BOOK REVIEW John Maynard Keynes, 1963. Essays in Persuasion, “The Future”, W.W. Norton, New York

Abstract

This book review examines John Maynard Keynes’s Essays in Persuasion, particularly the essay “The Future,” as a profound ethical and epistemological reflection on the trajectory of modern economic civilization. The review aims to reassess Keynes not merely as a founder of modern macroeconomics, but as a moral thinker concerned with the wellbeing of future generations. Keynes critically challenges the dominance of wealth accumulation, usury, and material obsession, advocating instead for a return to ethical purpose, leisure, and human flourishing. The review highlights Keynes’s distinction between money as an instrument for productive regeneration and money as an object of pathological accumulation. It further interprets his vision through a dynamic framework linking money, capital formation, technology, and social wellbeing via circular causation. By revisiting Keynes’s foresight in light of contemporary crises stagflation, inequality, and ethical erosion this review underscores the enduring relevance of his moral critique for rethinking economic policy, monetary governance, and the future of global wellbeing.