Keynes, John Maynard (1883–1943)

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the wickedest of men will do the wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone, as John Maynard Keynes wrote, arguably the most influential economist of the early 20th century. Keynes' theories advocated government intervention in the economy to prevent acute unemployment and greatly helped shape President Roosevelt's New Deal strategy and other policies in countries gripped by the Great Depression. Despite his frequent sharp criticism of capitalism, Keynes is often credited with saving it by creating an alternative economic model that blunted the appeal of Marxism.

Born in 1883 to an elite British family, Keynes enjoyed an education at Eton and King's College at Cambridge. He was propelled directly into the civil service, and was stationed in colonial India. During World War I he returned to England to manage the war economy. Following the Treaty of Versailles, Keynes tasted his first major public controversy. He opposed extensive and punitive “reparations” against Germany arguing that the economic devastation would lead Europe back to war.

In 1921 Keynes returned to Cambridge and maintained a marathon pace producing numerous books and articles. Later in the decade, he began to develop the ideas that he is most identified with today: encouraging heavy public works employment and deficit spending. Keynes focused on the consequences of aggregate demand on unemployment. He reasoned that during depression and recession it was desirable to increase government spending and taxation, while boom times necessitated less government spending and possibly cuts. His gigantic General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money reached an extensive audience of politicians and common folk alike.

During the Great Depression, nearly every developed country in the world faced mass anti-poverty movements. Marxist organizations were strongly associated with them. Policymakers turned to Keynes to provide the theoretical basis to address the depression, and simultaneously, the anti-capitalist threat. Keynes' personal politics were left of center and his hatred of laissez-faire economics intense; however, his theories were in effect easy for any government, right or left, to use for their own ends. Adolf Hitler followed Keynes to a fault, initiating highway and construction programs in Third Reich Germany. The term Military Keynesianism refers to economies dependent on war and munitions industries to produce a strong economy,

Keynes, as the leader of the British Delegation to the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 participated in the birth of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). Ironically, many of the reforms that Keynes championed, with the underlying philosophy that human well-being could be protected through a strong public sphere of the economy are exactly what the IMF and WB have spent decades dismantling through austerity measures and privatization.

After a decade of failing health, John Maynard Keynes died in 1946.