David,

The context given is the preservation of civilization.
So ... are you claiming that you would prefer the destruction
of civilization to a little elitist guile, if the latter were
required?  If so, I find that morally abhorrent (and I
further claim that this judgement is not just a personal
idiosyncracy but widely shared). If not, then you have
sided with Keynes.

Which of course was my point.

I further claim that like Rob, you are twisting the quote
rather than trying to understand what Keynes was saying and
why he was saying it.  From what you wrote it is not even
clear that you understand that when he writes "[w]e repudiated
all versions of the doctrine of original sin" he is talking
about views once but no longer (in 1938) held.

I am happy to castigate Keynes (or Hayek, or Mises) for their
flaws, but let us not find entertainment in "discovering" flaws
that are not there.

Alan Isaac

PS My "threat" to withdraw the gift of the
quote should have been obviously ironical; how can
could it possibly be withdrawn once published?  Irony is
of course difficult to detect in email, as Barkley has
noted, but still ...



On 6/7/2014 2:27 PM, David Vazquez Guzman wrote:
> I think that guile is deceit, and deceit, in the context given, is not just morally or ethically wrong, but plainly wrong.