F or example, if all sorts of non-Europ ean coun tries decided to deﬁne the v alues of their

currencies as on a par with the euro, without actually joining in to an y system of co op erativ e

regulations asso ciated with that, then the eﬀect of that w ould seem likely to destabilize the

stabilit y of the euro if it would otherwise b e highly stable and of go o d v alue quality .

P olitical Ev olution

There perhaps will alw a ys be “p olitics”, lik e also “death and taxes”. But it is sometimes

remark able ho w p olitical con texts can ev olv e. And in relation to that I think that it is

p ossible that “the Keynesians” are lik e a p olitical faction that will b ecome less inﬂuen tial as

a result of p olitical evolution. The “Keynesian” view of things did not come in to existence

un til after the time when what we can call “Bolshevik comm unism” had b ecome established

in Russia. And by this lab el we wish to diﬀeren tiate b etw een an y theoretical or ideal concept

of comm unism and the actual form of gov erning regime structure that came to exercise state

p o w er in Mosco w. (All ov er the w orld v arieties of states mak e claims to hav e gov ernments

v ery prop erly or even ideally devoted to the interests of the citizens or nationals of those

states and alwa ys an externally lo cated critic can argue that the go v ernmen t is actually a

sort of despotism.)

The Keynesians implicitly alwa ys ha v e the argumen t that some go o d managers can do

things of b eneﬁcial v alue, op erating with the treasury and the cen tral bank, and that it is

not needed or appropriate for the citizenry or the “customers” of the currency supplied b y

the state to actually understand, while the managers are managing, what exactly they are

doing and ho w it will aﬀect the “p o c k etb o ok” circumstances of these customers.

I see this as analogous to how the “Bolshevik comm unists” were claiming to pro vide

something muc h b etter than the “b ourgeois demo cracy” that they could not deny existed in

some other countries. But in the end the “dictatorship of the proletariat” seemed to b ecome

rather exp osed as simply the dictatorship of the regime. So there ma y be an analogy to this

as regards those called “the Keynesians” in that while they ha ve claimed to b e operating for

high and noble ob jectiv es of general welfare what is clearly true is that they ha v e made it

easier for go v ernmen ts to “prin t money”.

So I see the Keynesians as in a w eak sense comparable to the “Bolsheviks” b ecause of

the supp ort of b oth parties for a certain “lack of transparency” relating to the functions of

go v ernmen t as seen b y the citizenry . And for b oth of them it can b e said that they tend to

think in terms of go v ernmen t agencies op erating in a b enev olen t fashion that is, ho w ev er,

b ey ond the comprehension of the citizens of the state. And this parallel mak es it seem

not implausible that a pro cess of p olitical evolution migh t lead to the exp ectation on the

part of citizens in the “great demo cracies” that they should b e b etter situated to b e able

to understand whatev er will b e the monetary p olicies whic h, indeed, are t ypically of great

imp ortance to citizens who ma y hav e alternative options for where to place their “sa vings”.

7