too bad Keynes was basically like, "so let's just do it anyway, and only try to soften the blow a teensy bit"
Lets get nasty boys, really nasty with our nasty motives
Well, at least he was honest
Libertarians love to bitch about "Keynesian economics". I just realized it's been forever since I've even heard his name mentioned, not once since I left ancap circles.
But of course that's because Keynesianism is just neoliberalism and leftists correctly identify it as just a piece of the bourgeois system.
Edit - I've been corrected, Keynes' ideas were different and better. I'm misremembering my college econ courses.
Keynesianism is just neoliberalism
I don't know if that's completely fair. Keynesianism is slightly better than neoliberalism. At least it recognizes that people actually like, need money if they are going to live under capitalism.
Neoliberalism is a much more broad term than keynesianism, you can have keynesianism under neoliberalism even though that's not how early neoliberals theorized things and instead preferred austerity based economics during crisis.
Keynesianism isn't neoliberalism. It's certainly still capitalist, but neoliberalism was reaction against Keynesian economics.
The 2008 financial crisis proved that Keynesianism can exist within the neoliberal system for wealthy countries that make up the reserve currencies of the world. Prior to that the thinking was that printing money just resulted in rapid inflation, and that hasn't been the case.
Except QE is not a genuine Keynesian counter-cyclical fiscal policy.... I guess we could understand the two terms more "broadly", but at a certain point the meaning becomes so vague it would useless to talk about them
Keynesianism is a bourgeois economic theory, but it's explicitly not neoliberal in the Reagan-Thatcher-Chicago School sense
(Though to further muddy the waters, the so-called Neo-Keynesians are neoliberal; original Keynesian economics of Keynes, Galbraith, Kaldor et al. are quite different from Krugman and Mankiw)
Libertarians bitch about it but in the end Keynes was mostly right while their precious Austrian School economists are showing more and more every day how wrong they were. Keynes beat Friedman.
As others have said, I'm not sure it's fair to equate neoliberalism with Keynesianism. Keynes was basically right in pointing out how to maximize capitalism's effectiveness and arguably, how to make the benefits of capitalism spread to the most number people. I feel like if Keynes was alive today he'd probably jive well with someone like Yanis.
The "layman" libertarian argument for austrian economics over keynesianism is that keynesianism will always result in a massive upwards transfer of wealth under a capitalist system at least in the short term (as you can always tax it back).
Under the gold standard you didn't really see countries hyper inflate, and the value of an average person's wealth wasn't in decline relative to that of the ruling classes. However there was massive economic stagnation as the money supply couldn't keep up with changing rates of economic growth across different economies.
The thing about Keynes is that his ideas are probably the best way to keep a capitalist system from violently imploding.
Capitalism won't be kept away from violently imploding as long as the contradictions within it exist, which of course won't ever go away because they're an intrinsic feature of the system itself
Keyseian economics do cover the tracks of a substantial portion of the contradictions within capitalism. Namely, you can prevent virtually any large enterprise from going belly up this way.
The problem is that this then creates a massive upwards transfer of wealth from petite bourgeois/middle class to the ruling class, which is in many ways more likely to lead to fascism than socialism, as the working classes position can forever remain stagnant, without serious decline (although the pandemic really did change this, but a normal financial crisis wouldn't) under expansionary economics. The rise of socialism mostly happened during a period where the economic health of many countries had a massive rapid decline in the standard of living even for the working class.
Keyseian economics do cover the tracks of a substantial portion of the contradictions within capitalism. Namely, you can prevent virtually any large enterprise from going belly up this way
You realize the most basic and fatal contradiction of capitalism is the fact that workers and the capitalists have opposing interests, right? If there's class conflict, the system will eventually end, someday. How does keynesianism cover this?
Of course and I'm not denying that, although I did probably word that poorly. Name it's that a prerequisite of that is people working together inside these large enterprises that can then later be socialized. Should those enterprises no longer exist, there isn't any socialism that could then later come about for said workers.
Keynesianism does also protect the broader social contract within social democracy however which is the more important point there.
I was just arguing that it really can't be "kept away from imploding". A look at history and you realize it's inevitable
Also I'm glad you mentioned that we should not limit ourselves to "socialize the workplace", we should abolish it altogether, eventually. I see too many communists arguing and limiting themselves to "democratizing the workplace", not realizing the hell of capitalism is not that the firm has a boss, but the firm itself
Keynesianism has been applied to the neoliberal system, but early adopters of neoliberalism felt that keynesianism simply wouldn't work and supported austerity economics instead. Look at how the EU handled the financial crisis in 2008 compared to the US for example.
Deficit politics make a lot more sense when you view things through the above lense.
One of the clear benefits of state capitalism (i.e. government ownership of the nation's largest for profit enterprises), is that in the event of a financial crisis you can shove a bunch of money into them in a way that isn't just a massive upwards transfer of wealth.
In 2020, Keynes would absolutely be a Dengist.
Oh shit someone posted Keynes on main. Oh fuck I hear a tankie coming. If we freeze in place they can't see us. Their visual acuity is based on movement.
this is why they require a revolutionary vanguard, if it ever stops revolving, they become invisible
Fuck Keynes. This dude was all "capitalism SUCKS ASS but hey at least it won't suck so much in 50 years when productivity has more than doubled and the wealth will be passed on to the worker resulting in a 20 hour workweek. Just gotta wait it out till then." Well productivity has more than doubled since then (more than he predicted) and capitalism is still shit!
Still worth reading imo at least for the historical understanding. Certainly not the worst economist there was.
not @ you haha just keynes gets on my nerves. he was so close to getting it
"in the long run we are all dead". my man didnt realize how right he was
