John Maynard Keynes Quotes
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For my part I think that capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable.
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Businessmen have a different set of delusions from politicians; and need, therefore, different handling. They are, however, much milder than politicians, at the same time allured and terrified by the glare of publicity....You could do anything you like with them, if you would treat them (even the big ones) not as wolves and tigers, but as domestic animals by nature, even though they have been badly brought up and not trained as you would wish.
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There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.
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The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.
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Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
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By what modus operandi does credit restriction attain this result? In no other way than by the deliberate intensification of unemployment.
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I feel no shame at being found still owning a share when the bottom of the market comes…I would go much further than that. I should say that it is from time to time the duty of a serious investor to accept the depreciation of his holdings with equanimity and without reproaching himself. … An investor…should be aiming primarily at long-period results, and should be solely judged by these.
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Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
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Investing is an activity of forecasting the yield over the life of the asset; speculation is the activity of forecasting the psychology of the market.
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It is a grand book worthy of one’s hopes of you. A most powerful piece of well organized analysis with high aesthetic qualities, though written more perhaps than you see yourself for the cognoscenti in the temple and not for those at the gate. Anyhow I prefer it for intellectual enjoyment to any recent attempts in this vein.
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I conceive, therefore, that a somewhat comprehensive socialisation of investment will prove the means of securing an approximation to full employment.
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It economics is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique of thinking which helps its possessor to draw correct conclusions.
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How long will it be necessary to pay City men so entirely out of proportion to what other servants of society commonly receive for performing social services not less useful or difficult?
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If I am right in supposing it to be comparatively easy to make capital-goods so abundant that the marginal efficiency of capital is zero, this may be the most sensible way of gradually getting rid of many of the objectionable features of capitalism.
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One's knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself entitled to put full confidence.
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It is Enterprise which build and improves the world's possessions...If Enterprise is afoot, Wealth accumulates whatever may be happening to Thrift; and if Enterprise is asleep, Wealth decays, whatever Thrift may be doing.
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In the long run we are all dead.
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It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
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Silvio Gesell's chiefwork is written in cool and scientific terms, although it is run through by a more passionate and charged devotion to social justice than many think fit for a scholar. I believe that the future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell then from that of Marx.
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To suggest social action for the public good to the city London is like discussing The Origin of Species to a Bishop sixty years ago.
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It is impossible that the intention of the entrepreneur who has borrowed in order to increase investment can become effective except in substitution for investment by other entrepreneurs which would have occurred otherwise at a faster rate than the public decide to increase their savings...
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I'd rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.
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The mechanism of reaching equilibrium by means of a rising cost of living, which is vainly pursued by a rising level of wages, will be described in the next chapter. But it is admitted on all hands that this is the worst possible solution.
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For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.