Talk:Eliot Janeway

Wikify, rewrite, npov
Did a lot of technical work on the article: straightening out the references, inserting wikilinks, rewording, and regularizing punctuation. Also leaned the article a little more towards npov with the less flattering evaluation from Caldwell and some rewording tweaks. Didn't want to make Janeway look bad, but also wanted to give a more balanced presentation. Caldwell discusses the issue of Janeway's Jewish ancestry and his ambiguous attitude towards it, as recounted by his son. This is a delicate subject that I didn't want to get into. Maybe somebody with more knowledge (and tact) than me can handle it. Casey Abell 16:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that the article needs more balanced presentation, particularly with regard to his earlier works, more a life of the mind, which receive no attention, and later work, more a life of seeking approval, which seems to dominate discussions of Janeway today, perhaps as a result of his son's (unbalanced?) later works. For example, "The Economics of Crisis" (1968) is a rich resource of insight into American economic history by a man who had both formal background in economics as well as access to the principal actors in the Roosevelt years and thereafter. The baby, his earlier work, has been largely lost with the bathwater, his later works, and some redress is in order. 2606:6000:CFC0:2:6D52:92BD:2B15:45B6 (talk) 06:17, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Some nuances and an unsettled question
I've tried to tone down some statements that seemed to me potentially exaggerated. For example, the lede described EJ as an adviser to Presidents FDR and LBJ, but the main text did not fully support this statement, relating rather that (a) for a time, his work was read with interest by some in the Roosevelt White House, and (b) he informally advised Johnson while he was in Congress. There were also phrases that seemed a bit loosely applied, and/or POV in nature (e.g., describing FDR's fiscal policy as "hyperactive" I think fails the POV test).

I'm further troubled by the statements about EJ's purported anticipation of the rural S&L crisis, but not sure I quite know enough on the subject to actually make changes (I've instead requested sourcing). Two points of concern: (a) I'm not sure how relevant it is to predict in the mid-1970s a credit crunch that does not arrive until a decade later (also, to what extent his line of reasoning was accurate -- i.e., did the crunch arrive due to factors that he identified, or for quite different reasons?), (b) the article currently relates that the credit crunch "resulted in the savings and loan industry's troubles throughout farm country". Is this accurate, or would it be closer to the truth to say that it resulted "from" the S&Ls' troubles? Not my field of specialization: maybe someone else can take a look at this passage? Nandt1 (talk) 12:35, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Eliot Janeway lectures at Princeton
I'm pretty sure it was Janeway, not Princeton, that paid for these lectures, and they were not "endowed" but just paid for as they happened. Unfortunately, I don't have any references, but neither are any cited in the article as it stands. Also, the lectures were in honor of Joseph Schumpeter, not Eliot Janeway. There is a big difference between Princeton endowing a lecture series in honor of Janeway, and Janeway paying for the lectures on the condition they be named after him.AlexFeldman (talk) 15:19, 9 March 2014 (UTC)