“With men and plant unemployed, it is ridiculous to say that we cannot afford new developments. It is precisely with these plants and these men that we shall afford them. When we have unemployed men and unemployed plants and more savings than we are using at home, it is utterly imbecile to say that we cannot afford these things. For it is with the unemployed men and the unemployed plant, and with nothing else, that these things are done…. There is the far greater loss to the unemployed themselves, representeed by the differences between the dole and a full working wage, and by the loss of strength and morale.”… John Maynard Keynes, 1928
“[Keynes] argued that…it was by not taking action that the nation’s resources were wasted. Unemployment benefits were already costing taxpayers 50 million pounds annually, not counting poor relief. In the previous eight years the unemployed had been paid a total of 500 million pounds to do nothing. It was a staggering squandering of resources. Such a vast sum could have built a million new homes, or renewed a third of Britain’s roads, or provided every third family with a free car…”“Keynes / Hayek, The Clash That Defined Modern Economics, by Nicholas Wapshott
EDITOR: Keynes had come to observe the waste through excessive unemployment and its prolongation of hard times, but it would be several years before he would come up with his “General Theory” to explain the causes.
