The Age of Keynes (1971)

Book Review from the August 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Age of Keynes. A Biographical Study, by Robert Lekachman. Pelican, 30p.

For most of the thirty years just passed, the academic study of political economy has proceeded on the assertion of the Keynesians that it is not necessary to abolish the capitalist system, because it can be manipulated for the general good. By this they mean, that skilful handling of the economy can ensure that there will always be wage-labour for those who must avail themselves of it because they have no other means of subsistence, while the capitalist class will be able to enjoy untrammelled success to wealth as heretofore.

Considering that the edifice of academic economics erected in modern times is essentially nothing but a camouflage against the works of Marx, it is surely reasonable to hope that, in a biography of his principal adversary, some of his arguments would at least be touched upon in passing. But the hope is in vain. Throughout the book the only direct reference to Marx is a quotation from an essay written by Keynes in 1925, when he was old enough to know better, in which he makes a first class fool of himself by declaring, without any supporting argument worthy of the name, that ‘Capital’ is “without interest or application for the modern world”. The diatribe, including the abhorrence which “an educated, intelligent, decent son of Western Europe” must naturally feel for Marx and all his works, is here printed in full.

Is this what we are expected to accept as Keynes’ final criticism of Marx? Could he not do any better later in life? Did he not, at any time, state an opinion on the theory of surplus value? Is his modern biographer, an American professor of economics, not able to manage just one more bash at the much battered-about labour theory?

Obviously then there is little here to interest an educated intelligent worker, whether he happens to be a "decent son of Western Europe” or the son of Chinese sea cook, but there are some weird themes running through the book which it may be a pity to miss. The most revealing, perhaps, is based on the notion that Keynes’ theories can only be seen working properly in time of war. We are given a description of world economics in 1943; “economies rejoicing in buoyant demand, factories operating at capacity and overfull employment”.

As always with Keynesian economists the question of employment, other people’s employment, of course, not his own, is of anxious concern to this professor. “Making work” for other people, preferably at a factory bench, is an obsession with him. But perhaps the most revolting examples of capitalistic cant are the references to Keynes cleverness in gambling on the Stock Exchange.

It is a frightening thought that students of political economy, the understanding of which is of such overwhelming importance to every human being, still have to soil their minds with this sort of rubbish in universities today.

F.T.G.