On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 8:23 AM, Ted Winslow <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Even if you think the General Theory is generally full of crap, a > "totally distinct" hoarding vs. investment dichotomy isn't a strong > position of challenge, IMO. > > There's evidence that Keynes didn't think of "liquidity preference" as > "widely rational." > > Though he does allow for rational hoarding, this is not, so he claims, the > dominant form of hoarding in capitalism. > > The latter form he connects to an irrational "hoarding instinct" > expressive of an irrational "love of money as a possession." Thus > > "“to me it seems clearer every day that the moral problem of our age is > concerned with the love of money, with the habitual appeal to the money > motive in nine-tenths of the activities of life, with the universal > striving after individual economic security as the prime object of > endeavour, with the social approbation of money as the measure of > constructive success, and with the social appeal to the hoarding instinct > as the foundation of the necessary provision for the family and for the > future." (Essays in Persuasion, Collected Writings vol. IX, p. 269) > > He claims, in fact, that "the essential characteristic of capitalism," is > the domination of motivation by "the instinct of avarice," by "the > dependence upon an intense appeal to the money-making and money-loving > instincts of individuals as the main motive force of the economic machine," > a "main motive force" he explicitly treats as irrational in the sense of > psychopathological. (vol. IX, pp. 293 and 329-30) > Excellent! This is the sort of thing that Jack MacDonald's story suggested to me! -raghu.
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