Scottish historian Niall Ferguson put a public apology on his website yesterday after suggesting that the spend-your-way-out-of-recession approach of economist John Maynard Keynes was inspired by his homosexuality. (Read the BBC report, ‘Niall Ferguson apology over Keynes remarks.’)
The Harvard professor made the remarks at a conference in California on Thursday after being asked to comment on Mr Keynes’s famous observation that “in the long run we are all dead.” Dr Ferguson suggested that Keynes’ unconcern for future generations was related to being both gay and childless. He reportedly said that “it’s only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an ‘effete’ member of society.”
Ferguson’s remarks raised controversy throughout the internet, and he was quickly condemned for being homophobic, ignorant and even mad.
In his retraction, Dr. Ferguson said, “It is simply false to suggest, as I did, that his approach to economic policy was inspired by any aspect of his personal life. As those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice, sexual or otherwise.”
Despite his retraction, Christian Voice believes Dr. Ferguson was right the first time. We have reported on the British economist John Maynard Keynes before, showing how his rejection of the Biblical “sowing and reaping principle” in favour of immediate gratification formed the basis both of his deviant sexual lifestyle and his economic theories. Recognizing the obvious connection between Keynes’ personal life and his economic theory is not a matter of sexual prejudice, but of history.
A paedophile who governed his life by the principle that “in the long run we are all dead”, Keynes was himself the first to suggest that his approach to economic policy was inspired by his immoral life. Keynes wrote, “When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years….”
As this quotation suggests, it is simply not possible to disengage Keynes’ economic theories from his worldview – a worldview deeply rooted in the deviance of his personal life. That is why we believe that Niall Ferguson was right the first time.
Find out how to join Christian Voice and stand up for the King of kings (clicking on the link below does not commit you to join)
Please note that persons wishing to comment on this story must enter a valid email address. Comments from persons leaving fictitious email addresses will be trashed.
PLease can you provide the source for saying that Keynes was a paedophile as well as a homosexual. Is it appropriate that we have named a town after him?
‘The attitude in such gatherings was anti-establishmentarian. To them the older generation was horribly out of date, even superfluous. The capitalist system was declared obsolete, and revolution was proclaimed as the only solution. Christianity was pronounced an enemy force, and the worst sort of depravities were eulogized as “that love which passes all Christian understanding.”
‘The year was 1904, and the participants were destined to become the intellectual and political leaders of the British Empire.
‘Chief of this ring of homosexual revolutionaries was John Maynard Keynes, who eventually became the economic architect of English socialism and gravedigger for the British Empire. The chief American Fabians, acting as carriers of the Keynesian sickness, were Felix Frankfurter and Walter Lippmann. Covertly, they mobilized their Leftist comrades to spread this pollution in America also. So successful were they that on January 4, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced: “I am now a Keynesian in economics.” What does that mean?
‘Keynes was characterized by his male sweetheart, Lytton Strachey, as “A liberal and a sodomite, an atheist and a statistican.” His particular depravity was the sexual abuse of little boys. In communications to his homosexual friends, Keynes advised that they go to Tunis, “where bed and boy were also not expensive.” As a sodomistic pedophiliac, he ranged throughout the Mediterranean area in search of boys for himself and his fellow socialists. Taking full advantage of the bitter poverty and abysmal ignorance in North Africa, the Middle East, and Italy, he purchased the bodies of children prostituted for English shillings.’
http://www.keynesatharvard.org/book/Sugar_Keynes.html
Did you seriously think Milton Keynes was named after this reprobate, rather than after the existing Buckinghamshire village of the same name?
Thank you, I wrongly assumed that the town was named after Keynes. According to Wikipedia this is an urban myth!
This has to be one of the most misleading articles to come out from Christian Voice.
You misquote Keynes’ comments on the morality of the love of money as a possession and imply that the morals he hopes society will shed are sexual ethics, rather than greed as a motivator.
In doing so you bring shame upon Christians. We are called to stand for truth, not manipulate it to our own causes.
The full quotes to which Ferguson alludes are:
“The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.”
And “When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value.”
See for yourselves how cutting the quotes short has been used to completey change their meaning and imply an untrue slur upon what he is saying.
You may well criticize his lifestyle, but in twisting his words you shame yourselves and our Lord, not Keynes.
I should rather hope, Brian, that we could honour our Lord by disagreeing while showing love one for another, and refusing to resort to insults. Even in the full version, the quotes can be argued to support the stance taken. Given the distaste of Keynes for Christian morality, as I have quoted above, his ‘highest virtues’ and his ‘distasteful’ human qualities are rather likely to be the opposite of those, I trust, shared by you and me.
For Keynes, in the long run he was indeed dead. He had literally no thought for the future. But most people live on in their children, and their children, in a contract spanning the generations.
You talk of digging the grave of the British Empire as if it was a bad thing. What s the biblical model that makes empire such a good thing? Egypt? Assyria? Babylon? Rome?
Israel.
Israel wasn’t an empire it was a Kingdom.
They never ruled other countries or occupied land outside of their own borders, as empires do.
Kingdom was acceptable. (not good if you read 1 Samuel – God wanted a direct theocracy).
As far as I can see Empire – ruling nations other than your own, is never endorsed as God’s will for his people is it?
Deut 15:6 For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.
It’s not an insult Stephen it’s a challenge. What you have done is very serious. Not only does it lack grace, but worse it visibly distorts truth.
If I did not love you and care about the cause of Christian Voice I would say nothing, but I do care enough to challenge.
Be honest, the quote “in the long run we are all dead” is clearly a riposte to long term approaches that do nothing for the current crisis. It’s clear as day, And the morality he hopes to shun is that of “the money motive”, ie greed being turned into a virtue and a motivator. He says that most clearly.
They can only be argued to support the stance taken but only by dissecting them, which is not honest, and not glorifying.
Had you read then in full or were you quoting from a source which misquotes them?
Whatever you have to say about his life as a whole, those quotes do not support it, and they undermine the credibility of anything else you may say about him. Or any other topic.
I’m not a supporter of Keynes, and I’m not defending him. I’m defending truth, and if I can see in minutes by looking up the originals, that quotes have been taken out of context and given a new meaning then so can everyone else.
Can I or others now believe what you say in your response to J Casper’s question? Were it not for what you did with the quotes I would take it at face value but now I must look up every detail.
Do you not see the damage that defending the mistake is doing. (1 Jn 1:8-9)
A retraction and apology would restore confidence, because anyone can make a mistake, repeat a quote or misinformation, without checking the original. But a defense will damage the reputation of Christian Voice.
Just click on the link in my response to J Casper.
He may have been an awful character – he is certainly painted that way in said article, but even the worst people can get some things right, and his assessment of the basis of monetarism is spot on. The love of money (the money-motive) is the root of all evil and is not a sound basis upon which to build a just and caring society. Capitalism and monetarism use greed as the prime motivator for economic activity.
Socialism in it’s worst form can do the same, with greed wishing to take from the rich for oneself (eg the worst expressions of communist state) but at it’s best is a desire to share.
Greed could never build a just society.
A casual observer would note that when Keynesian economics were applied to enable recovery after the war it led to the NHS, full employment and economic stability for many years, but when Monetarism returned the rich got richer and the poor got poorer again.
If the allegations are all true his life was wrong in many ways, but his stand against the love of money, what he called.some of the most distasteful of human qualities was correct and indeed biblical.
Dear Brother, I think you have set up a charicature of capitalism. Greedy people will exploit any economic system, but most people in a capitalist system are just trying to provide for their families and better themselves a bit. To call them all greedy is to lack empathy with their struggle, IMHO, and to fall into the mind-set of Keynes who as an out-and-out elitist had contempt for ordinary people.
The Bible as I read it is set against monopolies and big business:
Isaiah 5:8 Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
But it solidly endorses small-scale family-based capitalism:
Micah 4:4 But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.
Personally, in my short life, I have never seen socialism at its best. With some exceptions, the worst of the elite seem to end up in charge whatever system you have. And I seem to recall that the gap between rich and poor actually narrowed under Thatcher and widened under Blair.
What you describe from Micah 4:4 is a balanced economy. Isiah 5:8 challenges core capitalism, ie the expansionist business model in which accumulation of capital is the core aim. (It was Marx who re-defined a balanced economy as “capitalism” along with declaring all private property to be theft.). I’m not a fan of either system, but of Justice such as the prophets call for.
But we are getting off the point.
My real concern is what has been done with the quotes of Keynes, not to defend Keynes but to defend truth and honesty.
It is one thing to publish an article decrying the private life of a dead individual if you believe that that will help draw people towards the love of God, or even if you believe that his observations about the motivation of expansionist economics are invalidated by his private life, (Only good people can say good things)
But when you knowingly or unknowingly twist his words to mean something completely different to what they mean in their original context you undermine your credibility, not only on the matter that article addresses but on others too. “What else is out of context? people will ask.
Your defense “Even in the full version, the quotes can be argued to support the stance taken. ” Implies that argument is being used to make these words support your stance, rather than allowing the words to carry the meaning of their original use.
I[‘m no fan of Keynes & had not seen those quotes before yesterday, but what they appeared to say was so extreme I had to check out the full speeches. I was horrified to see what had been done, it is so blatant
If your defense is that the words can be made to say that, then it raises questions of trust whenever someone is quoted on CV – “what did they really say”,” in what context”, ”
The only way to restore confidence is to recognise that the words have been mis-used, and apologise for the mistake. To defend it is too dig deper
Rev Brian, you’ve raised some good questions and I want to interact with your concerns in a way that does them justice. It was certainly not my intention to misquote or misrepresent Keynes, and after reviewing the context of the quotation, I am confident that I did not take his words out of context or misrepresent him.
Let’s look at the two contested parts of my article, beginning with my comments on the connection between economic theories and his immoral lifestyle, and then moving on to the quotation.
Before defending the above statement, it is necessary to explain what I do not mean. To do that I need to introduce some basic logical categories. In logic, if the truth or falsity of one proposition is linked to the truth or falsity of another proposition, we call that link a biconditional. For example, under most conventional definitions of ‘being alive’, we can describe the relationship between ‘being alive’ and ‘sustained breathing; as a biconditional relationship: if it is true that I am doing sustained breathing, then it must be true that I am alive and visa versa, just as if it is false that I am doing sustained breathing, it must be false that I am alive.
Now I am not arguing nor implying that Keynes’ sexual deviations have a biconditional relationship with his economics theorizations. Nor am I asserting or implying that there is a cause and effect relationship between Keynes economics and his sexuality. Rather, my position is that one’s worldview and religious orientation (whether conscious or unconscious) necessarily seeps into all areas of a person’s life, including but not limited to the web of multiple reciprocities that make up a person’s philosophical and ethical commitments. Ergo, to the degree that Keynes’ worldview and unconscious religious orientations involved a rejection of the Biblical worldview, this found expression in the various aspects of his life that were antithetic to the Biblical worldview, including his economic postulations and his ethical deviations. It is in this sense that we may meaningfully assert that “Keynes’ rejection of the Biblical ‘sowing and reaping principle’ in favour of immediate gratification was not limited to his economic theories, but formed the centrepiece of his deviant sexual lifestyle.”
This is a very complicated way of saying the same thing that the apostle Paul expressed so simply in Romans 1, where he made the point that those who reject God are given over both to futile thoughts (Rom. 1:21) and to sexual perversions (Rom. 1:27). There is an organic connection between having a false worldview, on the one hand, and being given over to a debased mind and immoral sexual practices, on the other. In the life of Keynes we see both of these consequences of rejecting God. His sexual deviance and his economic system were both effects of the same common cause: rejection of God’s law.
This leads into the next contested part of my article, where I allegedly misquoted Keynes. I quote from the article:
As is clear in the above quotation, I made a couple claims about this quote. I claimed that this quote is an example of the fact that Keynes’ economic policy was connected to his immoral life. Moreover, I claimed that this quote shows that it is impossible to disengage Keynes’ economic theories from his worldview and from the deviance of his personal life. If these claims can be verified, then the charge that I misrepresented Keynes is ultimately unsustainable.
I will argue that this quote does indeed show an organic connection between Keynes’ immoral worldview and his economic theorizations. (The specific contours of this connection are contextualized in my discussion above, especially in the paragraph where I discussed Romans 1 and the paragraph immediately preceding it, so I will not review that ground again.) With that in mind, let’s look at the original context to see if I can make good on this claim. The quote comes from Keynes’ 1930 essay ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’ which can be read in its entirety here. I quote now the entire passage:
Notice that Keynes’ prefaces this passage by saying he is talking about “changes in other spheres.” Up to now in the essay he has been discussing economics, but now he switches to “other spheres.” What are these other spheres? This becomes clear in the second sentence, for he writes, “there will be great changes in the code of morals.” It is clear from this that Keynes’ has moved from a discussion of economics to some tangential reflections on “pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us”. He does not say what he thinks these “pseudo-moral principles” are, but refers to “All kinds of social customs”. Although in this passage alone he does not explain what these “pseudo-moral…social customs” are, it is a cardinal rule of interpretation that we can interpret an author’s meaning in light of other texts from his corpus at the time and biographical details from the author’s life. So what other types of things was Keynes writing at the time which may provide some pointers to what type of moral principles he wishes to seen overthrown? One very revealing statement, which he published at around the same time, is where he said:
As these remarks suggest, Keynes was eager to see Christian morality overthrown in a way similar to what communism was beginning to achieve. This helps to contextualize what he meant when he referred to “pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us”.
But can we get more specific then even this in contextualizing his meaning? I think we can, because when he was preparing his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money for publication, he also published the following statement:
If this isn’t enough to contextualize Keynes’ meaning in the original quote, it is hard to know what is. In short, when Keynes’ anticipates that the implementation of his economic ideas will see “great changes in the code of morals” he is talking about things like family law, which privilege marriage above sexual abnormalities and promote “the economic position of the family.” This supports the contention that Keynes’ economic policy was connected to his immoral life, or at least his immoral thinking.
Keynes’ had been even more explicit about his atheistic agenda in his early life when responding to G.E. Moore’s Principia Ethica. Keynes declared that “one of the greatest advantages of his [i.e., Moore’s] religion was that it made morals unnecessary – meaning by ‘religion one’s attitude to oneself and the ultimate and by ‘morals’ one’s attitude towards the outside world and the intermediate.” (The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, X, p. 436) Keynes seemed to understand in his early life that if there is no God then anything is permissible, and in his comments about Moore he uses this as a platform to specifically attack religious morals.
Elsewhere Keynes wrote, “We repudiated entirely customary morals, conventions and traditional wisdom. We were, that is to say, in the strict sense of the term, immoralists. The consequences of being found out had, of course, to be considered for what they were worth. But we recognized no moral obligation on us, no inner sanction, to conform or obey.” (This is found in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, X, p. 446.) Also in his early work “Ethics in Relation to Conduct” Keynes argued that there are no objective moral standards. Individuals are not bound by general rules of conduct, but must rely on individual intuitive insight regarding right and wrong.
Keynes did move beyond many of his early views, but his antipathy to Christian morality was something that he retained throughout his life, as evidence from the above quotations from the 1930’s. One of the main areas where this immorality found root was in Keynes paedophilia. In Ian Hodge’s book Baptized Inflation: A Critique of ‘Christian’ Keynesianism, he says that the academic world generally knew nothing of Keynes’ obsession for little boys until Michael Holroyd discussed it in his biography of Lytton Strachey (who, like Keynes, was a member of the “Bloomsbury Circle”). Keynes’ antipathy to Christian morality also found expression in his campaigned to legalize homosexuality, drugs and eugenics. In itself, this should give us an idea of some of the “pseudo-moral…social customs” he wished to overthrow. (See our earlier article ‘The Rotten Legacy of John Maynard Keynes.’)
Keynes’ agenda was particularly focused on the young. Lytton Strachey, Keynes’ lifelong friend and sexual partner, explained that “[Keynes] sought to write in a way that would contribute to an eventual change in our ethical and sexual mores—a change that couldn’t ‘be done in a minute,’ but would unobtrusively permeate the more flexible minds of young people.”
If we disengage the contested quotation from everything else we know about Keynes’ life and his corpus of contemporaneous texts, then I acknowledge that it might be a stretch to say that the contested quotation is an example of how Keynes’ economic policy was connected to his immoral life. But the scholarly community is now agreed that responsible historiography involves reading texts through the lens of external evidence that might shed light on the author’s meaning. I have argued that there is enough evidence from Keynes’ other writings and his life to make it very clear what he means when he refers to “pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years.” On this basis, my original contention stands, namely that this quote supports the fact that Keynes’ economic policy was connected to his immoral life and that it is impossible to disengage Keynes’ worldview from the deviance of his personal life.
For further reading, I suggest “Keynes at Harvard: Economic Deception as a Political Credo.”
Finally, on a different note, there is an excellent video here that gives a good and concise explanation for why Keynesianism is wrong. But the alternative is not necessarily a greedy-money-loving-every-man-for-himself-capitalism. Like Stephen Green already said, most people in a capitalist system are just trying to provide for their families and put bread on the table, but an extreme capitalism that allows billionaires to take over and then use the courts to squash competition (like Monsanto does when it comes to seed) has to be recognized as being just as much an enemy to a free market as a socialism that allows the government to take over.
No way should Stephen or Christian Voice feel “shame” for the views they have expressed. How dare you say that – it’s clear that you understand little about these matters. It’s always valid to seek connections between one aspect of someone’s life and another, and it’s not for the homosexuals to tell society what is moral and what needs to be regarded with “shame”.
They have stolen the word “shame” and misuse it to serve their shameful purposes.
I disagree with the Rev Davison. I think that the way that Keynes was quoted by Stephen was not misleading and it is curious that his unsavoury lifestyle is not more widely known.
I think that the sources provided above give stronger proof of homosexuality than of paedophilia – I would like to see the whole letters and the context in which they were written before commenting on that. Guy Burgess and his friends took very similar holidays for the same purpose in Tunis.
But as to the main drift of Stephen’s argument, there is certainly nothing wrong with seeing a link between somebody’s personal behaviour and their political views. In fact, the whole of academia regularly does this, focussing on “lived ideology” and relating the biographical facts to the political and theoretical issues.
I don’t see how somebody who calls themselves a Christian can advocate a cover-up or any sort of whitewash,
Hi Stephen,
Satan is the ruler (god) of this world [Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11] and its systems–monarchic, republican, totalitarian–&c., therefore are under his rule. Even Israel, having a direct line to God through the priests via the Holy of Holies, had kings that were flawed and even evil–probably pussycats compared to some of the monarchs who have ruled on these Islands.
Still, it is incumbent upon us to honour those with rule over us that we can live peaceably [1 Tim 2:2].
I personally don’t see that as it being a green light for us to worship monarchs as people do pop stars, actors and footballers. We are not to be respecters of persons. We should give all people the same respect where earned.
When people are involved in evil (and superstition and witchcraft) they need to be rebuked as the prophets in Israel did with their monarchs.
I suggest you read John Dale’s “The Prince and the Paranormal.” This is a thoroughly researched book about Prince Charles and his close relations’ involvement in the occult. His grandmother, like Queen Victoria, made no bones about her spiritualist involvement.
Dale does not castigate the royals for this. He actually praises them as an occultist himself. He calls occultic “philosophy” ancient wisdom!
So what makes the Windsors different from the ancient pagan monarchs? Not a lot in my estimation.
Indeed, the queen is the head of the C of E. God smote King Uzziah with leprosy for daring to take over the rule of a priest–as the Babylonian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldean monarchs, Greek rulers and Roman emperors were priests all the way back to Nimrod. The irony of the fact that it is a Bible command that women are not to speak in church seems lost on the C of E elite.
God warned Israel what would happen if they chose to be like the Gentiles–heathens–and have a king (thus rejecting Him [1 Sam 8:7] ). God’s prophetic statements came to pass–perhaps a surprise to some Anglican clergymen..
But I don’t lay all the blame at the door of the royals for their involvement in Freemasonry, spiritualism and their other ventures where they “go down to Egypt”. Surely much of that has to do with the C of E clergy’s own contempt of Scripture.
As their top boys have seats in the House of Lords, and live in palaces, and not only have places to lay their heads but do so in great comfort, it strikes me that even Jesus’ simple statement in Mathew 23:5 is way too far over their heads.
We can be sure that Cromwell and the puritans did not Kowtow to these people. John Knox refused to treat them with more respect than they earned. He also refused cardinal’s hats, titles and lands for compromise. His stance caused him to serve as a galley slave while some of his contemporaries were burnt at the stake.
Had Britain had men of such quality over the last two hundred years, maybe we wouldn’t now have members of the royal family dabbling with ouija boards, one saying he’d like to come back as virus and wipe out a quarter of humanity, and another vaunt the Koran.
I would agree with you, Stephen, that the Bible endorses small scale “capitalism”–for want of a better word–but that doesn’t make Thatcherism right.
I am old enough to remember Harold Wilson’s Labour Government. He was an friend of Golda Meir and wrote a pro-Zionist book called “The Chariots of Israel.” He reminded us that the Labour party’s roots were Methodism and not Marxism and, with a one-liner, demolished an atheist politician.
That, of course, does not make Keynes a saint. (And you are right about the homosexual agendas which run much deeper than most people are aware. Sadly, lots of clergymen are ignorant of them.)
I think both sides in this argument have to go back to the Bible and perhaps even recall Jeremiah 17:9. If that applies to us who are Christians–and it does–how can we expect of rulers, politicians and economists?
If I were a money lender, this is what I would like to see! Let the ignorant masses squabble over Keynes versus Smith, I win either way! Too bad I am a social anarchist, forced into wage slavery and taxes by the very same ignorant masses to work off the infinite debt imposed on them by the ‘masters of mankind’ (to quote Adam Smith).