Thomas Balogh (1905-85), born in Budapest only a street away from Nicholas Kaldor, was 'taken up' by Keynes in 1930, had a furious row with him in 1945 over the Bretton Woods Agreement and went on to advise all six of the postwar Labour administrations. He established the first 'policy unit' in Downing Street, advised the governments of India, Jamaica, Malta, Mauritius, Greece and British Guiana and wrote 15 books and more than 1,000 articles. He was Britain's most outspoken political economist, arguing throughout his life that most of the work of academic economists was at best pseudo-science and at worst dangerous. A critic of Marxist, Austrian, Keynesian and Monetarist theories of economics, he advocated instead a more institutional and historical approach to economics. Andrew Graham who worked with him in Downing Street assesses the importance both of Thomas Balogh's academic work and his contribution to economic policy as well as presenting a lively picture of this colourful, talented and controversial economist.
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