📘New Series – Episode 1 The Keynesian Revolution and “The Age of the State” — Where Did Civilization Begin Tilting Toward State‑centrism? Civilization always begins with an idea.

 

📘New Series – Episode 1 
The Keynesian Revolution and “The Age of the State”
— Where Did Civilization Begin Tilting Toward State‑centrism?

Civilization always begins with an idea.
And when civilization becomes distorted, it also always begins with an idea.

Today, we begin in earnest with
Part I, Chapter 1 of The Rise and Fall of Great‑Power Civilizations.

Our first theme is—
the Keynesian Revolution.

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◆ Why begin with Keynes?

In my civilizational theory,
Keynes is not merely an economist.

Keynes is the thinker who constructed the psychological architecture of postwar civilization.

• The state creates demand
• The state guides the business cycle
• The state manages the world order

This state‑centric civilizational psychology supported postwar prosperity,
but at the same time,
it prepared the ground for the runaway financial civilization of the 21st century.

In other words,
without understanding Keynes, one cannot understand the distortions of modern civilization.

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◆ The Keynesian Revolution created “the omnipotent state”

Keynes appeared when the world was collapsing under the Great Depression.

He declared:

“The state can create demand and guide the economy.”

This idea became the central axis of postwar civilization.

• The Bretton Woods system
• Fixed exchange rates
• Capital controls
• The welfare state
• High‑growth industrialization

All of these were extensions of the Keynesian Revolution.

And this sense of state omnipotence would later evolve into
QE Civilization → Fiscal Dominance → Great‑Power Nationalism.

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◆ The Keynesian Revolution was both “the beginning of civilization” and “the origin of distortion”

Keynes saved postwar civilization.
But at the same time,
he unintentionally prepared the conditions for the runaway financial civilization of the 21st century.

• The state surpasses the market
• Fiscal policy loses its constraints
• Currency loses its identity
• Interest rates disappear
• Asset prices dominate national psychology

All of these are distant descendants of the Keynesian Revolution.

Civilization becomes distorted
when a correct idea is expanded to its extreme.

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◆ Today’s blog presents the full text of Chapter 1

This first chapter is the most important part of my civilizational theory—
the chapter that describes its origin.

• The Keynesian Revolution
• The Bretton Woods system
• The Age of the State
• The limits of Keynesianism
• Stagflation
• The Nixon Shock
• The end of the Keynesian civilization

These events form a single continuous line,
revealing exactly where civilization began to distort.

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◆ Next Episode Preview

Next time, we move to
Chapter 2: “Friedman and the Civilizational Revolution of Floating Exchange Rates.”

When the Keynesian civilization collapsed,
where did civilization turn?

The answer is:
The Friedman Revolution → Monetarism → Market Civilization.

This is where civilization’s second distortion begins.

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