Re: Keynes on the war economy

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

didn't a milder version of this plan actually happen? in the US, during WW2 workers accumulated more war bonds than ever before, so for many it wasn't true that they "owned nothing." This helped moderate the post-war recession. Then, based on their political power, they were able to get the GI Bill (help with education, housing), which helped create the prosperity of the 1950s, along with the warfare state, the building of freeways, etc.
Jim

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: michael [mailto:michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
	Sent: Tue 11/18/2003 8:33 PM 
	To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
	Cc: 
	Subject: [PEN-L] Keynes on the war economy
	
	

	Keynes was hardly a radical, but think of how far we are from Keynes'
	proposal today!
	
	
	Keynes, John Maynard. 1940, "United States and the Keynes Plan." The New
	Republic (29 July); reprinted in CW, 22, pp. 144-55.
	 145: "at the end of the war it is the profit-earning class which owns,
	in the shape of holdings in the national war debt, a claim on future
	production; which the wage-earning class, in spite of the extra work
	downs, owns nothing, having lost the right to consume now and having
	gained no rights to consumer hereafter."
	 144-5: He proposes a deferred pay, so that people will have something
	to show for their efforts after the war."
	 147: This deferred consumption can mitigate the possibility of a
	postwar depression.
	 149: "It seems politically impossible for a capitalist democracy to
	organize expenditure on the scale necessary to make the grand experiment
	which would prove my case -- except in war conditions."
	 150-1: The massive German war preparation shows how much unused
	capacity a market economy has.
	
	
	--
	
	Michael Perelman
	Economics Department
	California State University
	michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
	Chico, CA 95929
	530-898-5321
	fax 530-898-5901