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n his In the Long Run We’re All Dead: Keynes, Political Economy, and Revolution (Verso, 2017), Geoff Mann takes stock of the resurrection of Keynesian theory in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and provocatively argues that Keynesianism has become a “faith for the faithless” that seeks not to save capitalism, but rather to save civilization from itself. In seeking to quash civil dissent and manage poverty, Keynesian theory is, for Mann, “modern liberalism’s most persuasive internal critique, meeting two centuries of crisis with a proposal for capital without capitalism and revolution without revolutionaries.” Following from a lively author-meets-critics exchange at the 2018 AAG, this forum collects and extends the insights of Mann’s magisterial book, highlighting the books’ immense achievements and its contributions to debates over neoliberal markets, capitalist crisis, liberal modernity, the management of poverty, and revolutionary politics. The reviews are exemplary: they are substantive, engaging, and deep appreciations of the book that nevertheless engage in generous yet sharp critiques of its key arguments. What results is a lively conversation between Mann and his reviewers, a collective refusal to accept the quiescence of Keynesian politics, and at the end, a collective effort to extend “our sense of what is possible” (Goldstein).
