Keynes the Man.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

54 Keynes, the ManAt that point, Lloyd George came to the climax of his performance:turning to the French premier, Clemenceau, he warned thatunless the French ceased their obstructive tactics against feedingthe defeated Germans, three names would go down in history asthe architects of Bolshevism in Europe: Lenin and Trotsky and …as Keynes wrote, “The Prime Minister ceased. All around the roomyou could see each one grinning and whispering to his neighbor,‘Klotsky’” (Keynes 1949, p. 229; Skidelsky 1986, pp. 360, 362).The point is that Keynes, who had never particularly liked LloydGeorge before, was won over by his display of George’s savage anti-Semitic pyrotechnics. “He can be amazing when one agrees withhim,” declared Keynes. “Never have I more admired his extraordinarypowers” (1949, p. 225). 13But the major reason for Keynes’s rejection of communism wassimply that he could scarcely identify with the grubby proletariat.As Keynes wrote after his trip to Soviet Russia: “How can I adoptsuch a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorishproletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia who… are the quality in life and surely carry the seeds of all humanadvancement?” (Hession 1984, p. 224).Rejecting the proletarian socialism of the British Labour Party,Keynes made a stark and similar point: “It is a class war and theclass is not my class. … The class war would find me on the sideof the educated bourgeoisie” (Brunner 1987, p. 28). John MaynardKeynes was a lifelong member of the British aristocracy, and hewas not about to forget it.13Keynes could rise above his generally anti-Semitic attitude, especially when a wealthyinternational banker, capable of conferring favors, was involved. Thus, we have seen thatEdwin Samuel Montagu was Keynes’s earliest and most important political patron; andKeynes also became fond of Germany’s representative at the Paris peace conference, Dr.Carl Melchior: “In a sort of way I was in love with him” (Keynes 1949, p. 222). The factthat Melchior was a partner in the prominent international banking firm of M.M. Warburgand Company might have had something to do with Keynes’s benign attitude.