The Potential Impact of a Single Person’s Vision
In the previous article, the author raised the question of whether the rise of John Maynard Keynes’s concept of “animal spirits” might be a key reason why Shenzhen’s economic performance over the past three decades has differed so dramatically from that of Eastern European countries. The author also questioned whether the lack of sufficient “animal spirits” might be the fundamental cause of the difficulties currently facing the economy of Hong Kong.
Author: GUDORDI | 2025-07-25
⋯⋯然而，這就是衡量你們這一代的任務的指標，而這條路確是布滿了許多危險。首先，第一個危險來自認定不可能成功的思維⋯⋯然而，世界上許多偉大的運動──無論是在思想還是行動層面上的──皆是源自純粹一個人。是一位年輕僧侶開啟了新教運動，是一位年輕將軍將帝國從馬其頓擴展到地球的邊界，是一位年輕女士令法國重新奪回領土。
發現新大陸的是一位年輕的意大利探險家，而當傑佛遜宣告『所有人生而平等』時，他只有32歲。阿基米德曾經說過：只需給我一個支點，我就可移動整個世界。 以上這些人都做到改變了整個世界──我們也可以。很少有人具有改變歷史的偉大能力；但我們每一個人都可以改變很多事件的一小部分，而這些行為加起來的總和，就會成為了這一代人的歷史⋯⋯。
……Yet, this is the measure of the task of your generation and the road is strewn with many dangers. First, there is the danger of futility……Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant movement, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France.
It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. “Give me a place to stand,” said Archimedes, “and I will move the world.” These men moved the world, and so can we. Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can change a small portion of the events, and in the total of these acts will be written the history of this generation……
──羅拔甘迺廸（Robert Kennedy）
開普敦大學演說，1966年6月6日
In the previous article, I mentioned whether the rise of Keynes’ “animal spirits” was a major reason why Shenzhen’s economic performance has been so different from that of Eastern European countries over the past 30 years; and whether the lack of sufficient “animal spirits” is the root cause of the current predicament facing Hong Kong’s economy.
Keynesian economics can be seen as a master economist’s response to socioeconomic changes. (Wikimedia Commons)
The Historical Significance of John Maynard Keynes’s Economics
This is not a simple question. To fully understand it may require a higher-level grasp of the theoretical framework of economics itself. It is worth noting that, in the world of classical economics, the future did not occupy a particularly important position. This is not difficult to understand, because in the 18th century the structure of the global economy was relatively simple. Businesses were mainly engaged in producing goods to meet market demand a few months ahead. Most firms did not need to evaluate what the market environment might look like five or ten years into the future, nor did they need to invest large amounts of time and capital researching variables that could revolutionize entire industries.
From this perspective, perhaps we can say that as the real economy continued to evolve, the importance of the future steadily increased. By the late 19th century, the world had already entered a new economic paradigm, and the economics of John Maynard Keynes can be seen as a master economist’s response to these profound socioeconomic transformations.
Under such conditions, one of Keynes’s greatest contributions to economic theory may have been his emphasis on the importance of the future — or more precisely, expectations about the future — and, by extension, the importance of money itself, since money can be understood as a bridge between the present and the future.
More importantly, if we continue exploring from this angle, we discover that when most economic activities are expressed through money, the phenomenon Keynes called “money illusion” naturally emerges. And when pessimism spreads throughout the market, a vicious cycle may form and continuously intensify.
In such extraordinary circumstances, decisive government intervention through large-scale investment — aimed at reviving business “animal spirits” and breaking the vicious cycle of pessimism in the market — appears to possess its own logic and necessity.
Viewed from this perspective, Keynes’s greatest contribution to the theoretical framework of economics may lie in revealing the subtle and highly complex relationships among the future, money, businesses, and markets, as well as the idea that extraordinary situations sometimes require extraordinary solutions.
The Modern Economy Is Driven by Expectations of the Future
However, John Maynard Keynes was a highly pragmatic and worldly thinker. His primary concern was solving the urgent economic crises of his time, rather than refining economic theory for its own sake.
On this issue, the most important theoretical foundation may have come from another great economist, Irving Fisher. In his monumental 1930 work, The Theory of Interest, Fisher introduced a profoundly original insight: the value of all assets today reflects the discounted value of all their future income streams. In other words, the present and the future are inseparable, and the most important variable in discounting the future is the interest rate.
Viewed from this perspective, the importance of expectations about the future within the operation of the market system cannot be underestimated. One could even say that the modern economy is driven by expectations of the future, and that many economic phenomena we observe today are, in essence, reflections of the market’s expectations about what lies ahead.
Are Government Visions and Policy Guidance Necessary?
This naturally leads to another question: when it comes to expectations about the future, what are the main determining factors? Are government visions and policy guidance necessary? And how much influence can the vision of a single individual actually have? These are all profoundly difficult questions.
According to the perspective of Robert F. Kennedy quoted at the beginning of this article, the power of a single individual should not be underestimated.
In the next article, the author will explore this issue further through the case of Elon Musk founding the America Party.
