Reading Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism and this section caught my attention. He literally outlines a war between America and Japan in conjunction with national wars (as in wars against imperialism/hegemony, in our history this was resistance to Nazism in Europe) in Europe that delays the onset of socialism for decades.
He claims this is improbable, but he laid out it nonetheless. The predictive power of Marxism y'all; its wild to see it in action.
From today's standpoint, the last lines about how history can take giant leaps backward before advancing is surprisingly :bloomer: We've been unfortunate enough to live in a leap backward but that will change.
Keynes is a liberal and all, but his book about the Armistice and the incapacity of Germany to pay back the war reparations demanded is quite good. That something dramatic and destabilizing would come from the end of the first world war wasn't just clear to Marxists, but Lenin's foresight of a US-Japanese war in conjunction with a European war and how it would delay socialism severely really impressed me in its specificity.
Keynes was one of those old-school liberals who actually sat down and tried to make the math work. And he did eventually manage it. Even a bad engine can trundle along with a good mechanic.