Milton Friedman on Keynes and the economics profession
Keynes believed that economists (and others) could best contribute to the improvement of society by investigating how to manipulate the levers actually or potentially under control of the political authorities so as to achieve desirable ends, and then persuading benevolent civil servants and elected officials to follow their advice. The role of voters is to elect persons with the right moral values to office and then let them run the country.
Context. From his essay on John Maynard Keynes, written for the volume of commentaries accompanying a 1989 German facsimile edition of Keynes’s General Theory (1936) and published in English by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in 1997. He sets this view against his own: that economists should study which political institutions lead self-interested officials to serve the public interest, as Adam Smith showed the market leads self-interested individuals to do.
Where this comes from
Checked against the sourceThe wording was checked against the work itself.
Cite this passage
Milton Friedman, “John Maynard Keynes” (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Economic Quarterly, vol. 83, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 1 to 23; first published in German translation in 1989, in the commentaries accompanying a facsimile edition of the General Theory (Verlag Wirtschaft und Finanzen, Düsseldorf)., 1997), p. 21. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/keynes-believed-economists-persuade-benevolent-officials-1997
Quoted for commentary and research. Rights in the underlying work remain with its rights holder, so cite the work itself, not only this page.
Topics
He also said
I conclude that Keynes’s political bequest has done far more harm than his economic bequest and this for two reasons. First, whatever the economic analysis, benevolent dictatorship is likely sooner or later to lead to a totalitarian society. Second, Keynes’s economic theories appealed to a group far broader than economists primarily because of their link to his political approach.
Context. From his essay on John Maynard Keynes, written for the volume of commentaries accompanying a 1989 German facsimile edition of Keynes’s General Theory (1936) and published in English by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in 1997. “Benevolent dictatorship” is his name for Keynes’s view that society is best improved by persuading well-meaning officials, chosen for their moral values, to follow economists’ advice.
John Maynard KeynesJournal article, 1997, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Economic Quarterly, vol. 83, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 1 to 23; first published in German translation in 1989, in the commentaries accompanying a facsimile edition of the General Theory (Verlag Wirtschaft und Finanzen, Düsseldorf)., p. 22Checked against the sourceRead the originalIn a free society, a government has no business using the power of the law or the taxpayers’ money to propagandize for some views and to prevent the transmission of others.
An Economist's Protest: Columns in Political EconomyBook, 1969, Collected in An Economist’s Protest: Columns in Political Economy (Thomas Horton and Company, 1972), “Book Burning, FCC Style,” column of June 16, 1969, p. 153Checked against the sourceFind the bookFortunately, we are waking up. We are again recognizing the dangers of an overgoverned society, coming to understand that good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential of a great society.
Context. From the closing pages of Free to Choose (1980), written with Rose D. Friedman, in the chapter “The Tide Is Turning”.
Free to ChooseBook, 1980, Ch. 10 “The Tide Is Turning”, pp. 309–310Checked against the sourceFind the book
Think this quote is wrong, misattributed, or missing context? Report it and it gets fixed, not argued with.