{"id":607,"date":"2011-09-18T09:45:08","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T13:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.synapse9.com\/signals\/?p=607"},"modified":"2013-09-11T09:47:53","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T14:47:53","slug":"keynes-saw-through-his-fears-by-facing-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/keynes-saw-through-his-fears-by-facing-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Keynes saw through his fears… by facing them."},"content":{"rendered":"

An OP-Ed in today’s Sunday Review section of the NY Times,\u00a0by Sylvia Nasar,\u00a0Keynes: The Sunny Economist<\/a><\/span> missed the real source of Keynes ability to see silver linings where most others saw failure. \u00a0 Keynes faced economic failures having\u00a0studied how nature uses the end of one thing to begin another.<\/p>\n

He saw sunshine by seeing\u00a0through<\/span> the darkness,<\/h2>\n

not by denying it.<\/h2>\n

Sylvia,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fun to play up myths, but yours would be spoiled by the reality of a strange intellect like J M Keynes. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In order to see the \u201csunny side\u201d of things Keynes unabashedly faced the deepest darkness behind what ailed the economy.\u00a0\u00a0 He smashed or poked holes in the darkness he saw, as a way to find the light, rather than by clinging blindly to some faith in optimism, as you suggest, a kind of sunny silliness.<\/p>\n

\"Starry
To be alive in nature is itself, a world of bright light in a vast darkness<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You have not read Chapter 16 of The General Theory.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s quite obvious.\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019re in good company, of course, as virtually no one has. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Chapter 16 Keynes steps right into and through the deepest darkness, the end of the road for his own growth theory.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, there is also an extremely sunny side too, but if you don\u2019t face the \u201cdarkness\u201d of the natural facts at hand, you won\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n

Chapter 16 is the concluding chapter of his economic theory.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s on what a market economy must<\/span> to do to survive and thrive, at such time<\/span> when further growth becomes unprofitable.\u00a0 \u00a0No\u2026 he did NOT say to recommend throwing good money after bad, as environmental constraints made expanding investment persistently self-defeating and unprofitable.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what your mythical Keynes would supposedly have recommended recommend, just a merry debt spiral, clinging to a foolish blind faith in multiplying consumption as that comes to a natural end. \u00a0\u00a0What he actually said it that\u2019s the time to start spending your profits, on things of higher value than investing to put escalating demands on your economy and the earth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What he actually observed is at the end of growth a market economy needs to make good on the bounty of wealth that growth created.\u00a0\u00a0 Just like a seedling using up its seed, a growth economy at that point needs to use its seed wealth to put down roots.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s a switch in how it uses profits to create profits, \u00a0to creating earnings by spending earnings rather than compounding them. \u00a0\u00a0Adding profits to savings naturally becomes a suicidal accumulation of unproductive investment and debt.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the dark side he saw right clear through.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Just read Chapter 16<\/span>.<\/a> If you need help, read my discussion<\/a><\/span>, write me or call me.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019re not watching a movie, but physically running into the natural change at our limits of growth.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s truly tragic that the real Keynes is being overshadowed by the deeply false (popular) myth about him.\u00a0\u00a0 Promoting it you do a great disservice to us all.<\/p>\n

mn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An OP-Ed in today’s Sunday Review section of the NY Times,\u00a0by Sylvia Nasar,\u00a0Keynes: The Sunny Economist missed the real source of Keynes ability to see silver linings where most others saw failure. \u00a0 Keynes faced economic failures having\u00a0studied how nature uses the end of one thing to begin another. He saw sunshine by seeing\u00a0through the … Continue reading Keynes saw through his fears… by facing them.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching","category-econn","category-scitheory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2486,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions\/2486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}