John Maynard Keynes, was everything I despise manifest in a single human being. He was brazen, arrogant and deceitful. In all of his endeavors, especially sexual, he sought power and dominance over others by sometimes cruel and coercive means. His academic works deliberately misquote and misrepresent his colleagues and forebears. He used his charisma to incite his pupils to psychologically destroy a rival economics professor. He achieved his station through nepotism and trickery. He was a liar, a fraud, a racist, a fascist, a totalitarian sympathizer and a poly-sexual psychopath. Everything he ever did was to further his own desires for power and praise. He believed he was born to the superior class of patriarchs, with superior intellect and judgment. He would neutralize any perceived threat without remorse and with pleasure.
Truly this is all an ad hominem assault on the man's character and does not attack his theories, as any decent academic would do. But, as Rothbard asserted in his analysis of the man, an understanding of Keynes the person, does help understanding where his doctrine came from.
I have no real intention of discussing Keynesian theory in this post, but I did want to discuss where ideologies, and as Roger calls them "world views" might come from.
The basis of Keynesian dogma is that there are three classes of human beings; Consumers, Investors and the Elites. The Consumer's sole purpose is to consume, they are dull and cannot think for themselves. Investors can think, and their thoughts provide the capital for the Consumers to devour. This is where wealth comes from. But Investors, for all their intelligence, are paranoid and irrational, they run from industry if they fear they'll lose money. This is where the government comes in. The Elites, with their benign wisdom, can compensate by investing public funds in crucial industries. Only the government and their employed academics can keep the wheels of economy turning indefinitely. Keynes firmly believed that it was not the size and scope of government that effected the economy, but the competence of the government experts. Here is a good point to remind that Keynes believed himself the perfect expert. Conveniently, if his ideas were adopted, he would have supreme power over the governance of the economy, as he believed himself the supreme economist and being. He often asserted that immediate ends were all that mattered to him, and the future was a problem he could solve later.
I would say that this is something he applied to every part of his life. His early days at Cambridge were spent deconstructing and destroying, in his own mind, the ideas of morality and principle. He considered right and wrong to be abstract that he could ignore if he so pleased. He was a self confessed "immoralist" and instant gratification was his in effect his ideology.
This is the "world view" of a psychopath. Nothing more or less. It is obvious that other people appeared as merely ghostly images, not at all connected to him by empathy. Human Action appeared to be nothing but an illogical abstract to him. All a psychopath can relate to is himself, he has no understanding of motive or means, beyond urge and fulfillment. This is where his ideas came from. His ideology came from his need to fulfill and justify his own urges and desires. The logical structure of his mind was no different to any other functioning human being, he merely did not develop beyond the childish stage of his personal evolution.
The thoughts and theories of John Maynard Keynes are currently the conventional wisdom in handling this economic crisis. In a time when the left is blaming the chaos on the greed and heartlessness of financial executives, they are pushing the dogma of a man purely motivated by personal gain. Not only is this ironic, it's going to lead to disaster and economic ruin. Keynes understanding of Human Nature and Action were crippled by his pathological disorder.
If there is anything I look forward to after this disaster, it is that the thoughts and theories of this despicable creature will be forever denounced by humanity as a whole... Hopefully.
2 comments:
This post makes me wonder what you believe it is to be human.
What assumptions have you made about the nature of humans?
What assumptions have you made about the nature of thought?
I should probably clear up what I mean when I say Human Action. In this sense I'm referring to anyone of Homo-sapien decent who is not rendered in a vegetative state, and the Actions they take.
By Action, I mean any action where a decision has been made. So after any thought, of any form, has occurred.
After this has been defined it holds logically, in all cases no matter how extreme, that a human being "Acts" toward achieving any goal (known or otherwise).
No assumptions are needed, and my personal beliefs don't hold any bearing.
I would equate this to being similar to the first principles of calculus, or even 1+1=2. A logical, irrefutable truth.
A problem for many psychopaths is an inability to empathize and see this fact. They know they have reasons for doing things, but struggle with comprehending that other people do as well. In many cases this can lead to a sense of superiority or otherness, which is easy to derive from many of Keynes' statements throughout his career.
I do wish this to be considered a journal post, as mental disorder is kinda key to Madman. To add to that, my frustration has died and I'm back on with the tedium of college life.
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