By LEONARDO BOFF*
Keynes did not see the economy as something absolute in itself, but as a whole of human activities. He often showed himself to be a radical humanist and as such with a strong utopian bias.
Nowadays, due to Donald Trump's subversion of all world markets, the dominant topic is the economy and the effects of the tariff policies he has imposed. These are crazy measures, applied to all of humanity, to 180 countries, disrupting national economies and particularly harming the poor. Only people without a heart and without any sense of humanity can take measures of this nature.
It is in this context that I refer to the father of macroeconomics, John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). Considered one of the greatest economists of recent times, for whom the role of the State was to promote development, he helped to pull Europe out of the devastation of the Second World War and set the course for the global economy. He did not see the economy as something absolute in itself, but as a whole of human activities. He often showed himself to be a radical humanist and as such had a strong utopian bias.
I am referring to a text that is rarely cited. In a lecture in 1926, he said: “the divinities that preside over economic life cannot be anything other than evil geniuses; a necessary evil that, at least a century from now, will force us to believe in ourselves and in each one of us that loyalty is an infamy and that infamy is loyalty, because infamy is useful to us and loyalty is not.” In other words, he added, “humanity will reach a consensus that considers avarice, usury and prudence as indispensable to get us out of the tunnel of economic necessity and into the light of day.”[1]
“Only then will general well-being be achieved and it will be the time when our children and that is the meaning of my essay”Economic prospects for our children” They will finally understand that good is always better than useful.
“Then they no longer need to remember certain principles, the surest and least ambiguous of religion and traditional virtue: that avarice is a vice, that it is wicked to extort the benefits of usury, that the love of money is execrable.”
“Those who walk securely on the path of virtue and wisdom will be those who worry least about tomorrow. And once again we will come to value ends more than means and to prefer good to usefulness. We will honor those who taught us to welcome the present moment in a virtuous and joyful way, exceptional people who know how to savor immediate things, like the lilies of the field that neither weave nor spin.”
Even if the proposal of the eminent humanist economist has not yet been realized (will it be realized?) because we live under the dictatorship of vile money and a speculative economy that produces nothing but more money, leaving a large part of humanity in poverty and misery. You will realize and this will continue to be true that the essence of life is not in unlimited accumulation and excessive consumption. But the meaning of life consists in living life, enjoying it, reproducing it, celebrating it, sharing it with others. This is not given by the current economy. In a word, it is the useless that counts and not what is economically useful.
Surely the wise humanist and economist John Maynard Keynes revealed to us the true nature of the economy, understandable more by children than by adults.
Today we have lost this perspective and we are all hostages of the culture of capital that forces us to spend our lives and our time working, producing and consuming in the context of a perverse society, whose ideal is limitless accumulation and consumerism, a society that has transformed everything into a commodity, even the most sacred or vital things such as human organs.
If we continue down this path, no matter how many tariffs the insane Donald Trump imposes on all of humanity, we will probably encounter a great tragedy, eventually our own end. Deservedly, then, we have not fulfilled the purpose for which we were created: to live life and be grateful.
*Leonardo Boff is an ecologist, philosopher and writer. Author, among other books, of Caring for our common home: clues to delay the end of the world (Vozes). [https://amzn.to/3zR83dw]
Note
[1] John Maynnard Keynes. Perspectives économiques pour nos petits-enfants, em Essais sur la monnaie et l'économie: les cris de Cassandre. Paris, Payot 1971, p.140.
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