Reading Robert Skidelsky’s magisterial and incredibly stimulating guide to the second coming of Lord Keynes (Keynes: Th e Return of the Master) has been truly apocalyptic. Lord Keynes famously compared stock exchanges to a beauty contest. In his view, the trick was not to identify the most beautiful face but rather guess which one the other judges would find most appealing.
(This story appears in the 04 December, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
"Civilisation is a thin and precarious crust, erected by the personality and will of a very few, and only maintained by rules and conventions skillfully put across and guilefully preserved. Keynes clearly drinks the 'Great man theory of history' koolaid. Do you think Languages were created by great men? Or did they evolve ground up? Comparing the stock market-rigged by govt monopoly on a basic fundamental called 'money' -to be an example of animal spirits is naive and an example of someone blind to the obvious. Ludwig Von Mises, the great Austrian free market thinker, had a better understanding. It is time Keynes is relegated to the dustbin of socialist history forever.
on Dec 2, 2009