On a Certain Blindness in Economic Theory: Keynes’s Giraffes and the Ordinary Textuality of Economic Ideas

Abstract

In the 1926 essay, “The End of Laissez-Faire,” J.M Keynes used the giraffe as a metaphor of both welfare and herd dynamics, in order to argue for the importance of wise government intercession into markets. This article conducts a close textual analysis of that essay, demonstrating how Keynes’ own choice of metaphor reveals the economist’s deeper seated, even latent imperial preferences and pre-commitments. In the end, it argues, Keynes’ idea of national welfare depended on a world where Britain maintained a vast multinational empire.

“In the days when everybody started fair, Best Beloved, the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt. …This was very bad for the Giraffe and the Zebra and the rest of them….” ~Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories.