Keynes

A dictum of Lord Keynes: “In the long run we are all dead.” I do not question the truth of this statement; I even consider it as the only correct declaration of the neo-British Cambridge school.

Planning for Freedom, p. 7

It is the typical policy of après nous le déluge. Lord Keynes, the champion of this policy, says: “In the long run we are all dead.” But unfortunately nearly all of us outlive the short run. We are destined to spend decades paying for the easy money orgy of a few years.

Omnipotent Government, p. 252

For what many people have admiringly called Keynes’s “brilliance of style” and “mastery of language” were, in fact, cheap rhetorical tricks.

Planning for Freedom, p. 55

The unprecedented success of Keynesianism is due to the fact that it provides an apparent justification for the “deficit spending” policies of contemporary governments. It is the pseudo-philosophy of those who can think of nothing else than to dissipate the capital accumulated by previous generations.

Planning for Freedom, p. 71

Keynes did not teach us how to perform the “miracle . . . of turning a stone into bread,” but the not at all miraculous procedure of eating the seed corn.

Planning for Freedom, p. 71

What he really did was to write an apology for the prevailing policies of governments.

Planning for Freedom, p. 69

The essence of Keynesianism is its complete failure to conceive the role that saving and capital accumulation play in the improvement of economic conditions.

Planning for Freedom, p. 207

They [Keynesians] blithely assume that the state has unlimited means at its disposal.

Planning for Freedom, p. 90

After 15 million human beings had perished in the war, the foremost statesmen of the world were assembled to give mankind a new international order and lasting peace . . . and the British Empire’s financial expert was amused by the rustic style of the French Prime Minister’s footwear.

Planning for Freedom, p. 56

In old fashioned language, Keynes proposed cheating the workers.

Economic Policy, p. 70

Keynes did not add any new idea to the body of inflationist fallacies, a thousand times refuted by economists. His teachings were even more contradictory and inconsistent than those of his predecessors who, like Silvio Gesell, were dismissed as monetary cranks. He merely knew how to cloak the plea for inflation and credit expansion in the sophisticated terminology of mathematical economics.

Human Action, p. 787; p. 793

The fallacies implied in the Keynesian full-employment doctrine are, in a new attire, essentially the same errors which [Adam] Smith and [Jean Baptiste] Say long since demolished.

The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 464

Keynes did not refute Say’s Law. He rejected it emotionally, but he did not advance a single tenable argument to invalidate its rationale.

Planning for Freedom, p. 70