Keynes Describes Communism As a Religion and Marxian Socialism as an Illogical Doctrine

At the time, Keynes saw only two alternatives to capitalism, protectionism and Marxian socialism. He opposed both, not simply because they interfered with a free society, but because they were based on "logical fallacy. Both are examples of poor thinking, of inability to analyze a process and follow it out to its conclusion . . . Marxian socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of opinion -- how a doctrine so illogical and dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men".

He preferred a managed, capitalist system. . . .

In "A Short View of Russia", written after a trip to Russia in 1925, Keynes describes communism as a religion. He defines religion to include "the pursuit of an ideal life for the whole community of men".

--Allan H. Meltzer, Keynes's Monetary Theory: A Different Interpretation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 39-40.