Why Fascists Admired Keynes’s Economics

Why Fascists Admired Keynes’s Economics

John Phelan, The Daily Economy Keynes saw centralized economic direction as an improvement on market coordination. This provided cover to later corporatist authoritarians who wanted to...

Why Fascists Admired Keynes's Economics

“Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal.”  So wrote the British fascist James Strachey Barnes in his 1928 book Universal Aspects of Fascism, which included a glowing preface written by Mussolini himself. “In fact,” Barnes continued, “Mr. Keynes’s excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire…might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics.” Even today,…