It was not just that the policy of liquidating excesses was politically catastrophic: in Germany, it brought Hitler to power. As Keynes pointed out, if everyone – households, firms, and governments – all started trying to increase their saving simultaneously, there would be no way to stop the economy from running down until people became too poor to save.
这里我们找到了为何哈耶克在1930年代那场大论战中输给凯恩斯的线索：这不仅因为清理过度投资的政策堪称政治灾难——希特勒借此染指德国政权。而是正如凯恩斯所指出的那样，如果所有社会成员——家庭，企业和政府——同时开始尝试储蓄，那么除非人们到了穷得连钱都存不起的地步，否则根本没有任何办法能阻止经济下滑。