John Maynard Keynes Quotes
Burke ever held, and held rightly, that it can seldom be right . . . to sacrifice a present benefit for a doubtful advantage in the future. . . . It is therefore the happiness of our own contemporaries that is our main concern
John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946, British Economist, Quoted in Robert Skidelsky, “True, Keynes cared little about the long run. But that wasn’t because he was gay, The Washington Post, May 12, 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Blair Administration issued a "Report" they had "obtained" supporting the American.
He and his Prime Minister, John Majors, had become so unpopular, that they were forced to resign by their own Conservative Party and never had to be voted out of office.
This is a fascinating historical quotation. The English Foreign Minister and sent a draft of his proposed policy of English involvement to make Spain more democratic to counteract the influence of France which was then England’s arch enemy. The French had a military-oriented right wing government. The Queen, although only 27 years old at the time, had a brilliant grasp of foreign policy and the sagacity of an elder statesman. (And women in the United Kingdom could not even vote.) She realized that once England was involved in nation building and backing one party in Spain, England would be responsible for whatever that party ended up doing, and yet England really could not control the situation. Corruption, violations of civil rights, impoverishment all might occur, and England would have to defend those things lest the French who would then support the opposition would gain an upper hand in a proxy war. The situation was very similar to the United States getting involved in Vietnam and supporting the South Vietnam government which, despite U. S. efforts to the contrary, was totally corrupt, inept, religiously discriminatory, and totally inept in providing good government to the people. A similar situation occurred with the American intervention in Afghanistan where the President operated a totally corrupt and inept government and we were forced to support him. On other occasions she goes even further and actually writes new copy of policies personally. Note that the formality of the time required that the Queen refer to herself in the third person and not the first.
This admonition of his applied not only to initiating war, but to increasing unemployment for a worthy purpose like controlling inflation. He sought solutions where pain was borne by tall if necessary, but not to particular subgroups (identifiable or not) to the degree that they would suffer badly. In general, we should not sacrifice some for the good of the whole without their volunteering, as in a volunteer army.
He was referring to water rights where short term agreements might have disastrous consequences for future generations. Under the WWI Peace Treaty the high court of Egypt was an International Court. President Wilson nominated Crabites to this court and he served there for 3 decades during which he became a world class expert in Middle Eastern affairs. The failure to have a long-term perspective was a Middle Eastern problem then and did not improve in the next century.
When it came to legislation that affected veterans, the members of Congress were in an all or nothing situation. If there was a bill to extend or improve a benefit for veterans, the member would be classified completely on how he/she voted on the singular issue. Begitch summed the dilemma for legislators well with this quote.
Although Great Britain had abolished slavery, British economic interests during the Civil War suffered because of the Northern blockade of the South. Much political opinion in England was hostile to the blockade policies of the Union. Bright, a great admirer and supporter of the United Sates and the Union cause was concerned that the United States might drift into War with Great Britain. His letter to Senator Sumner was written with the understanding that it would be in shared with President Lincoln, and it was actually read at a cabinet meeting.
“Ministers” in England are the members of Parliament who are party leaders of the majority party and members of the cabinet. The Prime Minister is also a member of Parliament unlike America where the executive officers are not members of Congress and we have separation of powers. In England, the executive branch, the legislature and the Supreme Court are all members of Parliament.
One of his theses was that harsh and cruel government was responsible for a large proportion of troubles in the world.
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, CB, FBA (5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles. One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, he produced writings that are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots. His ideas, reformulated as New Keynesianism, are fundamental to mainstream macroeconomics.
