The Conviction of Success

Abstract

‘… His remarkable constellation of qualities can but rarely have been matched.’¹ Thus, in his definitive biography entitled The Life of John Maynard Keynes, writes Sir Roy Harrod; and after enumerating some of the more salient of those qualities, he gives this further characterization of Keynes:

As an economist he sought to bring about the well-being of mankind in the abstract; as a man he craved for the well-being of those with whom he had contact. Thus his work was infused with a spirit of warm feeling towards all whom he taught or strove to persuade…. He put his hand on your shoulder and opened the book of life before you;…his delight in it was infectious, and his vision became your vision.²

Keynes unquestionably ranks as the most influential twentieth-century economist thus far. He has everywhere served as a patron saint of democratic liberals, who have through Keynesian measures sought to achieve continuing high employment and economic growth without the necessity of major structural changes in the society. With the aid of such measures, many non-Communist countries did indeed score spectacular economic successes particularly in the 1950s and 1960s.