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Keynes is associated with the quote “in the long run we are all dead.” On its own, it’s pithy and reasonable, and a good response to people to try to plan too far into the future. Yet, I couldn’t help but think today, in view of economic policies that he would seem to favor bringing collapse around the world, “Well, maybe you’re dead Mr. Keynes, and whomever you were speaking to is also dead, but I’m here along with billions of other people witnessing the end-game of your policies.
It also occurred to me, as unfair as it may sound, that Keynes had no children. So two points come to mind.
1- It’s very easy to think of the world after we’re gone as being relatively unimportant when we have no skin in the game (usually in the form of children we love). A good economic policy should consider the world beyond the time we ourselves our dead. It should consider our children and grandchildren.
2- Keynesian based policies of liberal government expenses, as Europe has shown, can go very well for several decades before the piper calls and the darkness is ushered in. The Europeans, and the US to a lesser degree (so far), have been living very well by borrowing against the future of their children and grandchildren. So, for many years, from the 1960s through the turn of the millenium, things looked pretty good for the enlightened European welfare state. It was “working.” But of course, that’s because the time-scale we use to measure success in these things is so short, and mostly based on 4 year election cycles at best. It takes decades to see where the policy really takes us, and by the time that truth is revealed most of those who enjoyed the benefits of the policy will be dead.
This reminds me of the Chinese diplomat in the 1970′s, when asked whether he thought the French Revolution was a success, replied “It’s too soon to tell.”
There’s something to that, and we should well consider things that happen when we are all dead – but when our descendents may well have to clean up a mess we made. Keyne’s concept of the “long run” is way underestimated. We in the west think of the long run as being… well, until we are all dead. The very least we could do is to consider the lives of our children and grandchildren. To do anything else is to be self-absorbed and selfish.
