Notes on an Economic Querist: G. L. S. Shackle

Abstract

G. L. S. Shackle is the quintessential English Christian gentleman — courteous, modest, unassuming, considerate, speaking no ill of anyone and not wishing to hear any, either. He has always been an exceptionally hard worker, and retirement has made no difference, as is evident from his latest collection of essays, Business, Time and Thought,¹ Fifteen of the twenty included were written between the ages of 78 and 84. He used to write for three hours each morning at a bungalow a few doors from the Shackle’s home, Rudloe, Alde House Drive, Aldeburgh. 350 words — a page and a half — was his daily output, written in a beautiful hand in pencil, with a rubber nearby so that, considerate as ever, his typist would have a perfect copy. (Shackle’s mother said of him that he practised the three Rs — reading, writing and rubbing out.)

Reprinted from Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, III, Fall 1981, pp. 136–44; and Stephen F. Frowen (ed.), Unknowledge and Choice in Economics, Proceedings of a Conference in Honour of G. L. S. Shackle, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1990, pp. xvii–xxvi.