On Professor Feldman' Insistence: Some Closing Remarks

Abstract

In opening this exchange, Gerald Feldman accused me of “egregious errors,” systematically “tendentious misconstruals,” “outright inventions,” and “fabrications.” In my reply, I made what I believe to have been a good faith effort to address and evaluate these charges. Because an understanding of the arguments in my book was essential to that evaluation, I first restated those arguments, and my overall thesis. In the face of a fantastic portrayal of business-Nazi conspiracy, it was necessary to set the record straight. Making repeated reference to what I actually said in my book, as opposed to what Feldman insinuates that I said, the substance of my reply was this: First, I openly acknowledged my commission of error. I did not trivialize or minimalize my mistakes. I apologized for them, and said they were “inexcusable.” Second, and not inconsistently, I argued that Feldman was nonetheless wrong to claim that the errors undermined the fundamental arguments of my book. Third, I showed that there was no consistent pattern to the errors—the correction of some hurt the argument; the correction of many others strengthened it—and that there was, therefore, no systematic tendentiousness evident in my mistakes. Fourth and finally, I refuted the many charges of mendacity, invention, fabrication, and fraud, and provided a variety of sorts of evidence to show that these charges—surely the most serious that Feldman made—were utterly baseless.