Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Turn Away from Laissez-Faire
- 2 The Bolshevik Revolution and the Socialist Calculation Debate
- 3 The Roaring Twenties and Austrian Business Cycle Theory
- 4 The New Deal and Institutionalist Economics
- 5 The Great Depression and Keynes’s General Theory
- 6 The Second World War and Hayek’s Road to Serfdom
- 7 Postwar British Socialism and the Fabian Society
- 8 The Mont Pelerin Society and the Rebirth of Smithian Economics
- 9 The Postwar German “Wonder Economy” and Ordoliberalism
- 10 Indian Planning and Development Economics
- 11 Bretton Woods and International Monetary Thought
- 12 The Great Inflation and Monetarism
- 13 The Growth of Government
- 14 Free Trade, Protectionism, and Trade Deficits
- 15 From Pleasant Deficit Spending to Unpleasant Sovereign Debt Crisis
- Index
- References
5 - The Great Depression and Keynes’s General Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Turn Away from Laissez-Faire
- 2 The Bolshevik Revolution and the Socialist Calculation Debate
- 3 The Roaring Twenties and Austrian Business Cycle Theory
- 4 The New Deal and Institutionalist Economics
- 5 The Great Depression and Keynes’s General Theory
- 6 The Second World War and Hayek’s Road to Serfdom
- 7 Postwar British Socialism and the Fabian Society
- 8 The Mont Pelerin Society and the Rebirth of Smithian Economics
- 9 The Postwar German “Wonder Economy” and Ordoliberalism
- 10 Indian Planning and Development Economics
- 11 Bretton Woods and International Monetary Thought
- 12 The Great Inflation and Monetarism
- 13 The Growth of Government
- 14 Free Trade, Protectionism, and Trade Deficits
- 15 From Pleasant Deficit Spending to Unpleasant Sovereign Debt Crisis
- Index
- References
Summary
John Maynard Keynes corresponded with George Bernard Shaw for decades after meeting him at Cambridge. Shaw was not only a famous playwright, but also an amateur economist (see Chapter 7). In January 1935 Keynes wrote to Shaw:
To understand my state of mind, however, you have to know that I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize– not, I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years– the way the world thinks about economic problems.
Keynes’s forecast was remarkably accurate. His characterization of his project as “a book on economic theory,” however, was a slightly misleading. Despite the eventual publication title of The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, he was– as many commentators have noted– very much writing a tract for the times.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Clash of Economic IdeasThe Great Policy Debates and Experiments of the Last Hundred Years, pp. 126 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
References
1924
What Ended the Great Depression? It Was Not World War II,Independent Review 12 2007 180Google Scholar
New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis,Journal of Political Economy 112 2004 779CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Great Depression: An International Disaster of Perverse Economic PoliciesAnn ArborUniversity of Michigan Press 1998CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century AmericaNew YorkHolmes and Meier 1993Google Scholar
1930
From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921–1933New YorkCambridge University Press 1985CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1948
A Synthesis of the Principle of Acceleration and the Multiplier,Journal of Political Economy 47 1939 786CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrod, Hansen, and Samuelson on the Multiplier-Acceleration Model: A Further Note,History of Political Economy 35 2003 305CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1973
An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great BritainLondonGeorge Allen and Unwin 1939Google Scholar
1819
The Ricardo-Malthus Debate on Underconsumption: A Case Study in Economic Conversation,History of Political Economy 31 1999 563CrossRefGoogle Scholar
A Treatise on Political Economy; or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth,PhiladelphiaLippincott, Grambo & Co. 1855Google Scholar
An Economist in Troubled Times: Writings Selected and TranslatedPrinceton, NJPrinceton University Press 1997Google Scholar
Some Problems of Methodology in Modern Economic Theory,American Economic Review 34 1944 87Google Scholar
1933
2007
Mr. Keynes and the ‘Classics’; A Suggested Interpretation,Econometrica 5 1937 147CrossRefGoogle Scholar
On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of KeynesNew YorkOxford University Press 1968Google Scholar
Keynes’s Monetary Theory: A Different InterpretationCambridgeCambridge University Press 1988Google Scholar
Milton Friedman’s Monetary Framework: A Debate with His CriticsChicagoUniversity of Chicago Press 1974Google Scholar
The Relation between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wages in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957,Economica 25 1958 283Google Scholar