Sex, Economics, and Austerity
Sex, Economics, and Austerity
JEET HEER MAY 7, 2013
The real meaning of Niall Ferguson’s John Maynard Keynes-was-gay jibe—and why Keynes is so threatening to conservative economists and moralists alike.John Maynard Keynes was the sexiest economist who ever lived. This might seem like half-hearted praise since in our mind’s eye the typical economist appears as a dowdy and almost always balding man, full of prudential advice about thrift and the miracle of compound interest. Keynes, with his caterpillar moustache and mesmerizing bedroom eyes, cut a more dashing figure.
He had many lovers of both genders, and was married to one of the great beauties of the age, the ballerina Lydia Lopokova. His genius at playing the stock market allowed him to enjoy the life of bon vivant, socializing with the writers and artists of the Bloomsbury group such as Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster rather than dull number crunchers he knew at Cambridge and in the British Treasury. While other economists focused on maximizing economic growth, Keynes wanted to go further and maximize the pleasures of life.
More: Sex, Economics, and Austerity
This presents an interesting, if unorthodox, analysis of how JM Keynes came around to his economic views and presents a basis for understanding why he was an existential threat to both the economists and prudes of the far right and of the far left.