Talk:John Maynard Keynes

Infobox economist Section

Can anyone help me? I am trying to insert the line

• parent = John Neville Keynes

but it won't print.

• Is it the case that an economist can't have parents, so to speak?

If I change to "Infobox person" it will print it, but it leaves out good stuff. I tried "Info scientist" and that also leaves out good stuff.

The connection beteen Keynes and the 1943 Bengal Famine

Recent research has underlined that there was a connection between Keynes and the 1943 Bengal Famine.

See: Patnaik, Utsa. "Profit Inflation, Keynes and the Holocaust in Bengal, 1943–44." Economic and Political Weekly 53.42 (2018): 33-43. Patnaik, Utsa. "Mr Keynes and the forgotten holocaust in Bengal, 1943–44: Or, the macroeconomics of extreme demand compression." Studies in People’s History 4.2 (2017): 197-210.

This is important information, which deserves to be included in this wikipedia page.

I thus propose to add the following paragraph to the section "Second World War" (after the considerration about the fact that Keynes intended to avoid inflation in Britain).

"By contrast, in his capacity as advisor on Indian Financial and Monetary Affairs for the British Government, there is evidence that Keynes advocated "profit inflation" in order to finance war spending by the Allied forces in Bengal. This deliberate inflationary policy, which caused a sixfold increase in the price of rice, contributed to the great 1943 Bengal famine."

And to quote Patnaik's articles as reference

Posillipo200 (talk) 10:11, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Views on race - mass murders on a racial basis

This article has a bizarre phrase Keynes sometimes explained the mass murder that took place during the first years of Soviet Russia on a racial basis, as part of the "Russian and Jewish nature", rather than as a result of the communist rule. After a trip to Russia, he wrote in his Short View of Russia that there is "beastliness on the Russian and Jewish natures when, as now, they are allied together".

The full original quote in the source appears to be The mood of oppression could not be better conveyed. In part, no doubt, it is the fruit of Red Revolution—there is much in Russia to make one pray that one's own country may achieve its goal not in that way. In part, perhaps, it is the fruit of some beastliness in the Russian nature—or in the Russian and Jewish natures when, as now, they are allied together. But in part it is one face of the superb earnestness of Red Russia, of the high seriousness, which in its other aspect appears as the Spirit of Elation.

I couldn't find mention of mass murders in the source (Keynes talks about post-revolutionary mood of oppression, the closest phrase to "murders" is "The New Order must not be judged either by the horrors of the Revolution or by the privations of the transitionary period.", used in a different part as an imaginary argument), neither the contradiction between the communist rule and "Russian and Jewish nature".

Am I missing something, or is it a pure WP:OR introduced by an anonymous IP and preserved since? Pinging @Maunus:, who re-added this as "sourced", for clarification. PaulT2022 (talk) 22:44, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this. I've just re-read Lord Keynes 'A short view on Russia' and I'd agree that while LK may well partly mean mass murders when he talks about "the horrors of the Revolution" etc, he's not blaming that not on Russian nature but on what he sees as the obsolete & erroneous nature of the "science" underpinning Marxism/Lennism, & even more so on the "non-supernatural" religious way in which is was implemented. It's a bit ambiguous but if anything he was overall quite +ve on Russian nature. Always regrettable to have to remove another editors work, but I think the passage needs to be removed as a misrepresentation of the source. FeydHuxtable (talk) 23:53, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Illuminus?

I have heard that Keynes was a member of the Illuminati. Should this be added to the article? 24.198.105.135 (talk) 02:44, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

No, because it is complete nonsense. The Illuminati is a crackpot conspiracy theory designed to separate gullible people from their money. See also Alex Jones#Website, own-brand and endorsed products. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:19, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

While I largely agree with JMF, I'd be a little less emphatic. We could include the assertion if someone finds a high quality source to support it (e.g. a biography by a major publisher). It's accepted historical fact that there was an Illuminati back in the 18th century, on the surface at least it campaigned for reason & enlightenment values against religion and superstition. They publicly disbanded around 1785 but its not impossible they persisted in secret for some time after, maybe even to the early 20th century. Lord Keynes was certainly the type to join a secret society and his biographies record he was militantly atheist as a youth. Might be interesting to note that said belief didn't survive much contact with reality. While biographers find no evidence he ever gained personal faith, by the end of his life he fully agreed with his frenemie von Hayek that religion was on balance pro social and something to be cherished. These days, AFAIK every single top tier elite is onboard with the desirability to boost religion and re-enchant the world, at least here in the West. Sadly, they no longer have the ability to bring much influence to bear on global society, regardless of any clubbing together in secret societies. So different from Lord Keynes day - as he said to von Hayek shortly before he died, he could turn global opinion in a flash if he had to. Anyway, I thought this amusing to mention given JMF's earlier reply, as the town of milton keynes is perhaps the most concrete manifestation of recent elite attempts to re-enchant the world. A moderately knowledgeable person would have to take Denialism to a whole new level not to see that town's geometric layout, street names, and various esoteric statues and other architectural features as evidence of a secret society at work. Not sadly one that seems to be having any great supernatural effects, though rather charming things have happened while I've been visiting the place.FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:17, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Well anyone persuaded by that flight of fantasy is very likely to believe that Keynes was not only a leading illuminatus but also a lizard from Arcturus in human form.

(For anyone wondering what Milton Keynes has to do with anything, see Milton Keynes#Name (nothing to do with Friedman), Milton Keynes #Grid roads and grid squares (the "strict Roman grid" lie), Central Milton Keynes#Astronomical alignment (the "modern Stonehenge" myth) and Keynes family#Places in England bearing the name Keynes (five). But never let facts get in the way of a good story.) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:06, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Removal of Old Discussions from Talk Page

This seems to be a widespread issue on Wikipedia.

The concern should be self-explanatory: inconvenient/anti-narrative discussions are hidden from public view and discussion, and relegation to the revision history - under the guise of keeping the talk page uncrowded/neatly organized, or under the guise of removing stuff that is labeled as "silly, conspiratorial, unfounded, politically incorrect, or "objectively false.""

While such arguments may have merit, I would suggest, imo, that most people can see the benefit of a readily accessible, complete and uncensored talk page.

I would suggest that this benefit outweighs the former arguments.

I would also suggest that that an obviously shortened and lacking talk page looks extremely fishy to a reasonable and questioning person.

Is there a reason or policy behind this, imo, recent trend towards shortened/censored talk pages? Sober Reasoning (talk) 01:43, 10 May 2023 (UTC)