offenses and abnormalities, the economic position of women, the economic position of the family." As a feminist, a bisexual, a Malthusian, and a champion of the sexual revolution, Keynes repeatedly insisted that "the problem of population," as he put it in 1921, was "going to be not merely an economistic problem, but in the near future the greatest of all political questions." The "principles of pacifism and population or birth control" represented the "prolegomena to any future scheme of social improvement." War and conquest, like the economic virtues of thrift and deferred gratification, belonged to the age of scarcity. So did the patriarchal oppression of women—the most striking instance of the failure of morals to keep pace with economic change. Under conditions of scarcity, women were valued chiefly as breeders, and the work ethic invaded even the most intimate relations, subjecting sexual pleasure to the duty of procreation. Rigidly defined norms of masculinity and femininity discouraged sexual experimentation. In their private lives, people no longer paid much attention to the old prohibitions, so obviously unsuited to conditions of abundance ; but the official morality remained harsh and repressive. "In all these matters the existing state of the law and of orthodoxy is still medieval—altogether out of touch with civilized opinion and civilized practice and with what individuals, educated and uneducated, say to one another in private."

Civilized opinion, as Keynes understood it, demanded an expansion of the range of private choice. The notion of duty was outdated; one's highest duty was to oneself. When Keynes applied for exemption from military service, in 1916, he based his appeal on his right of private judgment. He did not argue the justice or injustice of England's war against Germany or the justice of war in general. He argued simply that conscription represented an intolerable infringement of his personal freedom of choice. He objected, he said, to surrendering his "liberty of judgment on so vital a question as undertaking military service." The British government granted Keynes a deferment, no doubt because he was more useful in the Treasury than in the army, without granting the substance of his argument. A government willing to recognize his "right of decision" as a general principle would not have been able to govern even in peacetime.

Whether Keynes considered the broader implications of his position is unclear; if pressed, he would probably have argued that only a handful of gifted individuals would ever force the issue in this way. His views of

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