Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

The line is commonly used to summarize a moral critique of laissez-faire capitalism: that it relies on self-interest—sometimes framed as greed or vice—to generate socially beneficial outcomes (a caricature of the “invisible hand” idea). Read this way, it suggests skepticism that private profit-seeking reliably aligns with the public good, and it implies that unregulated markets may reward harmful behavior rather than channel it productively. However, because the attribution to Keynes is doubtful and the phrasing is rhetorically exaggerated (“most wickedest”), any interpretation should be treated as commentary on the popular sentiment the quote expresses rather than as a secure statement of Keynes’s own position.