Comment: This passage highlights how our drive to act precedes our ability to fully analyze - we move forward on a mix of calculation, intuition, and chance. It's a humble acknowledgment that human agency, not pure logic, ultimately drives economic and social progress.We should not conclude from this that everything depends on waves of irrational psychology.
On the contrary, the state of long-term expectation is often steady, and, even when it is not, the other factors exert their compensating effects.
We are merely reminding ourselves that human decisions affecting the future, whether personal or political or economic, cannot depend on strict mathematical expectation, since the basis for making such calculations does not exist; and that it is our innate urge to activity which makes the wheels go round, our rational selves choosing between the alternatives as best we are able, calculating where we can, but often falling back for our motive on whim or sentiment or chance.
Credit: John Maynard Keynes
Source: The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
Tags: decision making (48) | John Maynard Keynes (1)
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This quotation is part of a blook on Conversational Leadership. It is one of many quotations that have influenced my thinking on the subject. Parts of this blook have restricted access. You may browse the pages open to you, but you will need to register and be approved before you can login and access the full site. When you register, you may also sign-up to receive a quotation of the day by email.