Critical Analysis of Keynes’s Optimism Regarding the Very Long Run: Economic Possibilities and Political Impossibilities of Capital Accumulation

Abstract

The present paper analyzes, from the surplus approach, one famous prediction made by Keynes in ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’: that society would become so prosperous that the ‘economic problem’ would be solved, shifting human concerns towards the question of how to make use of leisure time. One century later, in a context marked by climate crisis and disruptive technological progress, revisiting this reflection appears particularly interesting.