[转帖] 凯恩斯：我们后代可能的经济前景

野旷天低树

凯恩斯

一
    现在，关于经济前景的悲观论调正不绝于耳。我们常常可以听到人们说，作为19世纪特征的经济突飞猛进的时代已经结束；而一度迅速提高的生活水平也开始放慢了脚步——无论如何至少在英国是如此；在未来十年中，经济的繁荣程度将会衰退而不是高涨。

　　我认为上述说法是对目前状况的一个粗暴的误解。现在我们所遭受的痛苦，不是老年性风湿病，而是由于发育过速引起的发育性阵痛，是两个经济阶段之间重新调整的过程所引起的痛苦。技术效率的提高速度超过了劳动力吸收问题的解决速度；生活水平的提高，步子也稍大了一些；世界的银行和货币制度阻碍了利率的下降，使得货币的供求平衡不能迅速恢复。而即使如此，由此所产生的浪费和混乱，其后果也不过涉及国民收入的7．5％；即我们在每一镑中浪费掉了1先令6便士，只得到了18先令6便士，而如果我们明智一些的话，本来可以得到整整1镑；然而，虽然如此，现在的18先令6便士抵得上五六年前的1镑。我们忘记了，在1929年英国的工业实际产出达到了历史最高水平，而且我们的国际收支余额在偿付了所有的进口商品后可用作新增对外投资的净顺差额，比其他任何国家的相应余额都高，与美国相比，甚至超出了50％。为了便于比较，还可以再假设我们把工资降低一半，把国家债务削减4／5并停止清偿，将剩余的财富以不能生利的黄金形式贮存起来，而不是按6％或更高的利息贷放出去，那么我们就会与现在人们羡慕不已的法国的情况相差无几。但是这能算得上是一种改进吗？

　　普遍性的世界性大萧条、在一个充满贫困的世界里产生的异常巨大规模的失业、我们曾犯下的灾难性错误，所有这些都使我们失去了洞察力，对于在表面现象下正在发生的一切视而不见，对于事物发展趋势的真实解释置若罔闻。悲观主义有两种相反的论调：一种是革命者的悲观主义，他们认为事态已恶化到无以复加的地步，只有进行激烈的变革才有一线生机；另一种则是反动分子的悲观主义，他们认为我们的经济与社会生活的平衡已是如此岌岌可危，因此不能再冒险进行任何尝试。我认为这两种论调都是错误的，这一点，在我们这一代就会得到证实。

　　不过，本文的意图并不在于详细探讨当前或即将出现的情况，而在于使我们能够摆脱短浅的目光去眺望遥远的未来。对于100年后我们的经济生活水平，可以作出一些什么样的合理预期呢？我们的子孙后代在经济上会有一些什么样的可能发展前景呢？

　　从有史以来，比如说，从公元前2000年开始，到18世纪初期，生活在世界各个文明中心的人们的生活水平，并没有发生多大的变化。当然中间是时有起伏的。瘟疫、饥荒、战争等天灾人祸时有发生，其间还有若干短暂的繁荣时期，但总的来看，不存在渐进或激进的变化。一直到公元1700年为止的4000年间，某些时期的生活水平也许比别的时期要高上50％，但不会超过100％。

　　这种缓慢的发展速度，或者说发展的停滞，是由于两个原因——一是极其缺乏重大的技术革新，再就是未能进行资本积累。

　　从史前时期到比较晚近的时代这一漫长期间，始终缺乏重大的技术革新，这一现象确实是异乎寻常的。凡是在近代初期人们所拥有的那些真正至关重要的事物，几乎每一样都在历史的原始时期就已广为人知：语言，火，与我们今天一样的家畜，小麦、大麦、葡萄和橄榄，耕犁、车轮、桨、帆、皮革、麻布和织物，砖瓦和罐壶，黄金和白银，铜、锡和铅——铁是在公元前1000年前被发现的——银行学、治国术、数学、天文学和宗教。至于我们究竟是在什么时候首次开始拥有这些事物的，并没有确切的历史记载。

　　在史前的某些时期——也许是在最近一次冰河期以前某个比较安乐的间歇期——一定曾经有过一个充满进步和创新的时代，这个时代可以与我们现在所生活的时代相媲美。但是在整个有记载的历史的大部分时期，却未曾出现过类似的情形。

　　我认为近代时期是从资本积累开始的，而资本积累又始于16世纪。我相信——我不能在此详述其原因，以免喧宾夺主——这最初是由于西班牙把黄金财宝从新大陆带到旧大陆，从而引起了物价上涨，并带来了利润的增长。从那时起到今天，按复利计算的资本积累的力量，在仿佛沉睡了许多年以后，又苏醒过来并重新恢复了活力。而200年来复利的力量所起的巨大作用简直是超乎想像的。

　　为了能说明这一点，在此我给出一个我所作的计算。英国现在的对外投资总额估计大约有40亿镑，这每年能为我们带来大约6．5％的利息收入，这笔收入的半数，我们把它带回国享用；另一半，即3．25％的利息收入，则在国外按复利计算积累起来。这样的事我们已经进行了大约250年。

　　我认为英国对外投资的始端可追溯到1580年德雷克从西班牙盗窃的大批财宝。在那一年他带着从富庶的印度劫掠来的数量惊人的战利品回到了英国。伊丽莎白女王是资助这次远征的辛迪加的一个大股东。她把自己所获得的一份用来清偿了英国的全部外债、平衡了自己的预算，最后手里还剩下4万镑。她又再把这4万镑投入到东方公司，这个公司也是生意兴隆，大发利市。东印度公司就是靠这个公司的利润起家的，而东印度公司这个巨型企业的利润又为日后英国的对外投资打下了基础。把4万镑按3．25％的复利累积起来，其数额恰巧与英国在各个时期对外投资的实际总额相差无几，算到今天这个数额总计应为40亿镑，而这就是我在前面已经引用过的英国目前对外投资的总额。因此，德雷克在1580年带回来的财宝中，每一镑现在已变成了10万镑。复利的力量就有如此之大！

　　从16世纪起，科学和技术发明的伟大时代开始了，在18世纪后这个势头日益强劲，而从19世纪初开始，更进入了鼎盛时期——煤炭、蒸汽、电力、石油、钢铁、橡胶、棉花，化学工业、自动机械、大规模生产的方法，无线电、印刷术，牛顿、达尔文和爱因斯坦，还有其他家喻户晓的人和物，成千上万，不可胜数。

　　那么这一切导致了什么样的后果呢？尽管世界人口有了巨大增长，同时这些人口还必须有相应的住房和机器设备与之相配合，但是我认为，欧洲和美国的平均生活水平还是提高了将近4倍。而资本的增长所达到的规模，比之于以前所知的任何时代，要远远超过上百倍，而且今后人口未必会再次出现如此巨大的增长。

　　如果资本每年增长，比方说2％，那么世界的基本固定资产将会在20年里增加50％，而在100年里将增加7．5倍。可以从物质方面，比如说住房、运输之类，来想像一下这种发展前景。

　　同时，近十年来，在工业和运输方面的技术改进，其速度也是前所未有的。美国1925年的人均工业产值比1919年提高了40％。在欧洲我们被暂时的障碍所阻滞，但即使如此，仍然可以肯定地说，技术效率的增长率总体上每年至少在1％以上。现在显而易见的是，尽管革命性的技术革新迄今主要是发生在工业领域，但很快将冲击到农业方面。粮食生产效率的进步，将与矿业、工业和运输业所取得的进步同样巨大，而我们也许正处在这种巨变的前夜。在好些年以后——即在我们自己这一代——也许可以只付出原来一向使用的人力的1／4，就能够完成在农业、矿业和工业上的操作了。

　　目前，这些变革的高速度正使我们苦恼不已，它们带来了不少有待解决的难题。那些不是处于进步队伍前列的国家，也遭受着同样的痛苦。一种新的疾病正在折磨着我们，某些读者也许还没有听说过它的名称，不过在今后几年内将听得不想再听——这种病叫做“由技术进步而引致的失业”。这意味着失业是由于我们发现节约劳动力使用的方法的速度远远超过了我们为劳动力开辟新用途的速度而造成的。

  但这只是经济失调的暂时阶段。所有这一切都意味着，从长远看，人类终将解决其经济问题。我敢预言，100年后进步国家的生活水平将比现在高4－8倍。即使是根据我们现有的知识看，这也是在意料之中的。而且即使是作更乐观的估计，也并非异想天开。

野旷天低树

二
　　为了便于讨论，且让我们设想，100年后所有我们这些人的经济境况平均要比现在好上8倍。毫无疑问，这对我们来说应该是不足为奇的。
　　现在可以肯定的是，人类的需要是永无止境的。不过，人类的需要可以分为两类——一类是绝对的需要，即是说，不管周围的其他人境况如何，我们都会感到这种需要的存在；另一类是相对的需要，即是说，只有当这种需要的满足能够使我们凌驾于他人之上，产生一种优越感时，我们才会觉察到这种需要的存在。这第二类需要，即满足优越感的需要，也许才真正是不知餍足的，因为当一般的水平有了提高之后，这种需要也会水涨船高。不过，绝对的需要也许将很快达到，其实现的时间也许要比我们大家所意识到的还要早得多，而当这些需要得到了满足，那时我们就愿意把精力投放到非经济的目的上去。
　　现在谈谈我的结论。我想，您对这个结论思考得越深入，就会发现它是越发的超乎想像、令人惊诧。
　　我得出的结论是，假定不发生大规模的战争，没有大规模的人口增长，那么，“经济问题”将可能在100年内获得解决，或者至少是可望获得解决。这意味着，如果我们展望未来，经济问题并不是“人类的永恒问题”。
　　您也许会问，为什么这样就让人惊诧？这的确值得令人惊奇。如果我们不是眺望未来，而是回首过去，就会发现，迄今为止，经济问题、生存竞争，一直是人类首要的、最紧迫的问题——不仅是人类，而且在整个生物界，从生命的最原始形式开始莫不如此。
　　因此，显而易见，我们是凭借我们的天性——包括我们所有的冲动和最深层的本能——为了解决经济问题而进化发展起来的。如果经济问题得以解决，那么人们就将失去他们传统的生存目的。
　　那么这对人类到底是福还是祸呢？如果你完全相信生命的真正价值，则这一远景至少为我们展示了从中获益的可能性。不过，那些经过无数代的培养，对于普通人来说已是根深蒂固的习惯和本能，要在几十年内加以悉数抛弃，以使我们脱胎换骨、面目一新，是难乎其难的。虑及这一点，我仍然不能不感到非常忧虑。
　　用我们今天的话说，这会不会引起普遍的“精神崩溃”呢？对此，我们已有了些许体会。我所说的这种精神崩溃现象在英国和美国富裕阶层的家庭妇女中，已是极为寻常。这些不幸的妇女，她们中的许多人被自己的财富剥夺了传统的任务和工作，由于经济上的必需这一刺激已经消失，所以她们从烹调、洒扫和缝补这类活动中已不能得到足够的快乐，而又难以找到更愉快的消遣。
　　对那些为了每日的面包而辛勤劳动的人来说，闲暇是一件令人向往的乐事；而当这种向往成为现实时，他们才发现原来是另一番滋味。
据说有这样一段墓志铭，是一位打杂女工为她自己写的：

　　别为我悲伤，
　　朋友们，
　　别为我哭泣。
　　现在我什么也不用干了，
　　而将永远永远地休息。
　　
    这就是她的天堂。如同其他渴望闲暇的人一样，她想像要是让别人来歌唱而她在一旁倾听，这样打发时光的方式将是多么美妙，因为在她的诗中还有这样两行：

　　天空中回荡着圣歌和甜美的音乐，
　　而我在一旁倾听，什么也不做。

　　然而，只有对那些不得不歌唱的人来说，生活才是差强人意的——可是我们当中又有几人真正能够放声歌唱呢！
　　因此，人类自从出现以来，第一次遇到了他真正的、永恒的问题——当从紧迫的经济束缚中解放出来以后，应该怎样来利用他的自由？科学和复利的力量将为他赢得闲暇，而他又该如何来消磨这段光阴，生活得更明智而惬意呢？
　　那些孜孜不倦、一心一意的图利者，也许会把我们大家带上通向经济丰裕的跑道。但当这种丰裕实现以后，只有这些人才能在这种丰裕中获得享受：他们不会为了生活的手段而出卖自己，能够使生活的艺术永葆青春，并将之发扬光大，提升到更高境界。
　　我认为，没有任何国家、任何民族，能够在期待这种多暇而丰裕时代的同时，不怀有丝毫的忧惧。在国内，长久以来，我们都是被训练着去奋斗而不是去享受。对那些没有特殊才能来寄托身心的普通人来说，这是件可怕的事，特别是当他再也不能在传统社会的温床和他所珍视的那些风俗习惯中找到自己的根基时，这个问题就显得尤为严重。从今天世界任何一个角落的富裕阶层的所作所为和取得的成就来看，解决这个问题的前景是非常黯淡的！因为这些人可以说是我们的先锋，他们在为我们探寻希望之地并在那里安营扎寨。他们中的绝大多数已经遭到了惨重的失败。所以在我看来，似乎只有那些有独立收入而又没有社会关系或职责来约束的人，才有可能解决这些困扰他们的问题。
　　在以后的许多年间，我们的劣根性仍然会如此的根深蒂固，所以，任何人如果想要生活得舒心畅意，那么他就必须得干一点工作。比起现在的富人们来，到那个时候我们将为自己多做些事。如果有些什么细小的任务要担当，或者有些日常琐事要料理，我们将感到非常高兴。不过当工作量超过这一限度时，我们将努力减轻每个人的负担，对于到那时仍然必须完成的一些工作，我们将尽可能广泛地进行分配。3小时一轮班或每周15小时的工作，也许会使上述问题在相当长一段时间内得以缓解。因为对我们大多数人来说，每天工作3小时，已足以使我们的劣根性获得满足。
　　此外，在其他领域也会发生变化，我们必须预料到这一点。当财富的积累不再具有高度的社会重要性时，我们原先的道德准则会发生重大变化。我们将可以摆脱200年来如恶梦般困扰我们的那些虚伪的道德原则，在这些伪道德原则下，我们一直把人类品性中某些最令人厌恶的东西抬举为最高尚的美德。到那时，对于金钱动机，我们将有胆量按照其真实的价值来加以评价。对金钱的爱好作为一种占有欲——它区别于作为享受生活、应付现实的手段的那种对金钱的爱好——将被看作是某种可憎的病态，是一种半属犯罪、半属变态的性格倾向，人们不得不战战兢兢地把它交付给精神病专家去处理。那些影响财富分配和经济上的酬报和惩罚的各种社会习俗及经济惯例，不管它们本身可能是多么地令人憎恶、有失公平，由于它们对促进资本积累有极大的作用，因此现在我们得不惜一切代价加以维持；但是到那时我们将从中解放出来，并终将摒弃它们。
　　当然，到那时将仍然有不少人怀着强烈的、贪得无厌的意图，盲目地追求财富，除非他们能够找到某种可能的替代目的。不过，我们其余的人将不再有任何义务对这类意图表示赞许和鼓励。几乎所有的人都不同程度地被大自然赋予了这种“意图”，不过，到那时我们可以在比今天更为稳妥自如的情况下，更加细致深入地探索这种“意图”的真正性质。所谓意图，其含义是，我们更关心自己的行动在遥远的将来所导致的结果，而非行动本身的性质和对我们自己周围环境的直接影响。那些“有意图”的人，总是企图通过把他们对行动的兴趣向后推延来确保他们的行动具有一种假想的和虚妄的永恒性。他所喜欢的并不是他的猫，而是他的猫所生的小猫；实际上，他喜欢的也不是小猫，而是小猫的小猫。这样无穷无尽地递推下去，到最后，他所追求的不过是抽象的“猫”的概念。对他来说，果酱并不是果酱，即决不是今天这听实实在在的果酱，而是想像中的明天的那听果酱。因此，通过把他的果酱不断地推向未来，他竭力想要从他的行动中升华出一种永恒性来。
    让我们回忆一下《西尔维亚和布鲁诺》中的那位教授：

　　门外的人低声下气地说：“只是一个裁缝，先生，是来收账的。”
　　“啊，我可以很快解决他的事情，”教授对他的孩子们说，“你们只需等一小会儿。今年的账是多少，我的朋友？”他正说着，裁缝已经走了进来。
　　“你晓得，这笔账是每年翻一番的，现在已经这么多年了，”裁缝有点生硬地回答道，“我现在就想拿到现钱。已经有2000镑了！”
　　“喔，这不算什么！”教授满不在乎地说，一边在口袋里摸索着，仿佛他总是随身带着那样数目的一笔款子似的。“不过，如果你愿意的话，为什么不再等上一年，让它滚成4000镑呢？想想看，那时你会多么富裕！要是你愿意，你简直可以成为一个‘国王’！”
　　“我可不清楚我是不是想成为国王，”裁缝若有所思地说，“不过这笔款子听起来的确数目不小！好吧，我看我还是等一等吧……”
　　“你当然会这么办的！”教授说，“我知道，你是个精明的人。再见，我的朋友！”
　　“你真的打算付给他4000镑吗？”等那个债主离去，关上门以后，西尔维亚问。
“那怎么会，我的孩子！”教授毫不犹豫地回答，“他会让这笔钱一直滚下去，直到他死为止。你看，只要再等上一年，这笔钱就会变成现在的两倍，这件事总是值得去做的啊！”

　　我们这个民族，曾经不遗余力地让“不朽”的允诺成为自己宗教的核心和本质，但同时又最热衷于对复利原则的运用，并且对这一“最有意图性”的人类制度抱有特殊的眷恋之情，这一现象也许不是偶然的。
　　因此，我认为当达到这一丰裕而多暇的境地之后，我们将重新抬起宗教和传统美德中最为确凿可靠的那些原则——以为贪婪是一种恶癖，高利盘剥是一种罪行，爱好金钱是令人憎恶的。而那些真正走上德行美好、心智健全的正道的人，他们对未来的顾虑是最少的。我们将再次重视目的甚于手段，更看重事物的有益性而不是有用性。我们将尊崇这样一些人，他们能够教导我们如何分分秒秒都过得充实而美好，这些心情愉快的人能够从事物中获得直接的乐趣，既不劳碌如牛马，也不虚度岁月，逍遥如神仙中人。
　　可是要注意！谈论上面所说的这一切现在还为时尚早，至少还得等上100年。而现在我们必须自欺欺人地把美的说成丑的，丑的说成美的，只是因为丑的有用而美的不能带来实惠。在相当长一段时期内，我们仍然还得把贪婪、高利盘剥和谨慎奉为神明。因为只有这些才能把我们从经济必要性的沼泽中带出，走上康庄大道。
　　因此，我盼望在不太遥远的将来，整个人类的物质生活条件能够发生前所未有的巨变。不过，当然这个巨变将是渐进的，而不会一蹴而就。实际上，这个巨变现在已经拉开了序幕。这一变化的进程将只是意味着，那些经济必需问题已经得到实际解决的阶层和集团的人数会越来越多。当这种状况有了普遍的发展从而使得“对邻人之爱”的性质发生变化之后，我们就会认识到其间的关键性差别。因为当经济上的意图对你来说已不再是合情合理的时候，对别人却可能仍旧是理所当然的。
　　我们迈向经济上的这一极乐境地的速度，取决于以下四个因素——我们对人心的控制力量，避免战争和内证的决心，把理应属于科学领域的事务交付给科学来处理的自觉意愿，以及由生产和消费之间的差额所决定的积累的速度。只要前三者不出问题，最后一点也就会迎刃而解。
　　我们在进行经济性目的活动的同时，也应当提高生活的艺术水平，并进行一些试验来为我们的终极目标作些适当的准备，我看这是没有什么坏处的。
     但首要的一点是，我们不能过高估计经济问题的重要性，不能为了它假想的必要性而在其他具有更重大、更持久意义的事情上作牺牲。经济问题应该成为由专家来处理的事务——就像牙病应由牙医来处理一样。如果经济学家们能够作出努力，使得社会把他们看成是平凡而又胜任其职的人，就像牙医的地位一样，那就再好不过了。

野旷天低树

John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren，1930


I

We are suffering just now from a bad attack of economic pessimism. It is common to hear people
say that the epoch of enormous economic progress which characterised the nineteenth century is
over; that the rapid improvement in the standard of life is now going to slow down –at any rate in
Great Britain; that a decline in prosperity is more likely than an improvement in the decade
which lies ahead of us.

I believe that this is a wildly mistaken interpretation of what is happening to us. We are
suffering, not from the rheumatics of old age, but from the growing-pains of over-rapid changes,
from the painfulness of readjustment between one economic period and another. The increase of
technical efficiency has been taking place faster than we can deal with the problem of labour
absorption; the improvement in the standard of life has been a little too quick; the banking and
monetary system of the world has been preventing the rate of interest from falling as fast as
equilibrium requires. And even so, the waste and confusion which ensue relate to not more than
7. per cent of the national income; we are muddling away one and sixpence in the ￡, and have
only 18s. 6d., when we might, if we were more sensible, have ￡1 ; yet, nevertheless, the 18s. 6d.
mounts up to as much as the ￡1 would have been five or six years ago. We forget that in 1929 the
physical output of the industry of Great Britain was greater than ever before, and that the net
surplus of our foreign balance available for new foreign investment, after paying for all our
imports, was greater last year than that of any other country, being indeed 50 per cent greater
than the corresponding surplus of the United States. Or again-if it is to be a matter of
comparisons-suppose that we were to reduce our wages by a half, repudiate four fifths of the
national debt, and hoard our surplus wealth in barren gold instead of lending it at 6 per cent or
more, we should resemble the now much-envied France. But would it be an improvement?

The prevailing world depression, the enormous anomaly of unemployment in a world full of
wants, the disastrous mistakes we have made, blind us to what is going on under the surface to
the true interpretation of the trend of things. For I predict that both of the two opposed errors of
pessimism which now make so much noise in the world will be proved wrong in our own time-
the pessimism of the revolutionaries who think that things are so bad that nothing can save us but
violent change, and the pessimism of the reactionaries who consider the balance of our economic
and social life so precarious that we must risk no experiments.

My purpose in this essay, however, is not to examine the present or the near future, but to
disembarrass myself of short views and take wings into the future. What can we reasonably
expect the level of our economic life to be a hundred years hence? What are the economic
possibilities for our grandchildren?

From the earliest times of which we have record-back, say, to two thousand years before Christ-
down to the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was no very great change in the standard
of life of the average man living in the civilised centres of the earth. Ups and downs certainly.
Visitations of plague, famine, and war. Golden intervals. But no progressive, violent change.
Some periods perhaps So per cent better than othersat the utmost 1 00 per cent better-in the four
thousand years which ended (say) in A. D. 1700.

This slow rate of progress, or lack of progress, was due to two reasons-to the remarkable absence
of important technical improvements and to the failure of capital to accumulate.

The absence of important technical inventions between the prehistoric age and comparatively
modern times is truly remarkable. Almost everything which really matters and which the world
possessed at the commencement of the modern age was already known to man at the dawn of
history. Language, fire, the same domestic animals which we have today, wheat, barley, the vine
and the olive, the plough, the wheel, the oar, the sail, leather, linen and cloth, bricks and pots,
gold and silver, copper, tin, and lead-and iron was added to the list before 1000 B.C.-banking,
statecraft, mathematics, astronomy, and religion. There is no record of when we first possessed
these things.

At some epoch before the dawn of history perhaps even in one of the comfortable intervals
before the last ice age-there must have been an era of progress and invention comparable to that
in which we live today. But through the greater part of recorded history there was nothing of the
kind.

The modern age opened; I think, with the accumulation of capital which began in the sixteenth
century. I believe-for reasons with which I must not encumber the present argument-that this was
initially due to the rise of prices, and the profits to which that led, which resulted from the
treasure of gold and silver which Spain brought from the New World into the Old. From that
time until today the power of accumulation by compound interest, which seems to have been
sleeping for many generations, was re-born and renewed its strength. And the power of
compound interest over two hundred years is such as to stagger the imagination.

Let me give in illustration of this a sum which I have worked out. The value of Great Britain’s
foreign investments today is estimated at about ￡4,000,000,000. This yields us an income at the
rate of about 6. per cent. Half of this we bring home and enjoy; the other half, namely, 3. per
cent, we leave to accumulate abroad at compound interest. Something of this sort has now been
going on for about 250 years.

For I trace the beginnings of British foreign investment to the treasure which Drake stole from
Spain in 1580. In that year he returned to England bringing with him the prodigious spoils of the
Golden Hind. Queen Elizabeth was a considerable shareholder in the syndicate which had
financed the expedition. Out of her share she paid off the whole of England’s foreign debt,
balanced her Budget, and found herself with about ￡40,000 in hand. This she invested in the
Levant Company –which prospered. Out of the profits of the Levant Company, the East India
Company was founded; and the profits of this great enterprise were the foundation of England’s
subsequent foreign investment. Now it happens that ￡40,ooo accumulating at 3f per cent
compound interest approximately corresponds to the actual volume of England’s foreign
investments at various dates, and would actually amount today to the total of ￡4,000,000,000
which I have already quoted as being what our foreign investments now are. Thus, every ￡1
which Drake brought home in 1580 has now become ￡100,000. Such is the power of compound
interest!

From the sixteenth century, with a cumulative crescendo after the eighteenth, the great age of
science and technical inventions began, which since the beginning of the nineteenth century has
been in full flood—coal, steam, electricity, petrol, steel, rubber, cotton, the chemical industries,
automatic machinery and the methods of mass production, wireless, printing, Newton, Darwin,
and Einstein, and thousands of other things and men too famous and familiar to catalogue.
What is the result? In spite of an enormous growth in the population of the world, which it has
been necessary to equip with houses and machines, the average standard of life in Europe and the
United States has been raised, I think, about fourfold. The growth of capital has been on a scale
which is far beyond a hundredfold of what any previous age had known. And from now on we
need not expect so great an increase of population.

If capital increases, say, 2 per cent per annum, the capital equipment of the world will have
increased by a half in twenty years, and seven and a half times in a hundred years. Think of this
in terms of material things—houses, transport, and the like.

At the same time technical improvements in manufacture and transport have been proceeding at
a greater rate in the last ten years than ever before in history. In the United States factory output
per head was 40 per cent greater in 1925 than in 1919. In Europe we are held back by temporary
obstacles, but even so it is safe to say that technical efficiency is increasing by more than 1 per
cent per annum compound. There is evidence that the revolutionary technical changes, which
have so far chiefly affected industry, may soon be attacking agriculture. We may be on the eve of
improvements in the efficiency of food production as great as those which have already taken
place in mining, manufacture, and transport. In quite a few years-in our own lifetimes I mean-we
may be able to perform all the operations of agriculture, mining, and manufacture with a quarter
of the human effort to which we have been accustomed.

For the moment the very rapidity of these changes is hurting us and bringing difficult problems
to solve. Those countries are suffering relatively which are not in the vanguard of progress. We
are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name,
but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come—namely, technological
unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use
of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.

But this is only a temporary phase of maladjustment. All this means in the long run that mankind
is solving its economic problem. I would predict that the standard of life in progressive countries
one hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as high as it is. There would be
nothing surprising in this even in the light of our present knowledge. It would not be foolish to
contemplate the possibility of afar greater progress still.

II

Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that a hundred years hence we are all of us, on the
average, eight times better off in the economic sense than we are today. Assuredly there need be
nothing here to surprise us.

Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two
classes –those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of
our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only
if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second
class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the higher the
general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs-a point may
soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when these needs are
satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes.
Now for my conclusion, which you will find, I think, to become more and more startling to the
imagination the longer you think about it.

I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in population,
the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred
years. This means that the economic problem is not-if we look into the future-the permanent
problem of the human race.

Why, you may ask, is this so startling? It is startling because-if, instead of looking into the
future, we look into the past-we find that the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence,
always has been hitherto the primary, most pressing problem of the human race-not only of the
human race, but of the whole of the biological kingdom from the beginnings of life in its most
primitive forms.

Thus we have been expressly evolved by nature-with all our impulses and deepest instincts-for
the purpose of solving the economic problem. If the economic problem is solved, mankind will
be deprived of its traditional purpose.

Will this be a benefit? If one believes at all in the real values of life, the prospect at least opens
up the possibility of benefit. Yet I think with dread of the readjustment of the habits and instincts
of the ordinary man, bred into him for countless generations, which he may be asked to discard
within a few decades.

To use the language of today-must we not expect a general “nervous breakdown”? We already
have a little experience of what I mean -a nervous breakdown of the sort which is already
common enough in England and the United States amongst the wives of the well-to-do classes,
unfortunate women, many of them, who have been deprived by their wealth of their traditional
tasks and occupations--who cannot find it sufficiently amusing, when deprived of the spur of
economic necessity, to cook and clean and mend, yet are quite unable to find anything more
amusing.

To those who sweat for their daily bread leisure is a longed—for sweet-until they get it.

There is the traditional epitaph written for herself by the old charwoman:—

Don’t mourn for me, friends, don’t weep for me never,
For I’m going to do nothing for ever and ever.

This was her heaven. Like others who look forward to leisure, she conceived how nice it would
be to spend her time listening-in-for there was another couplet which occurred in her poem: —

With psalms and sweet music the heavens’ll be ringing,
But I shall have nothing to do with the singing.

Yet it will only be for those who have to do with the singing that life will be tolerable and how
few of us can sing!

Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem-
how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science
and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.

The strenuous purposeful money-makers may carry all of us along with them into the lap of
economic abundance. But it will be those peoples, who can keep alive, and cultivate into a fuller
perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able
to enjoy the abundance when it comes.

Yet there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the age of leisure and of
abundance without a dread. For we have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy. It is a
fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if
he no longer has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional
society. To judge from the behaviour and the achievements of the wealthy classes today in any
quarter of the world, the outlook is very depressing! For these are, so to speak, our advance
guard-those who are spying out the promised land for the rest of us and pitching their camp
there. For they have most of them failed disastrously, so it seems to me-those who have an
independent income but no associations or duties or ties-to solve the problem which has been set
them.

I feel sure that with a little more experience we shall use the new-found bounty of nature quite
differently from the way in which the rich use it today, and will map out for ourselves a plan of
life quite otherwise than theirs.

For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some
work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich
today, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall
endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be
as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem
for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
There are changes in other spheres too which we must expect to come. 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. The love of money as a possession -as distinguished
from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life -will be recognised for
what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semicriminal, semi-pathological
propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds
of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic
rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they
may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of
capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard.

Of course there will still be many people with intense, unsatisfied purposiveness who will
blindly pursue wealth-unless they can find some plausible substitute. But the rest of us will no
longer be under any obligation to applaud and encourage them. For we shall inquire more
curiously than is safe today into the true character of this “purposiveness” with which in varying
degrees Nature has endowed almost all of us. For purposiveness means that we are more
concerned with the remote future results of our actions than with their own quality or their
immediate effects on our own environment. The “purposive” man is always trying to secure a
spurious and delusive immortality for his acts by pushing his interest in them forward into time.
He does not love his cat, but his cat’s kittens; nor, in truth, the kittens, but only the kittens’
kittens, and so on forward forever to the end of cat-dom. For him jam is not jam unless it is a
case of jam to-morrow and never jam today. Thus by pushing his jam always forward into the
future, he strives to secure for his act of boiling it an immortality.

Let me remind you of the Professor in Sylvie and Bruno:

“Only the tailor, sir, with your little bill,” said a meek voce outside the door.
“Ah, well, I can soon settle his business,” the Professor said to the children, “if you’ll just wait a minute. How
much is it, this year, my man?” The tailor had come in while he was speaking.
“Well, it’s been a-doubling so many years, you see,” the tailor replied, a little grufy, “and I think I’d like the
money now. It’s two thousand pound, it is!”
“Oh, that’s nothing!” the Professor carelessly remarked, feeling in his pocket, as if he always carried at least
that amount about with him. “But wouldn’t you like to wait just another year and make it four thousand? Just
think how rich you’d be! Why, you might be a king, if you liked!”
“I don’t know as I’d care about being a king,” the man said thoughtfully. “But it dew sound a powerful sight o’
money! Well, I think I’ll wait-“
“Of course you will!” said the Professor. “There’s good sense in you, I see. Good-day to you, my man!”
“Will you ever have to pay him that four thousand pounds?” Sylvie asked as the door closed on the departing
creditor.
“Never, my child!” the Professor replied emphatically. “He’ll go on doubling it till he dies. You see, it’s always
worth while waiting another year to get twice as much money!”

Perhaps it is not an accident that the race which did most to bring the promise of immortality into
the heart and essence of our religions has also done most for the principle of compound interest
and particularly loves this most purposive of human institutions.

I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and
traditional virtue-that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love
of money is detestable, that those walk most truly in the paths of virtue and sane wisdom who
take least thought for the morrow. We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the
good to the useful. We shall honour those who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day
virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things,
the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.

But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to
ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not.
Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead
us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

I look forward, therefore, in days not so very remote, to the greatest change which has ever
occurred in the material environment of life for human beings in the aggregate. But, of course, it
will all happen gradually, not as a catastrophe. Indeed, it has already begun. The course of affairs
will simply be that there will be ever larger and larger classes and groups of people from whom
problems of economic necessity have been practically removed. The critical difference will be
realised when this condition has become so general that the nature of one’s duty to one’s
neighbour is changed. For it will remain reasonable to be economically purposive for others after
it has ceased to be reasonable for oneself.

The pace at which we can reach our destination of economic bliss will be governed by four
things-our power to control population, our determination to avoid wars and civil dissensions,
our willingness to entrust to science the direction of those matters which are properly the concern
of science, and the rate of accumulation as fixed by the margin between our production and our
consumption; of which the last will easily look after itself, given the first three.

Meanwhile there will be no harm in making mild preparations for our destiny, in encouraging,
and experimenting in, the arts of life as well as the activities of purpose.

But, chiefly, do not let us overestimate the importance of the economic problem, or sacrifice to
its supposed necessities other matters of greater and more permanent significance. It should be a
matter for specialists-like dentistry. If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as
humble, competent people, on a level with dentists, that would be splendid!

* from John Maynard Keynes, Essays in Persuasion, New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 1963, pp. 358-373.