前几天听李井奎教授讲座，他引述了凯恩斯《就业、利息与货币通论》的最后一段话。这段话越品越有味道，贴出来与大家分享。

“即使撇开这种当代的心情不谈，经济学家和政治哲学家们的思想，无论是对是错，都比一般所认为的更有力量。实际上，统治这个世界的就是这些思想，而极少是其他什么。讲求实干的人，自以为可以完全不受智识力量所影响，实际却往往是某位已故经济学家的奴隶。当权的狂人，听信的是无稽之谈，他们的那种狂暴行为，其根源往往出自几年以前某一个不入流的作家的蹩脚之作。可以肯定，与思想之润物无声相比，既得利益集团的力量是被大大夸张了的。诚然，这种影响不是即刻发生的，而是要经过一段时间以后；这是因为，在经济学和政治哲学这些方面，一个人到了25岁或30岁以后，很少再能接受新的理论，所以，公职人员、政客、甚至鼓动家所运用的思想，不可能是最新的。但是，无论早晚，不管好坏，危险的不是既得利益，而是思想。”

原文：“But apart from this contemporary mood, the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil. ”