"The question is whether we are prepared to move out of the nineteenth century laissez-faire state into an era of liberal socialism, by which I mean a system where we can act as an organized community for common purposes and to promote social and economic justice, whilst respecting and protecting the individual - his freedom of choice, his faith, his mind and its expression, his enterprise and his property" (Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, volume XXI, p. 500).
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Also, from the General Theory (one of last chapters):
ReplyDelete“I conceive... that a somewhat comprehensive socialisation of investment will prove the only means of securing an approximation to full employment." And, "It is not the ownership of the instruments of production which it is important for the state to assume....If the state is able to determine the aggregate amount of resources devoted to augmenting the instruments and the basic rate of reward to those who own them, it will have accomplished all that is necessary.”
Chapter 24 - section III
DeleteI have been answering "Keynes is a socialist" arguments recently.
Ought I, then, to join the Labour Party? Superficially that is more attractive. But looked at closer, there are great difficulties. To begin with, it is a class party, and the class is not my class. If I am going to pursue sectional interests at all, I shall pursue my own. When it comes to the class struggle as such, my local and personal patriotisms, like those of every one else, except certain unpleasant zealous ones, are attached to my own surroundings. I can be influenced by what seems to me to be justice ad good sense; but the Class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie. - (Keynes, J. M., am I a Liberal?)
ReplyDeleteKeynes was referring to liberal socialism and this was said a few years after the quote you posted.
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