2010-08-16

Death of big ideas

The 20th century was greatly affected by the ideas of several influential men from the century previous. Charles Darwin's theory about biological origins had an impact that ranged from biology to philosophy, theology and even politics, while Sigmund Freud's ideas transformed the way men thought about their own minds. With the help of Friedrich Engles, Marx inflicted his particularly virulent form of socialism on the world. And while there is no single individual who can be deemed culpable for the idea of liberal government by representative democracy, it became the dominant form of government around the world during the 19th century.

All of these influences played a major role in the way John Maynard Keynes formulated his general theory of employment, interest and money, which was articulated during the 1930s. Keynes inherited his amoral, materialistic outlook from the Darwinians, his notion of the integral role of "animal spirits" was derived from Freud, and one of his primary objectives in constructing the general theory was to save liberal democracy from what he saw as the imminent threat of Marxism.
Read the rest here: Death of big ideas.

No comments:

Post a Comment