John Maynard Keynes Quotes

We now consider as fundamental economic functions of the state, many duties that were left a generation ago to chance.

I clearly believe a lot more than some of my coalition colleagues - Tories - in redistribution and using the tax system for that purpose. I also believe in the government having an active role in the economy, which is having an industrial strategy. I'm not a believer in laissez-faire.

I think government actually does create jobs.

We have passed the time of ... the laisser-faire [sic] school which believes that the government ought to do nothing but run a police force.

Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.

No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil.

Most countries choose to have government run the economy.

It's very important that the government is close to the business community and that we understand their concerns. But at some point, the government needs to be a government.

The Conservative party is at its strongest when it's not the party that says there is no role for government and the state should just get out of the way. That is not a strand of Conservative thinking that, by itself, is enough.

Today we see how utterly mistaken was the Milton Friedman notion that a market system can regulate itself... Everyone understands now, on the contrary, that there can be no solution without government.

The state has an offensive and defensive role to play as promoter of industrial policies, as regulator and as shareholder.

I'm against using Petrobras to combat inflation.

Asking the government to fix our economy is like asking an editor to fix a movie, but in this case, the editor's not even of one mind.

Paternalism is the method of government activism most amenable to an impoverished public sector.

The whole New Deal was in a sense just a series of public options, some more optional than others, that offered government as an alternative to the often-flawed private market.

President Coolidge said, 'I don't want the Government to go into business.' Well, if I was Mr. Coolidge I wouldn't worry over that. The Government never has been accused of being a business man.

I would prefer the [USA] government to be the policeman and not the businessman.

If, for example, existing government intervention is minor, we shall attach a smaller weight to the negative effect of additional government intervention. This is an important reason why many earlier liberals, like Henry Simons, writing at a time when government was small by today's standards, were willing to have government undertake activities that today's liberals would not accept now that government has become so overgrown.

Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.

Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New Dealers to say "But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time.

This, by the way, is the welfare state in action: Its a whole bunch of special interest groups screwing consumers and taxpayers, and making them think they're really benefiting.

Mainstream economic theories popular in the last several decades have tended to downplay the government's role in markets and to increase skepticism about even that more limited role. Austerity, particularly in Europe, has added to the problem. It has not worked, even on its own terms.

I support the state, but not the state-run economy. The state should intervene only to create the conditions necessary for the private sector to thrive.

The rearing of children is considered too important to be left to the individual and should be the responsibility of the state.

I've seen a lot of government try to solve problems, and it didn't work. And my view is that the right course for America is to have someone who understands how the economy works who will passionately get America back on track.