The Economic Philosophy of Capitalism in Keynes: Ethics, Ontology, and Power

We argue in this article that there exists within Keynesian thought a genuine and original proposition concerning what capitalism is. Against an approach that would tend to hierarchise the economy and the individual by making the latter a mere reflection of the former, we show instead that, for Keynes, the two are inseparable and consubstantial, and that it is their relationship which constitutes capitalism. This relationship is certainly perceived as useful, even necessary, but it is not morally desirable. Capitalism thus appears as a dialectic between technical progress and moral progress, one that carries within it an ontology. For Keynes's project is, ultimately, to bring about the social and political conditions of possibility of the good that resides within human beings, through their states of mind, in fidelity to the Moorean philosophy of the Principia Ethica. We thus show that the controversies surrounding Keynes with regard to capitalism concern less the way in which it is defined than the way in which it is judged. They consequently lead to a double epistemic pitfall—realist and dichotomous—which tends to exclude ethics from capitalism's very conception. Yet Keynes's philosophy lies at the heart of his economic and political project and is therefore constitutive of the way the world appears to him.