Of the maxims of orthodox finance, none, surely, is more antisocial than the fetish of liquidity…. It forgets that there is no such thing as liquidity of investment for the community as a whole.

Keynes makes this remark in the midst of the Great Depression-era debate over how financial markets and investors’ preferences shape real economic outcomes. In The General Theory (1936), he argues that orthodox financial thinking—especially the desire to keep assets readily saleable—can worsen instability. The passage appears in his discussion of investment and the stock market, where he criticizes the way professional investors and institutions prize “liquidity” (the ability to sell quickly) and treat it as a virtue in itself. Keynes contends that when many actors simultaneously seek liquidity, they collectively discourage long-term, productive investment and amplify swings in confidence and employment.

Keynes is attacking the idea that what is prudent for an individual investor is automatically beneficial for society. Liquidity feels like safety because it lets one exit positions quickly, but if everyone tries to remain liquid, the community cannot all “cash out” at once—someone must hold the assets. The social consequence is a bias toward short-term trading and away from committed, long-horizon investment in real capital. In Keynes’s view, this “fetish” can make investment more volatile, depress aggregate demand, and increase unemployment, because it turns markets into arenas for rapid shifts in sentiment rather than mechanisms for financing stable production.