What Did Keynes Mean by “In the Long Run, We Are All Dead”?
When critics argued that Keynesian support of public financing and deficit spending would lead to default in the long run, Keynes' famous retort was that “In the long run, we are all dead.” In context, his point was that governments should solve problems in the short run rather than wait for market forces to correct problems over the long run—“when we are all dead.”