Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- General introduction
- Editorial note
- 1 ‘I AM BECOMING MORE FASHIONABLE AGAIN’
- 2 THE MACMILLAN COMMITTEE
- 3 FIRST REACTIONS TO THE SLUMP
- 4 THE COMMITTEE OF ECONOMISTS
- 5 UNEMPLOYMENT AND PROTECTION
- 6 AN AMERICAN VISIT
- 7 THE 1931 FINANCIAL CRISIS
- List of Documents Reproduced
- Acknowledgements
- Index
5 - UNEMPLOYMENT AND PROTECTION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- General introduction
- Editorial note
- 1 ‘I AM BECOMING MORE FASHIONABLE AGAIN’
- 2 THE MACMILLAN COMMITTEE
- 3 FIRST REACTIONS TO THE SLUMP
- 4 THE COMMITTEE OF ECONOMISTS
- 5 UNEMPLOYMENT AND PROTECTION
- 6 AN AMERICAN VISIT
- 7 THE 1931 FINANCIAL CRISIS
- List of Documents Reproduced
- Acknowledgements
- Index
Summary
The deliberations of the Committee of Economists coincided with the final stages of publication of A Treatise on Money (JMK, vols. V and VI) which appeared on 31 October. On 11 and 18 October Keynes also published ‘Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren’ (JMK, vol. IX, pp. 321–32) in The Nation. A week later a letter from Francis White of North Harrow appeared in that journal deploring Keynes's statement that ‘For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and everyone, that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not.’ Keynes replied for the next issue.
To the Editor of The Nation and Athenaeum, 24 October 1930
Sir,
Your correspondent, Mr Francis J. White, may not have detected every element of the ironic which may have been present in my article. But anyhow, I am in good company in wishing to postpone (until we can afford them) the application of those ‘most sure and certain principles of religion and virtue’, relating to the pursuit of gain, to which I was referring. I am not aware that even archbishops would be in favour of putting them into force immediately.
Moreover, is it not the highest virtue to ‘do evil that good may come’? For is this not what we mean by ‘doing good’ as distinct from ‘being good’? ‘Doing good’, as I understand the phrase, means to forgo the best oneself in order that others may have an opportunity to be good, which is the completest form of self-sacrifice.
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- The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes , pp. 467 - 528Publisher: Royal Economic SocietyPrint publication year: 1978