Marx & Keynes on Political Economy as a Moral Science

Introduction: The moral political economy of Marx and Keynes

Keynes and Marx can both be seen as proponents of political economy as a moral science in its ancient Greek meaning of ensuring the most amount of people with the means to live a good life. Aristotle describes the best way of life as a ". . . life of goodness duly equipped with such a store of requisites as makes it possible to share in activities of goodness." Both Keynes and Marx were educated in the classics and were influenced by this moral understanding of political and economic organization. Indeed, "moral" here implies certain shared ontological and philosophic anthropological assumptions. They both write from a tradition which posits the existence of an objective and knowable good and which regards humans as potentially capable of knowing and actualizing the good in their activities. This fundamental framework of understanding will underpin both thinkers’ somewhat similar ideas of the ideal community through which the objectives of a moral political economy would be realized. For both, such a community would rightfully place economic activity as an instrumental means toward ensuring the good life filled with fully rational activities - activities which are an end in themself. These foundations are radically different from those dominant in a capitalist economy which, according to Keynes, rely on ". . . an intense appeal to the money-loving and money-making instincts of individuals as the main motive force of the economic machine." Thus, both Keynes and Marx will criticize the capitalist mode of production as fundamentally irrational and inconsistent with our higher potentials. However, the specific role which each thinker will assign to capitalist irrationality and irrational motives in general will result in different conceptions of the possibilities and the actual shape of an ideal community. This paper will explore the degree to which each thinker can be said to support the notion of political economy as a moral science in relation to their conceptions of the ideal and their different treatments of irrationality.

The objective good and the ideal community: Marx
Keynes and Marx attribute the existence of an objective and knowable good to reality as a whole. This ontological assumption is rooted in ancient Greek thought and will later resurface in the strain of thought known as German idealism. Thus, Hegel will express the sentiment that "Reason governs the world." This means that there are objective and knowable values contained in the universe. Further, human beings are understood as having the unique potential to develop the capabilities necessary for experiencing the good in our activities through the exercise of our faculty of reason.

According to Marx, objective truth can be grounded in our rational experience through rational activity. Wholly rational activities are truly universal in the sense that they are ends in themself activities - they are productive of a moment to which an individual would say "stay." Our essence as a species-being is such that we consciously notice our own universality and accordingly regard ourselves as free. In other words, our essence is defined by our potential for rationality. Marx will elaborate the content of objective and knowable good activities as consisting of the creation and appropriation of beauty and truth within relations of mutual recognition. This constitutes Marx’s idea of the true realm of freedom. It is a realm defined by "the development of human powers as an end in itself." Our universal development implies reciprocal relations of mutual recognition based on the social nature of the developed capabilities to create and appropriate the intellectual and aesthetic "goods of the soul." Marx points to the social nature of the creation and appropriation of truth in his discussion of rational scientific activity. He says, "Not only is the material of my activity. . . given to me as a social product, but my own existence is social activity; what I make of myself I make for society, conscious of my nature as social." This is further elaborated in Marx’s notion of the developed senses of the universal individual. For instance, it becomes clear that a full capacity to appropriate a beautiful work of music requires the developed human senses to hear what is objectively good. These subjective senses are developed themselves only through another individual’s creation of beautiful music as an object of appropriation. For Marx, this means that rational individuals who are capable of acting in line with a universal good would naturally adopt ethical relations of mutual respect and love. Indeed, such a rational community would collectively recognize that "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." Naturally, economic activities in the realm of necessity would be brought under the collective control of rational individuals so as to maximize the time spent for all in the realm of free activities. Thus, instrumental activities are treated as a means to the good life.

Keynes’ notion of the good and the ideal community
Keynes posits the existence of an objective and knowable good which is accessible to human beings through our developed rationality. In his work My Early Beliefs, Keynes outlines his main ontological and philosophic anthropological assumptions through an account of the "religion" accepted by himself and his peers in the Bloomsbury group. By religion, Keynes is referring to an accepted set of conceptions underlying one’s notion of the self and the ultimate. Keynes and the Bloomsbury group were largely influenced by the set of ideas expressed in Moore’s Principia Ethica. The essential notion put forward here was that the good is an objective and knowable quality which we can ground in our rational experience. More specifically, the good consists of a fulfilled state of mind brought about through the rational contemplation of truth, love and beauty. In Aristotelean terms, the objective good is a feeling of eudaemonia, which is the highest end of all activity - it is an end in itself. Moreover, according to Moore, there is a reciprocal relationship between this chief state of mind and the object which is deserving of this feeling. The feeling of love requires an object which possesses lovable qualities. Keynes will add that this type of organic interdependence will stretch throughout time in relation to the best sate of mind as opposed to remaining relevant only in the strictly narrow sense put forth by Moore. Therefore, our rational experience is connected to moments of past and present throughout time in a social whole. Indeed, Keynes claims that this fundamental set of assumptions most closely approximates the truth.

The foundational assumptions accepted by Keynes closely resemble Marx’s ideas concerning the nature of the good. However, Keynes does not explicitly make the same definite connection between the rationality required for activities filled with beauty and truth and the creation of relations of love. Nevertheless, he paints a picture of an ideal community which shares an emphasis on the developed capabilities required to live a good life. Keynes claims that in a society which has outgrown the immediate pressures of the economic problem, those who will benefit will be the fully rational individuals who are capable mastering "the art of life itself" as opposed to investing all of their time in the mere means of life. This asserts the ancient wisdom of Aristotle who declared to his audience: "You can see for yourselves that the happy life . . . belongs more to those who have cultivated their character and mind to the uttermost, and kept acquisition of external goods within moderate limits, than it does to those who have managed to acquire more external goods than they can use, and are lacking in goods of the soul." Indeed, Keynes says that the ideal community would prize and conduce activities which are an end in themself above those economic activities of necessity. He recognizes the need to make such instrumental work ". . . as widely shared as possible" in order to maximize time spent partaking in rational activities. For Keynes, the activities of the business man are regarded as useful only as a means to the material requirements of truly good activities. Activities which find their sole interest and ends in economic benefits are thoroughly rejected by Keynes on a moral basis.

The irrationality of capitalism for Marx and Keynes
Marx and Keynes both criticize the set of relations characteristic of a capitalist system of production as inconsistent with the ideal relations and developed rationality which provide the basis of the good life. Indeed, both thinkers will deem capitalism as inherently irrational. Contrary to the set of assumptions adopted by Keynes and Marx which regard humans as potentially capable of actualizing the good, dominant economic thought presupposes relations of utility and takes ". . . an alienated form of social intercourse as the essential, original, and definitive human form." Instrumental means are wrongfully championed above our higher ends. Indeed, Keynes will focus on the love of money as the central moral problem of our day. Keynes explicitly rejects the Benthamite tradition which regards human beings as rational calculators of self-interest and utility. He describes this tradition of thought as ". . . the worm which has been gnawing at the insides of western civilization and is responsible for its present moral decay." Thus, the pursuit of personal profits as an end, which capitalism takes as natural, is viewed by Keynes as a "disgusting morbidity." It is fundamentally inconsistent with the developed rationality required to actualize the good life.

Marx asserts that the relations created by the institution of private property are antithetical to our essence as potentially rational beings. Instead of our activity being fully free and rational, private property creates relations of production defined by large masses of propertyless people forced to engage in wage-labour. This means that our activities, products and relations all exist in the form of alienation. Our essence as potentially universally developed individuals capable of actualizing the good life through our rational activities, products and relations, is estranged from us due to relations of utility and exploitation. Marx asserts, "Under the presupposition of private property it [labour] is an externalization of life because I work in order to live and provide for myself the means of living." Moreover, relations between property owners are not defined by free human activities. All human relations are conceived by classical economics as utilitarian relations resembling the interactions of merchants. Marx explains that such relations would produce individuals incapable of understanding "a human language."They are alienated from our essence as potentially rational beings capable of producing a human world in which "Our products would be so many mirrors reflecting our nature." Keynes and Marx are both critical of the irrational inclination within capitalism to treat instrumental goods as an ends in themself. They will both reject the dominant doctrine that ". . . the (business man) could attain the philosopher’s summum bonum by just pursuing his own private profit." Although Keynes and Marx produce similar criticisms of capitalism, they will diverge in their specific treatments of the irrationality contained within it. This will have important implications on their respective notions of the ideal community and the degree to which each can be seen as a representative of political economy as a moral science.

Marx: Irrationality as a motor of development - The genesis of communism
Marx’s treatment of capitalist irrationality sublates Hegel’s idea of the passions. Hegel uses the term passions to designate irrational, selfish and un-fulfilling motives which are the basis of activities that are inconsistent with the ideal. For Marx, the capitalist passions consist of an irrational pursuit of the instrumental good of money as if it were an ends. This is conducive to relations of utility and exploitation which impede the immediate full development of the social being. However, Marx also inherits Hegel’s teleological view of human history which makes forces of irrationality positively developmental in a dialectical growth of human reason. Thus, Marx will regard capitalist irrationality as an educational stage in the genesis of the true realm of freedom. Marx asserts, "The overcoming of self-alienation follows the same course as self-alienation." Private property and alienation play a positive role by unknowingly generating the necessary subjective and objective preconditions for a community of freedom. The creation of objective requirements refers to the mass amount of material abundance created through capitalist production. Marx lends praise to the expansive nature of capitalism and its constant revolutionizing of the tools used to produce our material world. The subjective preconditions unintentionally created by capitalism refers to the paradoxical development of human rationality. In other words, those capitalist relations which are inconsistent with ideal relations of freedom will give birth to individuals with the developed capacities necessary for negating those same irrational relations. This notion of a dialectical growth of reason appropriates Hegel’s idea of the master-slave relation. Hegel regards the undesirable relations of slavery as positively developmental for the slave. The slave forms a higher state of consciousness involving a view to the future through the use of tools. Whereas the master is only in a position to enjoy the slave’s products subjectively, the slave undergoes a process of development which enables them to understand an objective good of which they are a real agent.

For Marx, exploited workers are paradoxically developing the consciousness and virtues which will enable them to be active agents in the creation of true freedom. For instance, since private property creates a class of workers who share in their common subjection, there is a natural evolution of workers’ organizations. Marx sees this type of organic union as providing the conditions for people to recognize the superior form of wealth which exists in other human beings. Marx describes, "association, society and conversation, which again has association as its end, are enough for them [socialist workers]; the brotherhood of man is no mere phrase with them . . ." Further, Marx makes revolutionary activity itself an educational process in the development of mind. The appropriation of the totality of the forces of production implies the universal development of the individual which is propelled forward in the very act of appropriating.

Marshall Berman captures the dialectical role of capitalist irrationality quite beautifully in his phrase, "Capitalism will be melted by the heat of its own incandescent energies." This image of a brilliantly melting capitalist mode of production is accompanied for Marx by the wonderful construction of an ideal community. Presupposing capitalism, the objective and subjective preconditions have been generated for a fully free society capable of reflecting the ethos of a moral political economy in its principle of distribution, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" Marx’s vision of political economy is absolutely moral owing to his teleological vision of human history which makes capitalist irrationality the oblivious forceful fingertips that pull along the thread of human development toward our ends of freedom.

Keynes, Irrationality and Psycho Analysis - A theory of reform
Like Marx, Keynes views capitalist irrationality as occupying a paradoxically positive role in the shaping of a society which rightfully prizes the ends above the means. However, this irrationality will not be treated by Keynes in a manner which allows for its eventual dissolving under the rule of reason. Instead, capitalist irrationality will be explained by Keynes in psycho analytic terms. There is sufficient textual and background evidence to suggest that Keynes directly applies Freudian psycho analysis to his understanding of economics. He explicitly expresses an admiration for the insights contained in Freud’s method in a letter to the editor in which he says, "Professor Freud seems to me to be endowed, to the degree of genius, with the scientific imagination which can body forth an abundance of innovating ideas . . . " The important insights which Keynes draws from Freud deal with the deeper instinctual motives which lay inside of all humans. Thus, in his essay titled My Early Beliefs, Keynes rejects the idea that all humans are innately rational on the basis that there are ". . . insane and irrational springs of wickedness in most men."

The irrational motives of capitalism which Keynes outlines as ". . . an intense appeal to the money-loving and money-making instincts . . . " and the additional "sadistic love of power" are understood to be sublimations of our deeper more destructive instincts. More specifically, the money motives reflect an anal-sadistic character rooted in the sublimation of anal-erotism and the death instinct. Keynes does not discuss the implications of psycho analysis on his economics explicitly due to the complexities involved in human defense mechanisms and the perceived material efficiency of capitalism during the historical epoch in which he was writing. According to Keynes, humankind could not yet "afford" to assess the irrationality of the money motives. However, many references throughout his works suggest that he is consciously adopting Freudian analysis. For instance, in a discussion regarding the moral emptiness of those individuals who are interested in pursuing economic benefits, Keynes links the love of money with a deeper instinctual motive which people "fall back on" that is directly linked to our libidinal drives - our sexual erotic tendencies. Keynes also links capitalist "purposiveness" (the irrational pursuit of instrumental gain) to the death instinct and a will to be immortal. For this reason ". . . jam is not jam unless it is a case of jam tomorrow and never jam today." Essentially, money and the pursuit of monetary gain act as a dartboard to catch the deadly arrows of human irrational wickedness which now have a target of aim.

To be sure, capitalist irrationality and the money-motives are regarded by Keynes to be antithetical to our full moral growth and the objective good. Keynes refers to capitalist motives as being opposite from the true human virtues. However, they are seen as paradoxically positive to certain extent in reaching our closest approximation to the ideal community. Keynes views money as a positive sublimation of our deeper dangerous instincts. The pursuit of private wealth will construct a large portion of the "thin and precarious crust" that is civilization. Keynes is also hopeful that the superior material efficiency of capitalism will eliminate the economic struggle of existence within the next one hundred years from the time he was writing. It becomes clear that the type of fully free ideal community envisioned by Marx is impractical for Keynes due to his psycho analytic understanding of irrationality. Instead, Keynes will be an advocate of reform through which we will be "slowly reconstructing our social system." Keynes proposes a regulated market with a rich investment in the arts. Further, due to our constitutional irrationality, we must allow for the economic game to be played within reasonable limits. However, economic activities will be regarded only as a means to ends in themself activities. Political economy can be viewed as a moral science here in the strictest sense for being primarily concerned with the provision of the requirements to live a life which most closely approximates the good. The melting away of our innate irrationality is simply not possible for Keynes. Thus, the role of economic activity is purely instrumental toward fully free human activities, and yet sadly "how few of us can sing!"

Concluding thoughts
Keynes and Marx both express valuable insights which are worthy of contemplation. Surely though, it is also useful to consider the apparent inconsistencies or contradictions with each thinker. For instance, Keynes champions the superior efficiency of an irrational capitalist mode of production. However, this misses the fact that a mode of production which is defined by highly developed rationality would necessarily be more efficient than one dominated by irrational motives. For Marx, capitalism creates an abundance of material wealth as a precondition for freedom. Ultimately though, a wholly rational community of universally developed individuals would be able to ". . . govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it . . . accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy. . ."This would undoubtably be the most efficient form of production. At the same time, this idea points to a major defect in Marx’s philosophy which Keynes will being to light. Marx does not possess the same insight into irrational human motives that Keynes will develop with the use of psycho analysis. The evidence regarding human irrationality suggested by psycho analysis points to real barriers for an emergence of Marx’s totally rational society. We have seen how this view of irrationality leads to Keynes adopting a reformist position. However, Keynes also supports coercive and dangerous policies such as eugenics as a solution to this problem. It seems as though this type of oppressive control would work to preserve relations which are antithetical to an ideal commonwealth. It is clear that neither Marx nor Keynes is able to present us with a perfect answer regarding the creation of a truly moral political economy. However, it remains of invaluable importance that we preserve the fundamental ancient wisdom which expresses a true concern for a moral objective within our political and economic modes of organization - to ensure the means for a good life.