A recurrent comment about public policies inspired by Keynesian economics is that they are crass or vulgar. Instead of seeing a complicated and unpredictable interplay of individuals pursuing their own ends, society is perceived as a giant machine (“the economy”) that needs to be manipulated to produce specific policy outcomes (“economic growth”). Public policies inspired by Keynesian economics do not hesitate to interfere with what many people would consider completely private matters such as how much to save or spend.
Whereas traditional Marxism still aspired to replace the government of people with the administration of things, no such hopes exist in Keynesian economics (or its more recent incarnation, New Keynesian Economics) which mandates continuous government intervention. It is not hard to notice the similarity between such a perspective and modern liberalism, which requires a similar activist role for government. Both philosophies feel uncomfortable with traditions, conventions, or deontological constraints that limit complete control of the building blocks of society.
It remains a mystery why progressives seem to prefer Keynesian economics to free market economics. Whereas advocates of free markets usually leave decisions about labor, spending, and consumption to the individual, Keynesian public policy makers routinely encourage consumption for consumption’s sake. One wonders how progressives reconcile their critique of consumerism and predatory advertising with such grandiose plans to stimulate the economy. To be fair, some advocates of liberty have embraced the same paradigm, producing a parallel form of “crass libertarianism”. In such philosophies a person and his property should be respected not because not doing so constitutes a tort, but because freedom produces “growth.”
A recent publication that focuses on the cultural dimensions of economic paradigms is Jörg Guido Hülsmann’s Deflation and Liberty, in which prevailing monetary dogmas are reviewed as an expression of interests and power. A reading of this work in light of James M. Buchanan’s collection Ethics and Economic Progress, which presents an economic case for hard work and saving, will be attempted on this blog in the future.