Not old enough to remember those Republicans, but that was sort of my point. As yoou point out the spectrum has moved sharply right on economic policy, yet back before it did, Gailbraith was a mainstream liberal Democrat on economic policy - i.e. a mainstream leftist in a much more left wing environment.  As far as the three you are calling centrists, again, read some of their stuff - their views are standard issue for the left wing of left wing continental European parties today. Of course they are also way to the right of the official doctrine of pre WWII socialist parties. But for the present day, your definition makes no sense. Lets take Germany. If we follow you the left wing of Die Linke is left, the right wing of Die Linke, the left wing of The Greens, and the left wing of the SPD are centrist, and everybody else is right wing. By 1960's definitions that's true, but so what? I also would find it silly to use todays definitions and  call Ludwig Erhard a member of the German right or Ed Heath of the British right or to call Brandt right wing because he was far to the right of the Weimar era SPD (in theory at least, in practice it was a different story - what would you call someone like Hilferding).

And FWIW I'm pretty damn sure I have a much better idea of at least European policy positions and debates in the fifties, sixties, and seventies than you do (reading every goddamn issue of Spiegel and Die Zeit, plus a random fifth of the FAZ issues from 1945-1975 sort of helps with that. I'm also pretty sure I have a better idea of how the planned economies of Eastern Europe worked - lots of books, and hundreds of thousands of pages of archival documents give me a certain insight). I have far less knowledge of America in that period, but easily enough to know the sort of basic stuff about Nixon's economic policies.

On the other thread for some reason you troll rated me for disputing the idea that regardless of whether the price of diesel is two Euros/l or 20 there would be no difference in the total vehicle miles of freight trucks and for suggesting that labour costs had a good deal to do with the shift of the textile industry to low wage countries.  

As for what my ideas are and their impact, I'm not quite sure how the notion that we should have an economic system like Germany in the sixties and seventies - (i.e. a little bit to the left of America in the sixties) led to this disaster. Perhaps you might care to elucidate. Or perhaps not, that's your perogative, just as it is mine to make what comments I wish. It is not your right, however, to troll rate what you disagree with.

Too much personal attack in that, IMHO.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes

And then you show up on my comment thread

This is a repeated misapprehension around here: You do not own the comment threads under your diaries. They belong to everyone here.

We can have $515 trillion in utterly worthless derivatives, but the heavens would fall if we spent $2 trillion per year on projects that are necessary to the survival of humanity

I think -- without having given a great deal of thought to the subject ;-) -- the difference is between a Closed and Open analytical/praxiological environment.  Derivatives are Closed under CAPM as they 'fall-out' of well understood mathematical constructs¹ developed within a generally accepted intellectual stance².  Public spending for the Public Good is Open in that fundamental questions, e.g., what is the Public Good, are uncertain, dependent on the interpreter, and controversial.  Another way to look at the difference: Closed allows one to pretend to be 100% objective while Open, by its nature, precludes that pretense.  

¹ How congruent these constructs are to Reality is another topic!

² How congruent the generally accepted intellectual stance is to Reality is another topic!  ;-)

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre