This was the point of his famous remark, “In the long run we are all dead.” Economies, Keynes believed, can become stuck in prolonged periods of “under-employment equilibrium”; in such cases, an external stimulus of some kind is needed to jolt them back to higher employment.
凯恩斯的离经判道之处在于他否认经济有这种自然恢复的能力——至少短期不会。这在他的名言“长期而言我们都会死亡。”中体现了出来。凯恩斯认为经济可能会陷入长期性的“不充分就业均衡”；在这种情况下，就需要某种外部刺激来使其恢复到更高的就业水平上。