What’s in a name … and what isn’t? John Maynard Keynes
David M. Brinley for The Washington Post
What does it mean to be Keynesian? It was the British economist John Maynard Keynes who declared that when, like today, economic growth grinds to a standstill and businesses fail to provide enough jobs, governments have the ability — and the duty — to fill the gap.
But later, when business cycles and electoral cycles fell out of step, presidents disregarded Keynes’s warnings and kept their foot on the gas too long, reducing taxes, boosting spending and offering cheap credit to ensure reelection. The result was stagflation — a toxic mix of low growth and high prices.
Today, in the often deliberately misleading language of our bifurcated politics, “Keynesian” has become an insult — shorthand for spendthrift, wasteful, debt-ridden, elitist, socialist. In this sense, was Keynes a Keynesian? Was he deep in debt, a big-government socialist, a lifelong bureaucrat who profited from his handiwork? Hardly.
via What’s in a name … and what isn’t? John Maynard Keynes – The Washington Post.
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