Keynes only makes sense if you believe that you can take water out of the deep end of the pool and pour it into the shallow end to make the shallow end deeper.
However, Keynesian economics does fit hand in glove with leftist/humanist beliefs - that everything could be perfect if the right people were given enough power to make things perfect.
IIRG Keynes ‘stimulus’ was to use surplus funds for short term and quickly rebuild the surplus.
I would look it up and reread it; but it makes my brain hurt!
I have a BIL who is an economist. He says he had to read Keynes in grad school, and that it can be interpreted in many ways. What is called Keynesianism now is just the way it wound up be interpreted in the 70’s.
Keynes cannot be anything but “misunderstood.” His writing is very poor. I have tried several times to read Theory of Money...etc and cannot make of sense out of it. Paragraphs do not hang together. His arguments do not fit his assertions. What people “understand” about Keynes is the official interpretation of his book and the things he later said he wrote. His writing simply does not make sense. Everyone should find a copy of the book and read it. Read it carefully. If you just skim the lead sentences in the paragraphs and go straight to the conclusions you may feel you know what it is all about. If you analyze it it becomes simply turgid and irrational ramblings
Keynes was simply wrong. However, i believe if he could somehow see what things have been done in his name today even he would understand his error.
That was then. This is now. The long run has finally arrived, and we're all dead.
This is one of the better articles about Keynes. Many of the negative comments above address leftist distortions about what Keynes actually said. Keynes was no Keynesian (as that term is fondly used by today’s tax-and-spend big-government advocates).
Never trust anyone who nurtured at the knee of G.E. Moore, like Keynes. Moore was a philosopher that Wittgenstein said was proof of how far you could get in philosophy without knowing anything.
Keynesian fiscal policy is budget deficits financed by confiscatory taxation, government borrowing, and creation of money out of thin air.Keynesian monetary policy is easy money (credit expansion and low interest rates).
The problem is that the nature of Keynesianism is statist. Also, it is a paradox. He wants expansion with stability, but deficits, inflation, confiscatory taxes, and excessive borrowing cause decreased capital accumulation which leads to stagnation. Also, Keynesian economic stimulus artificially sets the stage for financial contraction, which becomes the next recession.
As WW II ended, Britain elected a Labor government that promised socialism in full measure, with the nationalization of major industries, public health care, and intensive regulation for the common good.
Since Britain was exhausted by war, broke and without credit, the new socialist government looked to America and sent the much respected Keynes to negotiate a package of grants and loans. Fortunately, Keynes' arrogance killed any prospect of success.
Keynes opened the conference in Washington with a long statement to the effect that Britain had a strong claim on America because Britain had fought longer and sacrificed more in the war than America had. In other words, in Keynes' sales pitch, Britain's wartime sacrifices meant that she was entitled to call on America to finance her embrace of socialism.
As it was, Keynes got nothing. Britain had to pay for socialism by herself. The dismal consequences of socialism eventually led to the election of Margaret Thatcher and the unwinding of much of the socialist state that Keynes had supported.
Maligned? Yes, and deservedly so.
Misunderstood? Not a chance.
For all the years before this Keynes baboon was given credence, the nation had been operating under the foundational work of one John Kenneth Galbraith, whose teachings I learned, while in high school.
Short answer, no. Long answer, hell no.