num_pages: 432
description: A groundbreaking debunking of moderate attempts to resolve financial crisesIn the ruins of the 20072008 financial crisis self-proclaimed progressives the world over clamored to resurrect the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes. The crisis seemed to expose the disaster of small-state free-market liberalization and deregulation. Keynesian political economy in contrast could put the state back at the heart of the economy and arm it with the knowledge needed to rescue us. But what it was supposed to rescue us from was not so clear. Was it the end of capitalism or the end of the world? For Keynesianism the answer is both. Keynesians are not and never have been out to save capitalism but rather to save civilization from itself. It is political economy they promise for the world in which we actually live: a world in which prices are sticky information is asymmetrical and uncertainty inescapable. In this world things will definitely not take care of themselves in the long run. Poverty is ineradicable markets fail and revolutions lead to tyranny. Keynesianism is thus modern liberalisms most persuasive internal critique meeting two centuries of crisis with a proposal for capital without capitalism and revolution without revolutionaries.If our current crises have renewed Keynesianism for so many it is less because the present is worth saving than because the future seems out of control. In that situation Keynesianism is a perfect fit: a faith for the faithless.
language: None
title: In the Long Run We Are All Dead: Keynesianism, Political Economy, and Revolution
publisher: Verso