Keynes’ mother Florence was the first female Mayor of Cambridge, England.  The family were earnest and filled wih a sense of civic duty.  They had a responsibility to improve society.

During the two decades  following the First World War, the tranquil world that Keynes had grown up in disappeared.  He was trying to understand the new world and that became his central work.  It is the fault line of the First World War, and today’s Technology Fault Line that make the tone and feeling of our periods the same.  Anxiety and questions abound.  So too do cowboys who milk every nook and cranny of possibility available as long as it benefits them and without regard to the polity.

Here is the trick with Keynes that is often forgotten.  His theory takes one form in a society in crisis and another for managing a society in basically good shape.  We are not distinguishing bandaides and long term solutions.  Keynes did.  A Keynes for all seasons

John Maynard Keynes married a ballerina and understood the world and human nature well.