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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
It is a sneer in epigram form: capitalism as a miracle that turns greed into public good. Critics love it because it sounds like a verdict from the most famous economist of the century, and the shaky provenance is part of its story, since the wording has drifted with each retelling. It circulates mostly on posters and in social posts, usually with Keynes's name attached and no citation.
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In context
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There is no known source in Keynes's own writing. The nearest early citation is a 1951 book, Christianity and Human Relations in Industry by Sir George Schuster (p. 109), which attributes to Keynes a definition of capitalism as the astonishing belief that the nastiest motives of the nastiest men somehow produce the best results in the best of all possible worlds. The shorter, punchier wording quoted here is a later variant: a 2000 book on participatory economics by Michael Albert prints a version with "the most wickedest of men". The line is best treated as attributed to Keynes, not as something he is known to have said.
Sources (1)
- Wikiquote: John Maynard Keynes (Attributed)Attributed sectionReference checked
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