Myrdal to Stassen’s of-
fice, Myrdal said, “Aren’t you coming in with me?”
Asher replied, “No, you’re the one who wanted
to talk to him: I’ll wait for you in the car.” When
Myrdal appeared 45 minutes or so later. his first
words were, “Bob, is he really presidential lumber?’
He was a great talker and some complained that
he did not hsten. But he had such a quick mind
that he normally knew what people were going to
say, so that he had no need to listen. When he met
the famous Indian statistician and planner P. C.
Mahalanobis. also a great talker, it is reported by
some that Gunnar won and silenced Mahalanobis,
an unprecedented feat. Others report that each of
the two spoke 75% of the time.
Gunnar Myrdal had a way of mainly quoting
himself in his writings. This is not uncommon
among academics (indeed, one well-known method
of identifying the author in blind refereeing is to
look for the most-cited author), but in his case it
was not the result of vanity but of the fact that
with inescapable logic he had to give his own ideas
top marks, for if someone else’s ideas were better,
he would adopt them. If anything, the habit of self-
citation reflected not vanity but egocentricity. In
1969 the Society for International Development
met in Delhi. Gunnar Myrdal had intended to
attend, but had to cancel his visit. He sent a mes-
sage which was printed in the conference document.
But, as in his oral sayings, the misprint of this
message gave away the deeper truth. What Myrdal
had written was: “I am looking forward to seeing
the papers submitted to this conference, and to
readjust my own ideas.” The printer, however, sep-
arated the “read” from “just,” so that the result
was: “I am looking forward to read just my own
ideas.” Again. a bull’s eye.
 MYRDAL 1037

Xlyrdal not only loved controversy, but thought
that it is the only way to achieve progress in social
science. Differences should be sharpened, not con-
cealed. He remained an enfunf terrible throughout
his long life, eventually becoming an Enfunt ferrible
Emeritus.
His anger was roused when people maintained
that different races have different genetic endow-
ments with respect to intelligence or when they
maintained that Sweden had a high suicide rate
because of its welfare provisions. In reply to this
charge he would say that the statistics overstated
the rate compared with other countries because the
Swedes attached no stigma to suicide.
Charles Kindleberger tells an endearing story.‘l
While working on An American Dilemma, Myrdal
traveled through the South and visited various
schools:
He would invariably be invited to talk to an
assembly of black students. Invariably, too, the -
usually white - principal of the school would call on
the school glee club or choir to sing some Negro
spirituals for their guest. An American Dilemma notes
that some Negroes believed that spirituals were a
badge of slavery (p. 755). Myrdal told me that on
such an occasion, when his time came to speak, he
began by saying that since the school had sung him
some of their folk songs, he would reciprocate. In
an untrained, unaccompanied voice, he then sang a
Swedish folk song. Word. he said, spread quickly
through the black population in the South that this
Swedish white man had seen through the patronizing
habit of school administrators, and had reached out
to the black students by joining them at their level.
IMichael Lipton has the following story:
As you know, his standard conversational manner
was to express a controversial view. and then to ask
for your opinion, rather like a World Bank rural
development tourism team seeking participation from
villagers. One would then mutter one’s reactions,
ranging from doubt to vehement refutation. He would
continue, *‘yes, exactly” and proceed with the mono-
logue which he had asked to have interrupted. It
was after I had been working with him for about six
months that I eventually got through, by disagreeing
with him very strongly about EEC - as I remember,
he was arguing that Sweden could never under any
circumstances join, because that would involve the
sacrifice of rights over land, “and in this country land
belongs to the crown,” a marvellous argument to
come from a socialist or even a social democrat (apart
from, of course, ascribing rights to Brussels that even
in 1992 would be beyond its wildest dreams). Anyway,
I managed to disagree strongly enough that he eventu-
ally realized that he was being disagreed with. From
high that time on. it was possible to have dialogues and
discussions with him, in which both parties and not
merely one listened to the other.
Myrdal’s work was his life. Although he some-
times talked as if he was not meant to write books
but to dream under trees, drink wine and make
love to women, his work absorbed him totally, to
the neglect of family, friends and hobbies. He was
an avid reader of newspapers, but despised novels
and light reading, and had little interest in any
recreations. His conversation was dominated by
the subject on which he was working, and by dis-
cussion of political, economic and social devel-
opments in the world. Often he held forth in what
amounted to a stream of consciousness, but then
there would come an observation about the world,
or a person, of amazing brilliance and originality.
He combined warmheartedness and personal
charm with an intolerance of anything he saw as
humbug or pomposity.

NOTES

I. Assar Lindbeck tells me that the expressions “e.r 3. The equivalent to the American summa cnm laude.
anre” and "exposr ” were the invention of the translator.
4. Kindleberger (1987), pp. 393403.
2. Myrdal (19%). pp. I88 and 190. Both passages are
from An American Dilemma.

REFERENCES

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The Scandinatiian Journal of Economics, Vol. 89, No. pp. 142.
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Myrdal, Gunnar, Asian Drama, 3 volumes (New York: Problem and .Modern Democracy (New York: Harper
Pantheon, 1968). & Brothers, 1944).
Myrdal, Gunnar, Value in Social Theory, edited by Paul Myrdal, Gunnar, Monerary Equilibrium (originally pub-
Streeten (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958). lished 1931) (London: W. Hodge & Company, English
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Harper, 19.57) [American title of Economic Theory and (London: Routledge and Paul, English edition, 1953).
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Myrdal, Gunnar, “The trend towards economic Prices] (Jena: G. Fischer, 1898).