Footnote 16 in Frank Knight’s article, “Cost of production and price over long and short periods,” concluded with a sentence that ought likely to be added at the end of every expert’s policy proposal:
Of course this does not mean that they should be required to change quickly to such a basis from the present system, nor is the proposal expected to be taken seriously from the standpoint of that complex of auto-hallucination, humbug, and knavery which we call practical politics.
Of course I do not expect my proposal to be taken seriously from the standpoint of those complexes of auto-hallucination, humbug, and knavery which we call academic economics and “serious” policy analysis.
CITATION: Knight, Frank H. “Cost of production and price over long and short periods.” The Journal of Political Economy (1921): 304-335.