[Marxism] Keynes: The "Revolutionary" Who Wasn't

["Politicus E." <epoliticus@xxxxxxxxx>]

The following extract is from an article, written by one Alejandro
Reuss, published on the Dollars and Sense website (3 June 2009).  I
enjoyed the concluding section, which I have reproduced below,
especially in view of the (most) recent deification of Keynes that has
been circulating for the past nine months or so.  The full article is
at http://bit.ly/eyXDq.
epoliticus

**********
[...]

This argument reflects the strong technocratic streak in Keynes’
thought. Keynes thought that the world should be governed by an
educated elite that, in his view, would stand above conflicting class
interests and govern in the public interest. He did not believe that
political, intellectual, or economic elites always acted in the best
interests of society as a whole, but he did believe that the right
elites could. Moreover, he certainly did not believe that ordinary
people could run society well, or should run it at all.

In The General Theory, Keynes frames his argument against “State
Socialism”—that is, against the comprehensive nationalization of the
“instruments of production”—as a caution against the “homogeneous or
totalitarian state.” Too much nationalization, he seems to suggest,
and you’re in Stalinist Russia (or Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy). His
argument against a socialism that would lift the working class to
power is different. Keynes famously wrote, in a rant against Marxism
in the essay “A Short View of Russia” (1925): “How can I adopt a creed
which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat
above the bourgeois and the intelligentsia who, whatever their faults,
are the quality in life and surely carry the seeds of all human
advancement?” That is not an argument against totalitarianism, but
against democracy.

Keynes’ certainly had no sympathy for the radically democratic ideas,
advocated by some socialists in his day and ours, that the principles
of self-government should not end at the door to the workplace, and
that no real democracy can exist in the political sphere as long as
the economic sphere is dominated by unelected captains of industry
(whether owners or managers). Keynes undoubtedly would have cringed at
the idea of allowing the “boorish proletariat” to decide how a factory
should be run, much less an entire economy. If ordinary people were
allowed to decide the fate of society, Keynes believed, their
ignorance and lack of refinement would stand in the way of “human
advancement.”

Keynes’ outlook was consistent with political democracy, in the sense
of a multiparty system with competitive elections, but not with a very
participatory version of it. He was even suspicious of labor-based
political parties that—unlike the elite that he imagined standing
above all class interests—he denounced as “class” parties. As
biographer Robert Skidelsky notes, Keynes believed society could be
ruled by an “interconnected elite of business managers, bankers, civil
servants, economists and scientists, all trained at Oxford and
Cambridge and imbued with a public service ethic.” In other words, he
thought it should be ruled by people rather suspiciously like him.
**********

-- 
"In the tender annals of Political Economy, the idyllic reigns from
time immemorial ... the present year of course always excepted."
-- A German refugee, circa 1867 --

http://epoliticus.wordpress.com/

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