John Maynard Keynes, “From Keynes to Roosevelt: Our Recovery Plan Assayed,”

[malaise]

http://www.naomiklein.org/files/resources/pdfs/keynes-roosevelt-1933.pdf
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Boom, Slump and War
In a boom, inflation can be caused by allowing unlimited credit to support the excited enthusiasm
of business speculators. But in a slump governmental loan expenditure is the only sure means of
obtaining quickly a rising output at rising prices. That is why a war has always caused intense
industrial activity. In the past, orthodox finance has regarded a war as the only legitimate excuse
for creating employment by government expenditure. You, Mr. President, having cast off such
fetters, are free to engage in the interests of peace and prosperity the technique which hitherto
has only been allowed to serve the purposes of war and destruction.

The set-back American recovery experienced this past Autumn was the predictable consequence
of the failure of your administration to organize any material increase in new loan expenditure
during your first six months in office. The position six months hence will depend entirely on
whether you have been laying the foundations for larger expenditures in the near future.

I am not surprised that so little has been spent to date. Our own experience has shown how
difficult it is to improvise useful loan expenditures at short notice. There are many obstacles to
be patiently overcome, if waste, inefficiency and corruption are to be avoided. There are many
factors I need not stop to enumerate which render especially difficult in the United States the
rapid improvisation of a vast program of public works. I do not blame Secretary Tokes for being
cautious and careful. But the risks of less speed must be weighed against those of more haste. He
must get across the crevasses before it is dark.

With these adaptations or enlargements of your existing policies, I should expect a successful
outcome with great confidence. How much that would mean, not only to the material prosperity
of the United States and the whole world, but in comfort to men’s minds through a restoration of
their faith in the wisdom and the power of government!