The Anti‐Benthamism of J. M. Keynes: Implications for The General Theory

Keynes severely criticized the “Benthamite tradition,” the overvaluation of the “economic criterion” He found “the love of money” corrosive of community and esthetic values and an encouragement to reckless exploitation of places that should be in the public domain In “Art and the State,” he proposes the rebuilding of large sections of modern cities to rekindle popular feelings of beauty and community values One of the factors behind this philosophy was G E Moore's Principia Ethica (1903) It criticizes Bentham for committing “the naturalistic fallacy” of confusing means with ends and idealizes two “goods” in themselves, the pleasure of human relations and the enjoyment of beauty in nature and art These ideals Keynes saw undermined by the Benthamite tradition Such criticism is the “moral‐political paradigm” on which The General Theory is erected Minute calculation of advantages and disadvantages, on which classical economics is based, is rejected Behind consumption and investment functions are sociological and psychological factors, “animal spirits,” and the like Calculation prevails in the stock and bond markets (liquidity preference)–to everybody's sorrow The proposed slow elimination of institutions that make liquidity preference possible, and of the rentier, follow logically Econometrics, viewed as the tool of the overvaluation of the economic criterion, is also rejected. In many articles Keynes aimed at much more than revolutionizing political economy, he aimed at weaning England from Benthamite utilitarianism and raising the cultural values of the populace By 1938 he knew that he had failed.