RateItAll: The Opinion Network

John Maynard Keynes is as you may already know, my favorite historical figure. His ideas and methods were some of the primary contributors to a genuine end to the rule of the aristocracy in Britain (and it's empire) and to some extent, the entire western world. It was a common feeling with the British troops throughout world war one (just read some of the poems) that the people who were essentially forcing them to their deaths were old men in stuffy smoking rooms with thick grey mustaches and they had no control over their own destiny. This was of course also the feeling of the working classes in the late nineteenth century who were still working long hours in harsh conditions (the villains in working class melodrama and literature at the time was always he pointy mustached top-hat wearing entrepreneur and the heroes tended to be the plucky young orphan laborer of Dickensian lore). However it was a common feeling amongst the rulers of the time that the dominance of the aristocracy and the virtue of exploitation throughout the British empire was in fact a Great British tradition that should never be changed. With the ideas brought forward by JMK the ideals of the average Joe having a genuine stake in his own destiny after over a century of subservience began to be realized as the welfare state, public services, the genuine legalization of trade unions were gradually introduced. In the post war period (oft referred to as The golden age of Keynesianism) workers found their wages doubling and tripling rapidly, their work hours decreasing and their holidays being both longer and more exotic in destination, their voices being recognized as employers finally were forced to take notice of strikes and trade unions. Nowadays in Britain the aristocracy can be treated with good humor (just read our tabloids) amongst the common man rather then fear and hatred. If Dickens were alive today it seems doubtful his books would be as popular but he would certainly be happy that the society which had forced him to work in boot-making factories as a child to pay off his fathers debts had been banished to the history books, hopefully never to return.