On Changing Your Mind
Is it better in difficult times to stand firm, or look again? Lessons from a humane economist and philosopher.
I wrote this a while ago, and published it on Medium. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve written, and I think its message – that the world will not end if we say the wrong thing, make a mistake or even admit that we have changed our mind – is an important one. We are just as polarised and mired in ideology as our forebears were in the 1920s and 30s when Keynes’ displayed his unusual readiness to change his mind. So I’ve decided to make it a substack post rather than just leave it languishing in the Archive.
Next time, I’ll return to the Brontës!
John Maynard Keynes and the Importance of Changing Your Mind
John Maynard Keynes was eminently quotable. For an economist, he had an amazing flair with words, and most days you will find one of his bon mots appearing in some newspaper article or other. One of his most famous sayings, though, may not have been said by him at all: