“Our age has eerily come to rhyme with Keynes’s”- Robert Skidelsky
Paraphrasing the timeless words of Maya Angelou, we need hope, optimism, and not only to survive, but to thrive with kindness, love, empathy, humour, commitment, and passion. This is the essence of Keynes, his legacy for today: "economic growth and wealth accumulation are not ends in themselves, but merely the means to secure "the good life".
…and I firmly believe that the world at large is rediscovering these timeless gems, given the rapturous applause and standing ovation we witnessed yesterday at the play: The Standard of Living, ‘the thrilling, funny and deeply moving portrait of a man who dared to imagine something better’- John Maynard Keynes, at the Royal Haymarket Theatre, London.
Yes, we can and we must, envision overcoming deep systemic challenges like neoliberal economic pressures, war, and destruction, If we listen to the Voice of Hope, echoing across the world.
N.B. For far too long, only the prophets of doom, the ‘monster dogma’ brigade, have been the ones dictating what governments can do, cruelty, austerity, privatisation, deregulation, and hopelessness, so that economic plunder and exploitation can effectively be maximised for the interest of the few.
"There is no alternative" (often shortened to TINA) is an infamous political slogan used by Margaret Thatcher to claim that free-market capitalism and neoliberal economic policies were the only workable systems for modern society
Re-enter the central stage prophet of hope and optimism, John Maynard Keynes
Before delving into Keynes: Economist for today, I would very much like to mention how lucky, how fortunate I was to see a brilliant play about John Maynard Keynes, whose radical optimism and commonsense solutions to sociopolitical and economic challenges I had discovered over 50 years ago as an economics student. Suffice it to say that, since then I have been engaged academically and personally with Keynes’ central question: “What makes a good life?”.
‘James Graham’s latest play captures the zeitgeist.’
‘At a time when the common good risks being undermined by market imperatives, algorithmic abstractions and rogue AI agents, Graham has once again produced a play that poses the right question at the right time: how can humans take back control?’- The Guardian, Tue 22 Sep 2026
'John Maynard Keynes and the search for the good life.
'Playwright James Graham on an economist who asked the right questions in bad times — and why he matters so much today.'
‘A country thrives or dies on its ability to ask the right questions of itself, long before you arrive at adequate answers. That’s why it has given me great satisfaction these past months to spend time in the mind of John Maynard Keynes for a new play on his life and legacy — The Standard of Living — which has just opened in the West End. Keynes, that art-loving heretical economist of the mid-20th century, turned classical orthodoxy upside down. He asked good questions in bad times.
'In a nutshell: “What makes a good life?” - James Graham, ‘John Maynard Keynes and the search for the good life’, Financial Times, 3 October 2026
CAN YOU PUT A PRICE ON HAPPINESS, BEAUTY AND LOVE?
A brand new world-premiere play from the Olivier Award-winning playwright, James Graham (Punch, Dear England, Labour of Love) explodes into the West End for a strictly limited 12-week season.
Directed by multi award-winner Nicholas Hytner (The History Boys, One Man, Two Guvnors, Giant) and starring Olivier Award winner Rory Kinnear (Skyfall, The Diplomat) and Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova in her West End debut, this blazing new play tells the astonishing story of rebel economist and member of the Bloomsbury Group, John Maynard Keynes.
Husband to ballerina Lydia Lopokova. Lover to Duncan Grant. Friend to Virginia Woolf. Keynes moves between the corridors of power in Whitehall and the intoxicating freedom of a radical circle of artists, writers and lovers – all determined to live differently.
But as markets crash, old systems crumble and Britain teeters on the edge of chaos, one question begins to consume him: 'WHAT IS A GOOD LIFE?- The Standard of Living: The Play
John Maynard Keynes: the cultured economist who governments turn to in a crisis
Photo via instagram
‘Keynes’s worldview was shaped by the tradition-smashing arrival of GE Moore’s Principia Ethica, which claimed that the most valuable entities in life were not money, purchases or success, but relationships, love and “aesthetic appreciation”. Beauty, human connections, doing things and the big feels, basically. This set the younger Keynes off on his quest to discover the “art of life” and what made it matter, what made it mean something...'- James Graham, ‘John Maynard Keynes and the search for the good life’, Financial Times, 3 October 2026
Keynes firmly believed that solving the "economic problem" (scarcity and poverty) was simply a prerequisite to allow humanity to focus on what truly mattered: art, friendship, contemplation, and the pursuit of a meaningful life. He believed that measuring human happiness through money alone destroys true civilisation.
For Keynes, the good life was not to be found in the confines of the ‘idolatry of the market, which he described as "the worm that had been gnawing at the insides of modern civilisation... the over-valuation of the economic criterion". To identify the goods that can be added up in an economic calculus with the good life was for Keynes - young and old - a fundamental error. The market was made for human beings - not human beings to serve the market.(Tell that to the current values-free, amoral neoliberals and the tech barons)!
'John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) was arguably the most important economist of the twentieth century; his ideas have fundamentally altered the way governments approach economic policy. Exploring the enduring relevance of his ideas, Robert Skidelsky emphasizes Keynes’s conception of economics as a moral science. Keynes was deeply invested in the broader societal implications of economic policies, and this book highlights his belief in economics as a tool for achieving the good life.
Skidelsky sheds new light on Keynes’s views on capitalism, discusses his advocacy of low interest rates, and delves into his thoughts on economic instability. He also offers fresh insight into Keynes’s ideas about money, his philosophical foundations, and his unique approach to uncertainty and probability. Ultimately, Skidelsky shows how Keynes’s vision of an economic policy that prioritizes the common good can be adapted to help solve our current economic and political challenges.'- Keynes for Our Times
‘John Maynard Keynes saved capitalism from itself.’
‘TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY years ago, the United States was largely an agrarian economy—affected, of course, by weather but without real business cycles. Those came with the development of capitalism in the 19th century. And so began the deep fluctuations of the modern era, the two worst being the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession that began in 2008. Fortunately, John Maynard Keynes, the great economist of the 20th century, showed us that we did not have to suffer these dysfunctions of capitalism. The government could do something about them.’- Joseph Stiglitz, in The Economist, Apr 8th
How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life
How Much Is Enough? What is money and wealth for? Why do we as individuals and societies go on wanting more? What is economic growth for? Can we/ should we carry on just growing, creating, producing, consuming,…,more and more, for ever more? Do we need to satisfy our needs or our wants? Should we be a “maximiser” or “satisfier” and choose the path of “enoughness”? Then, what is a good life? What are the main ingredients of a good, happy and peaceful life? Should we move away from Gross National Product (GDP) to Gross National Happiness?...
To answer these and other relevant questions a father and son came together and wrote a very good, life- affirming book:
The father and son are two distinguished academics: Lord Skidelsky and his son Edward. Lord Skidelsky (25 April 1939- 15 April 2026) was professor of international studies and political economy at the University of Warwick and is the celebrated author of the widely acclaimed, prize-winning, three-volume biography of the economist John Maynard Kenynes.
And the son, Edward, is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Exeter, specializing in aesthetics and moral philosophy. He is the author of Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture.
'A provocative and timely call for a moral approach to economics, drawing on philosophers, political theorists, writers, and economists from Aristotle to Marx to Keynes.'
Read more, discover more: How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life
Why economists keep getting the policies wrong?
The Destruction of our World and the lies of Milton Friedman
Economic Growth: The Index of Misery
On the Road to Serfdom, Death and Destruction With the Koch Brothers
The Broken Economic Model and the Inhumanity of the Lost Decade of Austerity
Why Happiness Should be Taught at Our Universities?
What if Universities Taught KINDNESS?
My Economics and Business Educators’ Oath: My Promise to My Students
PostScript
...And now read about the possible paths on how we may put right what has so tragically gone wrong, on how to stop death and destruction and how we may begin to value and nurture life again
I am positive and hopeful. We can change the world for the better. Come with me on this journey of self discovery in the interest of the common good
Yes, We can win over death and destruction, the neoliberalism, If we listen to the Voice of Hope, echoing across the world
Make Nature ‘Economics Teacher’ and Build a Better World
Make Economics ‘Kind’ and Build a Better World
Make Economics ‘A Thing of Beauty’ and Build a Better World
Make Economics 'People's Economics' and Build a Better World
My Economics and Business Educators’ Oath: My Promise to My Students
What might an Economy for the Common Good look like?
The Voice of Hope
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