Economic Possibilities for your Grandchildren, by John Maynard Keynes (1930)
I am excited to share this sixth Hidden Gem in our series of seminal works. This paper was written in 1930 by one of the most widely regarded economists of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes.
As your read Keynes’ prophecy please hold in your consciousnesses the following:
- that since he wrote this 4 billion people have come out of poverty and into the middle class
- that the World’s % of deeply impoverished may today be the lowest % in humans 300,000 years species existence
- that more are coming out of poverty all the time
- finally, what role has capitalism, as Keynes defines it, been the means?
Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren predicts quite accurately how well our economy has progressed. In addition, he predicts that once economic struggles are no longer, people they will be able to focus on the more qualitative capitals of a life well-lived.
“Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.”
“It will be those peoples, who can keep alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when it comes.”
“I look forward, therefore, in days not so very remote, to the greatest change which has ever occurred in the material environment of life for human beings in the aggregate.”
Enjoy!
Jay
Here is the link: http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf