Keynesianism as a cargo cult

That's what Hugh-Smith said of Keynesianism---it's a cargo cult.  But he didn't offer an explanation for that, he just claimed it.  Let me expand upon that thesis a bit.

Now, if the government is encouraging the Fed to print money in order to prop up the stock market, then there's your cargo cult.  There's no underlying reason for wealth production, only a meaningless production of useless items like pieces of paper ( money ) that supposedly represents the value of the goods desired.  Just as the ignorant savages tried to reproduce the cargo dropping from the skies by emulating the soldiers actions, the mere creation of money does nothing to actually produce wealth.  The collective skill sets and wealth of a nation have to back up a nation's fiat currency, which by such means as described above, will only be diluted---not created.  Meanwhile, the real source of wealth, in terms of ability to produce such, is literally dying off as the old generation of producers die off and the newer generation fails to acquire the skills so as to replace them.

We seem to be going backwards in some important ways.  Especially in terms of energy production.  Renewable sources of energy aren't new.  Windmills were around a hundred years ago.  Same is true for electric trains and other "green" technologies.  Yet, at the same time, real advances are shunned and discouraged.  It was shunned in the case of molten-salt reactor technology created over 40 years ago.  It has been discouraged in its commercialization, as well as with new ideas such as aneutronic fusion.  Meanwhile, the excuse given for not developing molten-salt reactors is the radioactivity produced from it.  Yet, the ITER project will not cure this problem.  The plant itself will become radioactive itself over time.  It is not aneutronic, so it will produce radioactivity.  The problem remains, but the vast spending on it continues.  Meanwhile, aneutronic fusion projects go begging for funding.  The cargo cult assumes that by spending billions on a project, good results will follow.  But that isn't necessarily so.

If billions are spent properly, good results can follow.  Take the Apollo Project, which landed men on the moon.  It was deemed a waste of money and canceled.   The skill sets were allowed to die off and little was preserved.  Yet, if the program had continued, it could have been commercialized.  Today, we could be mining asteroids for platinum, which could help us with our supposed global warming problem.

The Apollo Project produced a nuclear thermal upper stage that was deemed space worthy.  It would have been bolted on top of a Saturn V rocket and doubled its payload.  The extra payload could have been used to build moonbases that could have provided fuel for more ambitious missions, such as a mission to Mars.

All of this was possible to us and has been squandered.  But the money printing continues unabated.  We are not getting richer, but poorer.  The Keynesian cargo cult has failed us.  We merely have the appearance of wealth.  The real wealth in terms of skill sets is dying off and very little is being done about it.  Except, perhaps to spend more money.

Update:

The idea of Keynesianism as a cargo cult has a number of links, as can be seen from this google search.

Try it:  type "Keynesianism as a cargo cult" in a google search box.

My post is sixth on the list.