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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.

John Maynard Keynes

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John Maynard Keynes
Age: 62 †
Born: 1883
Born: June 5
Died: 1946
Died: April 21
Businessperson
Diplomat
Economist
Mathematician
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Politician
Professor
Lord Keynes
Baron Keynes of Tilton
Reasons
Extraordinary
Benefits
Belief
Peace
Nastiest
Reason
Benefit
Work
Somehow
Men
Capitalism

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I expect to see the State, which is in a position to calculate the marginal efficiency of capital-goods on long views and on the basis of the general social advantage, taking an ever greater responsibility for directly organizing investments.
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Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand.
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Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.
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The right remedy for the trade cycle is not to be found in abolishing booms and thus keeping us permanently in a semi-slump but in abolishing slumps and thus keeping us permanently in a quasi-boom.
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Adam Smith and Malthus and Ricardo ! There is something about these three figures to evoke more than ordinary sentiments from us their children in the spirit.
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Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
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It is the long-term investor...who will in practice come in for the most criticism... For it is the essence of his behavior that he should be eccentric, unconventional, and rash in the eyes of average opinion
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Gold is a relic from a time when government's were less trustworthy in these matters (currency debasement) than they are now.
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Ideas shape the course of history.
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Chess is a cure for headaches.
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They offer me neither food nor drink - intellectual nor spiritual consolation... [Conservatism] leads nowhere it satisfies no ideal it conforms to no intellectual standard, it is not safe, or calculated to preserve from the spoilers that degree of civilization which we have already attained.
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How long will it be necessary to pay City men so entirely out of proportion to what other servants of society commonly receive for performing social services not less useful or difficult?
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The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.
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Government machinery has been described as a marvelous labor saving device which enables ten men to do the work of one.
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I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
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I wish I'd drunk more champagne.
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Too large a proportion of recent mathematical economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols.
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Once doubt begins it spreads rapidly.
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If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
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[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.
John Maynard Keynes