ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that John Maynard Keynes’s work on post-war economic planning; he continued to argue in favor of the same socialist transformation of Britain’s political economy he had supported since the mid-1920s. It shows that neither his theory of capitalism nor his radical policy positions were meant to apply only to the conditions of the Great Depression, to be discarded when the economy recovered. The chapter argues that during the war Keynes became the most powerful figure in the government’s internal debate about post-war economic planning and used his influence with considerable success to move the government toward his radical views. The proposed post-war economic system Keynes put before the key ministries from 1943 through 1945 constituted an economic revolution against traditional British capitalism in support of democratic or Liberal Socialism. Keynes’s memoranda and letters about post-war economic planning through 1943 are of the greatest possible significance to anyone interested in the policy views of the mature Keynes.
