Henwood on Keynes

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Wed Oct 7 12:27:35 PDT 1998


This is quite an interesting post. Are you saying there is a revolutionary critique of capitalism in Keynes ? Does it suggest abolishing capitalism and replacing it with something else ? Or is it super reform ? What is that something else ?

I was just reading Lenin and his citing of Hobson and a number of other bourgeois economists is not that begrudging. It is critical though. Lenin is a lot harder on Kautsky the "ex-Marxist " than Hobson. As you say, he even uses the bourgeois terminology "imperialism" as his own. Now he's more known for the term than Hobson. Sort of the way the bourgeoisie deserted Smith and Ricardo because Marx used too many of their concepts.

Charles Brown


>From the market to the Marxit


>>> Greg Nowell <GN842 at CNSVAX.Albany.Edu> 10/07 3:06 PM >>>
Henwood has made often, and in many avenues, his view that Keynes was an aristocratic snot. I think that this view has some substantive basis and that it is appropriate for a Marxist to point out that Keynes was not always on the side of "the little man." Maybe even not ever. And I think part of Henwood's critique is that he (Henwood) is allergic to the cynicism in "Citizen Kane"--Kane, played by Wells--says that it is better for the rich to defend the poor than that the poor should defend themselves (with, for example, good Marxist analysis). I think this goes to the nub of what Henwood dislikes in Keynes.

However, I think that Doug misses out on one point. It is not just "the man" or even "the man and *all* of his work" that is at issue. The fact of the matter is that the GT can be used (regardless of Mr Keyenes' dispositions) as a strong platform for a radical critique of redistributive inequities, on grounds that are unlike anything to be found in Marx. So in that sense it is new and useful. The GT opens a wide avenue for such an approach. It may not have been fully exploited by Keynes, and the fact that Keynes opened the wide avenue does not make him a social radical. But nonetheless it is a remarkable achievement, and one not typically to be found among members of an elite aristocracy. Keynes did not fully exploit the radical implications of his work; but others did. Marx respected Smith; Lenin begrudged Hobson respect for his book on Imperialism, even though Hobson was a liberal reformer. But Doug is much harder on poor Mr Keynes, though he has paid Mr Keynes the respect of reading him closely & extensively.

And perhaps that's enough.

-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222

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