Are you a Keynesian?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

That is, a general follower of twentieth-century British economist John Maynard Keynes. (Nobody today is a PURE Keynesian any more than anyone today is a pure Darwinian since new ideas and research inform old theories.)

But are you generally sympathetic to Keynsian ideas?


This is a decent 25 words or less Keynes summary:

The state can stimulate economic growth and improve stability in the private sector though adjustments in spending, interest rate and taxation policy.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Other.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Sorry. I made the anti choice less strong and added an "other"

[Naturyl]

2. Yes, but this bailout was not a good plan.

Deficit spending during a recession is the way to go, but not that way.

[Eric J in MN]

3. Yes, I'd prefer $700 billion spent on factories in the US...

...to make consumer products to be sold worldwide.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. I'm just curious. Since there's such diversity of opinion here I became curious about

what is out there, economic theory-wise.

[invictus]

6. Yes, I believe in government intervention to stimulate the economy.

nt

[Captain Hilts]

7. Who? Me?

FDR: Who? Me? I don't care what you call it...

[vaberella]

8. I'm a Marxist...so "No" to Keynes. However, he's functional as we move towards socialism. n/t

[LiberadorHugo]

20. I agree.

But when you start agreeing too much with Keynes (let alone Marx), Pelosi will make you into a pariah. Just look at Hugo Chavez.

[nomaco-10]

9. What a bullshit, cop out, dilettante poll....

Don't fall for this bullshit, decadent. dilettante poll du.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. Hard to "fall for" a simple question

I don't do push polls. The question is sincere and many have no trouble understanding it.

[grantcart]

24. Admit it you hate the proletariate and you are assisting in the establishment of

martial law which according to well informed sources on DU will be made operative in 48 hours because they read an article in the newspaper that a unit that has been overseas is now home and while resting and reuniting with their families will also be assigned normal domestic duties.

[RoyGBiv]

10. You understand, of course ...

That most people don't really know.

Given your description, they might call themselves Keynsians, but I'd bet ... well, I dunno what I'd bet since dollars are about to be really hard to find ... but anyway, I imagine, given the prevailing disparity at this point in your poll, that many of the same people who say they are have been spouting rhetoric in the past few days that could have been penned by Friedman himself.

OnEdit: Just to be clear, I wasn't accusing you of being disingenuous. I just found it funny that the poll was so lopsided when I first saw it given a lot of what I've read people say in the past few days.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. I assumed the poll would appeal only to people with a ready answer

It's not a trick to get people to sign-on to something they don't believe. I assume nobody would answer a poll about something on which they have no opinion.

The precis sentence is offered for the curious. If anyone takes the poll as "do you agree with these twenty words" then that's what it is.

I honestly have no idea how keynes is holding up in the Democratic party, let alone in progressive circles.

[RoyGBiv]

15. He holds up well with me ...

When we, as a nation, started to abandon him is when we started down this path.

I don't claim he's perfect -- no economic theory is perfect -- but his ideas are certainly better, imo, that the ones under which our economy has worked for several decades now.

[sixmile]

12. Degree in Economics Wayne State University, Detroit

One of the academic foes of the University of Chicago and the Friedman school of laissez faire economics which does not work in an open system.

My professors were solidly Keynesian in beliefs and dogma. Demand-side economics, money trickling up.

[vaberella]

14. Majority of my profs are Keynes as well...except I have a few Marxists as well. n/t

[sixmile]

16. Marxists?

Where do you go to school, Venezuela?

[LiberadorHugo]

22. Ummmm...

Nationalising the oil industry and creating a welfare state is not Marxist. In many ways, it's no more exciting than what Red Tories, post-war Liberals, left-leaning populists, and other social liberal and social democratic traditions have done in Canada and no more revolutionary than the ideas of Lord Keynes. The developments in Venezuela and in Latin America (with the rise of ALBA and Latin Americans starting to become masters of their own house) are exciting to leftists holding both reformists and revolutionary views, but even the most voracious Chavez cheerleaders on the far left see ALBA and Bolivarianism as a beginning rather than as an end point. As long as the bureaucracy is kept in check so that there is not a Stalinist or neo-liberal reaction, the revolution will keep inventing itself.

[vaberella]

27. Far from it...but it's one step closer. Socialism is the step before Marxism as Marx stated.

It's quite entertaining. I doubt it will come into exist at least in my generation. I think we're moving closer to socialism though.

[vaberella]

26. Nope. NYC. I know, it's crazy. He's actually been listed. n/t

[MrScorpio]

19. Spoken like a true Detroiter

[Chan790]

17. Yes.

John Maynard Keynes:

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease ... But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

I think you could say yes, I'm strongly Keynesian. I wouldn't even object to being called a pure Keynesian in anger. I like the label like I love being called a liberal. I am a liberal. I am a Keynesian. I hope we get real equity stakes in this bailout. I hope afterward we send those responsible to prison and feed them cat food in drafty cells.

[ruggerson]

18. We are all Keynesians now

sorry, couldn't resist.

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. Dick? Is that you?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

28. Imagine how hard it was for me to not put that in the OP!

[Marsala]

29. Ah, Nixon, the last liberal president

Isn't it scary that he can be called that only semi-ironically?

[abumbyanyothername]

23. This is a tough question for me.

Because I kind of wish I were a Keynesian, but I fear the system has now spiraled out of control.

Big, chaotic, crash coming. Followed by a completely different monetary (and economic) system.

[TexasObserver]

25. Not an accurate definition.

Deficit spending in downturns, but NOT in upturns.