Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren

by John Maynard Keynes

1930: Η οικονομική κατάρρευση που γνώρισαν το 1929 οι Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες έχει αρχίσει να απλώνει σύννεφα απαισιοδοξίας πάνω από την Ευρώπη, χωρίς κανένας να φαντάζεται ακόμα ποιες ακριβώς θα είναι οι συνέπειές της, και ο Κέυνς γράφει ένα μικρό δοκίμιο για να προτρέψει τους συμπατριώτες του να μην υποκύψουν στην απαισιοδοξία αυτή, προλέγοντας το μέλλον τους: Πιστεύει ότι μέσα στα εκατό επόμενα χρόνια ο πλούτος που προκύπτει σταθερά από την επένδυση του ήδη συσσωρευμένου κεφαλαίου θα είναι αρκετός για να καλυφθούν οι βασικές (οι απόλυτες, όπως τις ονομάζει) ανάγκες, και να απελευθερωθεί ο άνθρωπος, για πρώτη φορά στην Ιστορία, από το άχθος της εργασίας.Τα εκατό χρόνια κοντεύουν να εξαντληθούν και, αντίθετα απ’ ό,τι ήλπιζε ο Κέυνς, ο homo economicus έχει απλώσει παντού τα πλοκάμια του. Και το μικρό κείμενο αυτού του τόμου διαβάζεται ως το όνειρο μιας άλλης εποχής, ενώ ζούμε πια σε έναν κόσμο ακαθόριστης ή ανομολόγητης ταυτότητας, όπου η ιδιωτικότητα απορροφά όλο και περισσότερο τα παλιά ηθικά και πολιτικά περιεχόμενα εξουδετερώνοντάς τα, και όπου η ηθική γίνεται αισθητική των ιδιωτικών επιλογών και τέχνη του βίου, ενώ η πολιτική παύει να είναι πολιτική για να γίνει η δυναμική διαχείριση μιας πληθύος ιδιωτών.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Essays, Philosophy

12 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1987

About the author

John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes (CB, FBA), was an English economist particularly known for his influence in the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics.

Keynes married Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova in 1925.

NB: Not to be confused with his father who also was an economist. See John Neville Keynes.

Reviews

[JEAVONNA · Rating 5 out of 5]

A second read. This ninety years old and still appropriate. A lot of what he predicted came true. We are not quite there yet, but it’s interesting how close we are to where he said we would be.

[Jakub · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most surprising part is that it is not surprising. That means Keynes was able to make a pretty good guess about future (now) during bad times.

[Jan Záhumenský · Rating 5 out of 5]

Naprosto skvělý, nadčasový a neuvěřitelný. Neuvěřitelný v tom smyslu, že otec moderní ekonomie tu opovrhuje kapitalismem jako nutným zlem potřebným k vyvedení nás z věčného zápasu o život.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

No es una predicción exacta pues, siglo tras siglo se demuestra que el futuro es impredecible en ciertos temas y, más aún, dependiendo de qué rango de tiempo se quiera observar enmarcando un fenómeno recursivo o no, pero si se observa el espectro y temas en el cual Keynes esta hablando... es bastante acertado... al menos para ponernos a pensar un rato.

Las frases con que me quedo:

1.
"Estamos siendo castigados con una nueva enfermedad: el paro tecnológico. Esto significa desempleo debido a nuestro descubrimiento del los medios para economizar el uso del factor trabajo, sobrepasando el ritmo con el que podemos encontrar nuevos empleos para el trabajo disponible.

Pero esto es una fase temporal del desajuste. A largo plazo, la humanidad está resolviendo su problema económico."

Esto si que esta muy acertado (pero ¡cómo estamos sufriendo todos esto, en carne propia¡ ¿no? (y mas con el inesperado y fuera de cualquier sistema de acción/reacción: COVID-19)).

2.
"Ahora bien, es verdad que las necesidades de los seres humanos parecen insaciables, pero se dividen en dos clases:

las necesidades absolutas en el sentido de que las experimentamos cualquiera sea la situación de nuestros semejantes, y las que son relativas, cuando las sentimos solamente si su satisfacción nos eleva y nos hace sentirnos superiores a ellos.

Las necesidades de la segunda clase, aquellas que satisfacen el deseo de superioridad, pueden ser verdaderamente insaciables.

Cuanto más alto es el nivel general, más altas son aquellas todavía. Pero esto no es tan cierto respecto de las necesidades absolutas."

Dentro del capitalismo, esto se vive como una casta superior (anhelable por todos, hasta por los que lo tienen todo) de humanos por dar una prioridad al dinero por el dinero, erróneamente auto justificado (casi como mandato divino (para mi, y puedo estar equivocado pero es fetichismo visto profundamente... o al menos el dinero es lo más fetichista que existe pues a cualqueira lo acerca fácilmente a una devoción de lo material abruptamente por medio de convenciones sociales antiguas, nuevas o reforzadas))... esto se ve (sufre) ahora en todo el mundo.

3.
"Por primera vez desde su creación, el hombre se encontrará con su problema real y permanente: cómo usar su libertad respecto de los afanes económicos acuciantes. Como ocupar el ocio que la ciencia y el interés compuestos le habrán ganado para vivir sabia y agradablemente bien."

En hipótesis esto iba bien, a tirones y jalones como un todo... pero ya nos separamos mucho de esto y tenemos, entre muchas otras cosas triviales/ y de mucha importancia la mismo tiempo: identity politics", como ejemplo, o como le digo yo más fácilmente "lucha libre a la Vince McMahon" en política, donde todo es real porque sí esta sucediendo realmente, pero a su vez... no (no es trascendental), donde todo se hace real ante nuestros ojos (realidad) pero el 99% es simulacro y simulación para llegar a esa realidad (Jean Baudrillard) provenience de Big Datas y Think Tanks (los que se pasan de inteligentes actualmente) que tratan de convertir esos datos, e información, en algún tipo de conocimiento acotado por la realidad del momento y sus oportunidades para moldear nuevas realidades pre-diseñadas.

4.
"En el futuro, durante muchos años, el viejo Adán será tan fuerte dentro de nosotros, que todo el mundo necesitará hacer algún trabajo, si quiere sentirse satisfecho. Haremos más cosas para nosotros mismos que lo que es corriente en el rico de hoy, que solamente se alegra cuando tiene pequeños deberes, tareas y rutinas."

Pudo haber sido así pero nooooo... es mejor mantener el cuello apretado de los trabajadores (naciones enteras) para seguirles exprimiendo la vida por medio de créditos bancarios. Aún así, con todo que la realidad no sea así, en principio, Keynes no esta mal.

5.
Podremos permitirnos el atrevimiento de dar al motivo monetario su verdadero valor, el amor al dinero como posesión, a diferencia del amor al dinero como un medio para gozar de los placeres de la vida será reconocido por lo que es: una morbosidad algo repugnante, una de esas propensiones semidelictivas, semipatológicas. [...]

[...] Por supuesto que todavía habrá muchas personas con pretensiones insatisfechas que perseguirán ciegamente la riqueza, a menos que puedan encontrar algún sustitutivo.
Pero el resto de nosotros ya no tendrá ninguna obligación de aplaudirles y animarles."

Estamos mooooooy lejos de esto. Aunque, repito, en principio Kaynes no esta mal, sólo que muchos se "pasan de inteligentes" y no van a dejar que te des cuenta de esto.

Buenisima lectura Sr. Keynes, espero que sirva de reflexion para la crisis económica que nos viene por muchos factores geopolíticos en este periodo de tiempo: Agosto 3, 2020.



¡Paz y caridad entre nosotros!

[Rana Habib · Rating 4 out of 5]

2030 (100 years since Keynes wrote this essay) is in 4.5ish years.

Some countries are already inching toward a 3/4 day work week (a little more than 15 hours but less than 40). Tech has advanced enough that most jobs are automated & it’s become easier than ever to start a business, with little to no additional manpower (thanks to AI). Because advancements in tech, people arguably have more time, and are less work-centric and more hobbies-centric; there has definitely been a shift in prioritizing life over work.

Some things worth considering:

- I think recent tech advancements, in the last decade or so, have advanced horizontally instead of vertically. Instead of innovation pushing the needle forward, it has only pushed it outward; “innovative” tech exists but it’s nothing new or groundbreaking — just slight improvements of things that existed before (ex. Generative AI is incredibly innovative, but the result has been a lot of random AI companies that don’t solve *real* problems)

- Say there is a 15 hour work week and most of the labour has now shifted to tech, does that reduce yearly earnings for employees? They’re technically working less. And if that’s the case, can a 15 hour work-week salary keep up with increasing standard of living as a result of tech? I’m not an economist but I anticipate there’d have to be no reduction in salary despite less hours worked to keep everything afloat.

- Keynes loosely writes about the decreasing importance of money in society. I don’t think that’s the case — yet. People still really value money, using it as a yardstick for determining wealth and success. Unless cryptocurrencies change this in the next 5 years? Idk now I’m just thinking out loud.

Good essay. Read it. It’ll make u think.

[W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essay Available Here: http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ11...

A short essay by Keynes on the future of economic prosperity—what happens when, through technology and compounding interest, “the economic problem” is solved? This is a great 2025 ‘AI is taking our jobs’ read if you want an optimistic take on things.

The essay is thought provoking and endlessly quotable. Here are just a few:

——

“The ‘purposive’ man is always trying to secure a spurious and delusive immortality for his acts by pushing his interests in them forward into time. He does not love his cat, but his cat’s kittens; nor, in truth, the kittens, but only the kittens’ kittens, and so on forward forever to the end of cat-dom.”

——

“When the accumulation of wealth is not longer of high social importance, […] we shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession—as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life—will be recognized for what it is: a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.”

——

“But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years [six more years now that it’s 2024] we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.”

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautiful essay. Keynes gets straight to the point in addressing his economic vision of the future. With little doubt, due to advancements in technology Keynes predicted that our age would be experiencing prosperity that those who have come before us have never known. Since the times of Adam, people have had to toil away at work in order to sustain their life.

MOST people for MOST of history have spent MOST of their time Working for Food and Shelter.
This would no longer be the case, not just for a select few of the aristocracy, but for the majority of people in Developed nations around the world.

This future was inevitable according to Keynes, if we could ensure 4 conditions
1. Control population growth
2. Avoid wars and civil conflict
3. Trust science
4. Produce more than we consume

These four conditions may seem simple at first glance but with further inspection we see our current age still struggling in many of these areas. Particularly the trust in science has been skeptical at best and nihilistic at worst over the recent years.

It is still to be seen, whether Keynes will be proven right. I would wager that his thesis is on the whole correct, his timing however, may need a little adjustment. Our own age may soon provide the answers to the questions Keynes posed in his Seminal essay of 1930.

[Mariko Sonobe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este libro, nos da puntos importantes de la vida de Keynes, sus estudios, ideologías e incluso su clase social la cual influía en gran medida en sus decisiones. El libro habla de aquellos acuerdos que fueron resultados de la influencia del keynesianismo. Y lo importante que son sus escritos, incluso después de su muerte, para el mundo actual.

Son una recopilación de ensayos que nos permiten reflexionar el por qué es importante cambiar o mejorar el sistema económico actual.

El primero muestra con certeza unos cambios que pasarán dentro de 100 años, pero estos casi 100 años después no se han dado. Definitivamente las guerras y enfermedades han tenido mucho que ver.

La siguiente parte del texto nos propone unos principios básicos económicos desde el punto de vista de Keyness e incluso muy usados ahora....

El último ensayo es en base a sus vacaciones en Rusia, y nos da un punto interesante del partido Lenista y sus proyecciones en un futuro.

[z]

super brief and comprehension skills leave much to be desired. read againzzz

- technological change and improving standard of living
- short term unemployment and dislocation
- capital accumulation and interest compounding
- economic problem is being solved: absolute needs can be satisfied (relative might never be)
- work vs leisure: think the former is intrinsically rewarding and fulfilling even if we don’t /haaave/ to do it
- not fond of pursuing wealth for its own sake - see it as a means to an end

[Addie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a hopeful old man, Keynes was! The optimism represented in this essay for what 50-100 years of socioeconomic development in the twentieth century US was going to bring for the grandchildren of the Greatest Generation is truly heartwarming, is now devastatingly misplaced.

[Nico Battersby · Rating 4 out of 5]

An encouraging read until you remember we diverged from Keynes' predicted reality to nightmare reality.

[David Fitzgibbon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting read, especially in our current times.

While we're coming up to some of the same possibilities in our times, could we make a better attempt at it?

[Sketcher Ridpath · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live for todays jam 🙏

[George]

I wonder how much of this optimism Keynes retained after returning back from Bretton Woods agreements. Probably, he thought that a future crisis will give the chance for even better architecture.

[Sohail Nijas]

Trying to get out of a rut with some light-heavy Sunday fare, got to miss how poetic the prose of the yesteryears was.

[João Pedro Lopes · Rating 2 out of 5]

https://medium.com/@jphpwii/economic-...

[Bryan Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kinda hilarious how on point he is about many of the general concepts.
Reaffirming that leading a life of leisure doesn't have to be viewed as wasteful or overly selfish, as many today detest the hedonistic lifestyles of the young and financially free.

'we have been trained too long
to strive and not to enjoy'

Unlike some of the mentions in the book, I have no desire to simply sit back and enjoy life. I'm hungry for more growth, knowledge, action, novelty.

'Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his
permanent problem-how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares,
how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won
for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well. '

I have quite a few friends who struggle incredibly with simply enjoying. 8 figure net worths and younger than 40 and they simply can't sit back and chill - but always move forward in economic pursuits. Others who squander their earnings on the fanciest cars, houses, food, vacations... when I don't see it bringing them any more joy and does nothing more to ensure that they will continue working for the rest of their lives if they spend 95% of what they make - no matter if that is 2k/mo or 20k/mo

'The pace at which we can reach our destination of economic bliss will be
governed by four things-our power to control population, our determination to
avoid wars and civil dissensions, our willingness to entrust to science the
direction of those matters which are properly the concern of science, and the
rate of accumulation as fixed by the margin between our production and our
consumption; of which the last will easily look after itself, given the first three.'

1 - population is declining and will continue to do so as gdp/capita rise. Lots of kids are great as free labor if you live on a farm. They turn into expensive conversation pieces in urban areas.
2 - cross our collective non nuclear fingers
3 - science has been bastardized, but still maintains a general positive trajectory
4 - As I stated above we can always get lured into capitalistic dreams of spending at or beyond our means, no matter what those means are.

'Meanwhile there will be no harm in making mild preparations for our destiny,
in encouraging, and experimenting in, the arts of life as well as the activities of
purpose. '
Holla

[B R · Rating 3 out of 5]

A remarkable essay written in 1930 and becoming ever more relevant by the minute. I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while but was moved to do so by another book that I’m currently reading: Zerilli’s A Citizen’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence (review forthcoming). In one of the later chapters of the latter text, the author looks into the question of technological unemployment, a prospect that is looking increasingly likely with current advances in artificial intelligence, and whether the implications are all gloomy, and if so, how we could make ourselves at home in a world without work. And this is where Keynes comes in: what he foresaw (barring annihilation and civilisational collapse) was the attainment of a solution to the economic problem: the problem of trying to find ways in which to meet our needs as individuals and a species in a world full of competition and finite resources. He argues that the solution to this problem is on the horizon, chiefly due to advances in technology, science, and the resulting efficiencies in the production of goods needed for living. In such a world, argues Keynes, the problem would not be so much that of finding ways to survive, a world that values purposiveness and ambition, but that of curing boredom: mastering the art of life itself by finding ways to make the most of the present moment, and to cultivate one’s talents. In ways, it feels almost absurd to be writing about this, particularly given the plight of the unlucky all over the world, ranging from those experiencing war and famine, to others experiencing crippling poverty and homelessness (and many both). Yet, sadly enough, we seem to have already acquired the needed prosperity to end all of this for once: though it may very well turn out that the unfortunate will continue to suffer, and those of us who are luckier will squander the chances of us all through the mad pursuit of potentially civilization ending technology like advanced AI. To realise this possibility, we will really need to get a grip on ourselves.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this essay Keynes argued that automation eventually will make most jobs redundant. In fact he predicts that about the year 2000 the average Briton would only not to work 4 hours per week.

And he was right ... at least about the economic growth. If you are prepared to live by the same standards that were average in the 1950s, then you actually can cut your costs and your work hours a great deal.

The problem is that we moderns have developed lifestyles that are absurdly lavish by the standards of the 1950s. Annual trips abroad, (occasionally half way round the planet) a third car, old age supported by intense medical care, keeping people alive who do not have immune systems (via taxes), everybody getting a university education (even if they end up as make up artists), routine visits to restaurants, four fashion seasons a year, plastic surgery, a new portable super-computer every second year ... et cetera, et cetera.

Then we have the issue that what could have been free time is eaten up by stuff that is neither work nor leisure, like unemployment and education (WHY do you need a university degree to work at kindergarten?)

If you are able to ignore the group pressure you can ignore fashion, the allure of Thailand, becoming a bike-geek and everything else. Then and only then you can fulfill Keynes's prophecy.


Post script
I wonder, will the people a hundred years from now average 50 000 dollars a month, but feel they MUST work 45 hours a week, so they can afford the stuff everyone else has, like getting an artificial penis if your female and a vulva if your male (so you can experience both kinds of sex), monthly trips to the other side of the world, and just once in your life afford going to Mars.

[Michele Bergadano · Rating 2 out of 5]

20% di idee interessanti, ma il restante è intriso di moralismo e d'invidia verso chi effettua investimenti.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The economic problem is not the permanent problem of the human race."

[Valdemar Gomes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wrong, sad and wrong.