Editing John Maynard Keynes (section)

==Overall views==
{{Liberalism UK|People}}
===Praise===
On a personal level, Keynes's charm was such that he was generally well received wherever he went{{snd}}even those who found themselves on the wrong side of his occasionally sharp tongue rarely bore a grudge.<ref>{{cite book | last = McCann | first = Charles Robert | title = John Maynard Keynes – critical responses | year = 1998 | volume = 4 | page = 21 | publisher = Taylor & Francis | isbn = 0-415-15193-7 }}</ref> Keynes's speech at the closing of the Bretton Woods negotiations was received with a lasting standing ovation, rare in international relations, as the delegates acknowledged the scale of his achievements made despite poor health.<ref name="Cunningham"/>

Austrian School economist [[Friedrich Hayek]] was Keynes's most prominent contemporary critic, with sharply opposing views on the economy.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=482–485}} Yet after Keynes's death, he wrote: "He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration. The world will be a very much poorer place without him."<ref name="Wapshott2011">{{cite book|last=Wapshott|first=Nicholas|authorlink=Nicholas Wapshott|title=Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=su1OvQrGVAAC&pg=PA206|year=2011|publisher=W. W. Norton|isbn=978-0-393-08311-8|page=206}}</ref> Colleague Nicholas Davenport recalled, "There were deep emotional forces about Maynard ... One could sense his humanity. There was nothing of the cold intellectual about him."<ref name="city rad">{{Cite book|last=Davenport|first=Nicholas |title=Memoirs of a city radical|date=1974|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|isbn=0-297-76796-8|page=48|oclc=462160277}}</ref>

[[Lionel Robbins]], former head of the economics department at the [[London School of Economics]], who engaged in many heated debates with Keynes in the 1930s, had this to say after observing Keynes in early negotiations with the Americans while drawing up plans for Bretton Woods:{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=760–761}}

{{blockquote|This went very well indeed. Keynes was in his most lucid and persuasive mood: and the effect was irresistible. At such moments, I often find myself thinking that Keynes must be one of the most remarkable men that have ever lived – the quick logic, the birdlike swoop of intuition, the vivid fancy, the wide vision, above all the incomparable sense of the fitness of words, all combine to make something several degrees beyond the limit of ordinary human achievement. }}

[[Douglas LePan]], an official from the [[High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom|Canadian High Commission]], wrote:{{r|2003 Skidel|p=[https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_q4f4/page/788/mode/2up 789]}}

{{blockquote|I am spellbound. This is the most beautiful creature I have ever listened to. Does he belong to our species? Or is he from some other order? There is something mythic and fabulous about him. I sense in him something massive and sphinx like, and yet also a hint of wings. }}

[[Bertrand Russell]] named Keynes one of the most intelligent people he had ever known,<ref name="ES">{{cite news |last1=Hoggard |first1=Liz |title=Ten things you didn't know about Mr Keynes |url=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23575559-ten-things-you-didnt-know-about-mr-keynes.do |access-date=8 September 2019 |work=[[Evening Standard]] |date=21 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100122235305/http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23575559-ten-things-you-didnt-know-about-mr-keynes.do |archive-date=22 January 2010}}</ref> commenting:<ref>{{cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |title=The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872–1914 |page=97 |publisher=Unwin Paperbacks |year=1967}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Keynes's intellect was the sharpest and clearest that I have ever known. When I argued with him, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool.}}

Keynes's obituary in ''[[The Times]]'' included the comment: "There is the man himself{{snd}}radiant, brilliant, effervescent, gay, full of impish jokes ... He was a humane man genuinely devoted to the cause of the common good."<ref name="new economics"/>

===Critiques===
As a man of the centre described by some as having the greatest impact of any 20th-century economist,<ref name="50 greats"/> Keynes attracted considerable criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. In the 1920s, Keynes was seen as anti-establishment and was mainly attacked from the right. In the "red 1930s", many young economists favoured [[Marxism|Marxist]] views, even in Cambridge,<ref name="Minksky"/> and while Keynes was engaging principally with the right to try to persuade them of the merits of more progressive policy, the most vociferous criticism against him came from the left, who saw him as a supporter of capitalism. From the 1950s and onwards, most of the attacks against Keynes have again been from the right.

[[File:Friedrich Hayek portrait.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Friedrich Hayek]], one of Keynes's most prominent critics]]

In 1931, [[Friedrich Hayek]] extensively critiqued Keynes's 1930 ''Treatise on Money''.<ref>{{cite journal | url = https://www.mises.org/etexts/reflections.pdf | access-date = 20 May 2008 | title = Reflections on the Pure Theory of Money of Mr. J. M. Keynes | journal = [[Economica]] | author = Hayek, Friedrick August von | volume = 11 | date = August 1931 | archive-date = 28 May 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080528063216/http://www.mises.org/etexts/reflections.pdf | url-status = live }}</ref> After reading Hayek's ''[[The Road to Serfdom]]'', Keynes wrote to Hayek: "Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it."<ref>{{cite book | last = Hoover | first = Kenneth R. | title = Economics as Ideology | publisher = [[Rowman & Littlefield]] | year = 2008 | location = [[Lanham, Maryland]] | page = 152 | isbn = 978-0-7425-3113-0 }}</ref> He concluded the letter with the recommendation:
{{blockquote|What we need therefore, in my opinion, is not a change in our economic programmes, which would only lead in practice to disillusion with the results of your philosophy; but perhaps even the contrary, namely, an enlargement of them. Your greatest danger is the probable practical failure of the application of your philosophy in the United States.}}

On the pressing issue of the time, whether deficit spending could lift a country from depression, Keynes replied to Hayek's criticism<ref>{{cite book | author = Heilbroner, Robert | title = The Worldly Philosophers | year = 2000 | pages = 278–8 | isbn = 0-671-63482-8 | authorlink = Robert Heilbroner | title-link = The Worldly Philosophers | publisher = Simon & Schuster }}</ref> in the following way:

{{blockquote|I should... conclude rather differently. I should say that what we want is not no planning, or even less planning, indeed I should say we almost certainly want more. But the planning should take place in a community in which as many people as possible, both leaders and followers wholly share your moral position. Moderate planning will be safe enough if those carrying it out are rightly oriented in their minds and hearts to the moral issue.}}

Asked why Keynes expressed "moral and philosophical" agreement with Hayek's ''Road to Serfdom'', Hayek stated:<ref>{{cite web | access-date = 20 May 2008 | url = http://reason.com/hayekint.shtml | title = The Road from Serfdom | work = [[Reason (magazine)|Reason]] | date = July 1992 | last1 = Hazlett |first1 = Thomas W. | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081013182404/http://reason.com/hayekint.shtml|archive-date=13 October 2008 }}</ref>

{{blockquote|Because he believed that he was fundamentally still a classical English liberal and wasn't quite aware of how far he had moved away from it. His basic ideas were still those of individual freedom. He did not think systematically enough to see the conflicts. He was, in a sense, corrupted by political necessity.}}

According to some observers,{{who|date=November 2016}} Hayek felt that the post-World War II "Keynesian orthodoxy" gave too much power to the state, and that such policies would lead toward socialism.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Dransfield |first1 = Robert | last2 = Dransfield | first2 = Don | title = Key Ideas in Economics | publisher = Nelson Thornes | year = 2003 | isbn = 0-7487-7081-X | page = 81 }}</ref>

While [[Milton Friedman]] described ''The General Theory'' as "a great book", he argues that its implicit separation of [[Real versus nominal value (economics)|nominal from real magnitudes]] is neither possible nor desirable. Macroeconomic policy, Friedman argues, can reliably influence only the nominal.<ref name="Friedman">{{cite journal | url=https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_quarterly/1997/spring/friedman | title=John Maynard Keynes | journal=Economic Quarterly | publisher=[[Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond]] | date=Spring 1997 | author=Friedman, Milton | volume=83/2 | access-date=17 September 2016 | archive-date=18 September 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160918012521/https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_quarterly/1997/spring/friedman | url-status=live }}</ref> He and other monetarists have consequently argued that [[Keynesian economics]] can result in [[stagflation]], the combination of low growth and high inflation that developed economies suffered in the early 1970s. More to Friedman's taste was the ''Tract on Monetary Reform'' (1923), which he regarded as Keynes's best work because of its focus on maintaining domestic price stability.<ref name="Friedman"/>

[[Joseph Schumpeter]] was an economist of the same age as Keynes and one of his main rivals. He was among the first reviewers to argue that Keynes's ''General Theory'' was not a general theory, but a special case.<ref name="HarvardPeter">{{cite web | url = http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5626.html | title = Dividends from Schumpeter's Noble Failure | publisher = Harvard Business School | author = Thomas K. McCraw | date = 7 February 2009 | access-date = 21 June 2009 | archive-date = 2 June 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090602023622/http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5626.html | url-status = live }}</ref> He said the work expressed "the attitude of a decaying civilisation". After Keynes's death Schumpeter wrote a brief biographical piece ''Keynes the Economist''{{snd}}on a personal level he was very positive about Keynes as a man, praising his pleasant nature, courtesy and kindness. He assessed some of Keynes's biographical and editorial work as among the best he'd ever seen. Yet Schumpeter remained critical of Keynes's economics, linking Keynes's childlessness to what Schumpeter saw as an essentially short-term view. He considered Keynes to have a kind of unconscious patriotism that caused him to fail to understand the problems of other nations. For Schumpeter, "Practical Keynesianism is a seedling which cannot be transplanted into foreign soil: it dies there and becomes poisonous as it dies."<ref name="Schumpeter">{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jTDo58DZi1cC&q=The+New+Economics:+Keynes'+Influence+on+Theory+and+Public+Policy | title = The New Economics: Keynes's Influence on Theory and Public Policy | publisher = and Kessinger Publishing | author = Symour E Harris | author2 = Joseph Schumpter | trans-title = Keynes the Economist by Schumpter | pages = 73–101 | isbn = 978-1-4191-4534-6 | date = 1 March 2005 | access-date = 14 February 2022 | archive-date = 24 August 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210824182049/https://books.google.com/books?id=jTDo58DZi1cC&q=The+New+Economics%3A+Keynes%27+Influence+on+Theory+and+Public+Policy | url-status = live }}</ref> He "admired and envied Keynes, but when Keynes died in 1946, Schumpeter's obituary gave Keynes this same off-key, perfunctory treatment he would later give [[Adam Smith]] in the ''History of Economic Analysis'', the "discredit of not adding a single innovation to the techniques of economic analysis."<ref>Prophet of innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and creative destruction.</ref>

[[Ludwig von Mises]], an [[Austrian school of economics|Austrian economist]], describes a Keynesian system as believing it can solve most problems with "more money and credit" which leads to a system of "[[Inflation|inflationism]]" in which "prices (of goods) rise higher and higher."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Hazlitt |first1=Henry |title=The Critics of Keynesian Economics |last2=Von Mises |first2=Ludwig |publisher=Foundation for Economic Education |year=1995 |isbn=1-57246-013-X |pages=305–306, 314}}</ref> [[Murray Rothbard]] wrote that Keynesian-style governmental regulation of money and credit created a "dismal monetary and banking situation," since it allows for the [[Central bank|central bankers]] that have the exclusive ability to print money to be "unchecked and out of control."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-03-07 |title=The Mystery of Banking |url=https://mises.org/book/export/html/64045 |access-date=2024-04-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240307141212/https://mises.org/book/export/html/64045 |archive-date=7 March 2024 }}</ref> Rothbard went on to say in an interview that, "There is one good thing about [[Karl Marx|(Karl) Marx]]: he was not a Keynesian."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-03-07 |title=Interview with Murray Rothbard on Man, Economy, and State, Mises, and the Future of the Austrian School {{!}} Mises Institute |url=https://mises.org/austrian-economics-newsletter/interview-murray-rothbard-man-economy-and-state-mises-and-future-austrian-school |access-date=2024-04-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240307141218/https://mises.org/austrian-economics-newsletter/interview-murray-rothbard-man-economy-and-state-mises-and-future-austrian-school |archive-date=7 March 2024 }}</ref>

President [[Harry S. Truman]] was sceptical of Keynesian theorising. He told [[Leon Keyserling]], a Keynesian economist who chaired Truman's [[Council of Economic Advisers]]: "Nobody can ever convince me that government can spend a dollar that it's not got."<ref name="Cassidy2011"/>

===Views on race===
Some critics have sought to show that Keynes had sympathies towards [[Nazism]], and a number of writers have described him as [[antisemitic]]. Keynes's private letters contain portraits and descriptions, some of which can be characterised as antisemitic, while others as [[philosemitic]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Reder |first=Melvin W. |year=2000 |title=The Anti-Semitism of Some Eminent Economists |journal=History of Political Economy |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=833–856 |doi=10.1215/00182702-32-4-833 |s2cid=153960185 |url-access= |doi-access=}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Was Keynes Anti-Semitic?|journal=[[Economic and Political Weekly]]|volume=35|issue=6 May 2000|jstor=4409262|pages=1619–1624|last1=Chandavarkar|first1=A.|year=2000}}</ref>

Scholars have suggested that these reflect clichés current at the time that he accepted uncritically, rather than any racism.<ref name="Nina Paulovicova">{{cite web | url = https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/pi/article/viewFile/1591/1117 | title = The Immoral Moral Scientist. John Maynard Keynes | publisher = University of Alberta | author = Nina Paulovicova | access-date = 14 June 2009 | archive-date = 2 May 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100502234852/http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/pi/article/viewFile/1591/1117 | url-status = live }}</ref> On several occasions Keynes used his influence to help his Jewish friends, most notably when he successfully lobbied for [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] to be allowed residency in the United Kingdom, explicitly to rescue him from being deported to [[Anschluss|Nazi-occupied Austria]]. Keynes was a supporter of [[Zionism]], serving on committees supporting the cause.<ref name="Nina Paulovicova"/>

Allegations that he was racist or had totalitarian beliefs have been rejected by [[Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky|Robert Skidelsky]] and other biographers.<ref name="Cunningham"/> Professor Gordon Fletcher wrote that "the suggestion of a link between Keynes and any support of totalitarianism cannot be sustained".<ref name="K rev. and critics"/> Once the aggressive tendencies of the Nazis towards Jews and other minorities had become apparent, Keynes made clear his loathing of Nazism. As a lifelong pacifist he had initially favoured peaceful containment of [[Nazi Germany]], yet he began to advocate a forceful resolution while many conservatives were still arguing for appeasement. After the war started, he roundly criticised the Left for losing their nerve to confront [[Adolf Hitler]], saying:{{r|2003 Skidel|p=[https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_q4f4/page/586/mode/2up 586]}}

{{blockquote|The intelligentsia of the Left were the loudest in demanding that the Nazi aggression should be resisted at all costs. When it comes to a showdown, scarce four weeks have passed before they remember that they are pacifists and write defeatist letters to your columns, leaving the defence of freedom and civilisation to [[Colonel Blimp]] and the Old School Tie, for whom Three Cheers.}}