The Genesis of the Only Diagram in the General Theory

1999 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod O'Donnell
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Final Version ◽  
Orthodox Theory ◽  
Reasonable Inference

It is well known that the General Theory contains only one diagram, this occurring in chapter 14 criticising the orthodox theory of the rate of interest. Attached to the diagram is a footnote containing an acknowledgement: “This diagram was suggested to me by Mr. R.F. Harrod” (CW VII, p. 180). The impression conveyed by this remark is that Harrod drew the diagram and offered it to Keynes, who then accepted and used it. Further enquiry into the diagram's origins reveals the existence of an initial version which grew out of correspondence between Keynes and Harrod in August-September 1935 (CW XIII, pp. 526-63). Two of Harrod's writings–his (1951) Keynes biography and a letter to Hawtrey in 1951–imply that he was the author of the initial version, and that this was essentially the same as the published version. And, in seeming corroboration of Harrod's comments, there is the virtual equivalence of the initial version given in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes (CW XIII, p. 557) and the final version printed in the General Theory (CW VII, p. 180J. Taken individually and collectively, these items of evidence all point in the same direction. They support the reasonable inference that, apart from trivial changes in lettering, Harrod was the sole author and creator of the initial and final versions of the diagram, and that Keynes was merely the recipient.

The Macroeconomic thought of Nicholas Barbon

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-116
Author(s):  
James H. Ullmer
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Major Defect

Nicholas Barbon (1640–1698) is little appreciated by most historians of economic thought. He is sporadically mentioned in a few writings—probably the most well-known being the favorable reference to him made by John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Keynes 1936, p. 359). The fullest treatment of Barbon's economic ideas is contained in The Origin of Scientific Economics: English Economic Thought 1660–1776 by William Louis Letwin (Letwin 1963, pp. 48–75). Letwin considers a major defect of Barbon's first purely scientific inquiry into economics, A Discourse of Trade (Barbon 1690), and by implication, his other economic writings, to be “the logical incoherence of its parts” (Letwin 1963, p. 57). This criticism is not surprising in light of the pre-paradigm period in which Barbon was writing.

John Maynard Keynes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Government Expenditures ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Winston Churchill ◽  
Modern Economy ◽  
The Government

This chapter examines the economic ideas of John Maynard Keynes. According to Keynes, the modern economy does not necessarily find its equilibrium at full employment; it can find it with unemployment. This is the underemployment equilibrium, in which Say's Law no longer holds; there can be a shortage of demand. The government can and should take steps to overcome this shortage. The chapter discusses in more detail the underemployment equilibrium, the repeal of Say's Law, the call for government spending uncovered by revenues to sustain demand—all of which made up the so-called the Keynesian Revolution. In particular, it considers Keynes's central prescription that there should be government expenditures financed by borrowing to sustain demand and employment. It also analyzes Keynes's criticism of Winston Churchill, his A Treatise on Money (1930), and the economic discussion that followed the publication of The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money (1936).

‘No One in Our Age was Cleverer …’

2019 ◽  
pp. 99-136
Author(s):  
Alan Bollard
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
General Theory ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Imf

As troops massed on the border, John Maynard Keynes had to hastily cut short a holiday in France. A government advisor, academic, journalist, and polymath, he spent the next few years working on pioneering and highly innovative economic ideas: how to pay for the war, how to apply his ground-breaking ‘General Theory’ to policy, how to avoid repeating the mistakes of Versailles, and how to set up an international clearing exchange at Bretton Woods that would eventually become the IMF. As Germany turned on the Soviet Union, Keynes became very worried about his Russian in-laws caught up in the terrible siege of Leningrad.

How, and for How Long, Did Keynes maintain theTreatiseTheory?

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-307
Author(s):  
Toshiaki Hirai
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Monetary Reform ◽  
Interesting Phenomenon ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Primary Material ◽  
Intellectual Journey

Many historians of economic theory have studied how John Maynard Keynes developed his theory fromA Tract on Monetary ReformthroughA Treatise on Money(hereafter theTreatise) toThe General TheoryofEmployment, Interest and Money(hereafter theGeneral TheoryorGT). After the pioneering studies by Moggridge (1973) and Patinkin (1976, 1982), there followed Dimand (1988), Amdeo (1989), Clarke (1988, 1998), Meltzer (1988), Moggridge (1992), Skidelsky (1992), Laidler (1999), and others. This is no wonder, for the Keynesian Revolution remains the most singular phenomenon that economic theory and policy have ever seen. Although the objective of our entire project has been to shed new light on this important and interesting phenomenon, examining and analyzing the processes of theory-building and rebuilding which constitute Keynes's intellectual journey (see Hirai 1997–99), the present paper focuses solely on one chapter in the long story of the transition through his three major works. The very fact of addressing the questions, “How did Keynes maintain the theory developed in theTreatiseafter its publication (October 1930), and for how long?” narrows the period under study to approximately two years which span roughly from October 1930 through October 1932. Our scrutiny will range over the original texts and primary material such as manuscripts, lecture notes, and correspondence produced over this period, and our findings will rest on the meticulous analysis of material of crucial importance for a clear understanding of Keynes's theoretical situation. We will also offer our comments on the earlier efforts insofar as they relate to the period in question.

A General Theory for Our Times: On Piketty

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Mann
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Stance ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Thomas Piketty

Thomas Piketty has offered, and many have desperately snatched at, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money of our epoch. Piketty’s affinity with John Maynard Keynes and his groundbreaking 1936 landmark is largely unreflexive. But the ties that bind him to Keynes are powerful, and manifest themselves at many levels in Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The epistemology, the political stance, the methodological commitments, and the politics resonate in imperfect but remarkable harmony. This is no accident, because the world in which Piketty’s book appeared is saturated with the specifically capitalist form of anxiety that Keynes sought to diagnose, and fix, the last time it made the richest economies in the world tremble.

The End of a Mirage

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Granville
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Price Stability ◽  
Learning Trajectory ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Priority

This chapter describes the learning trajectory that led economists and policymakers to regard controlling inflation as a priority and to pursue this goal of greater price stability more effectively. It focuses on one particular episode in the history of macroeconomic controversy—namely, how a set of economic ideas shifted the general conduct of monetary policy that had prevailed since John Hicks's interpretation (1937) of John Maynard Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). This “new” thinking about inflation and monetary policy reacted against the contemporary orthodoxy because the prevailing theory had proved to be unsatisfactory in analyzing the changing nature of the economy.

Flow, Code and Stock: A Note on Deleuze's Political Philosophy

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (supplement) ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Marxist Analysis

In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari claim that a general theory of society must be a generalised theory of flows. This is hardly a straightforward claim, and this paper attempts to examine the grounds for it. Why should socio-political theory be based on a theory of flows rather than, say, a theory of the social contract, or a theory of the State, or the questions of legitimation or revolution, or numerous other possible candidates? The concept of flow (and the related notions of code and stock), I argue, is derived from contemporary economic theory, and most notably John Maynard Keynes. Deleuze and Guattari remained Marxists, not only because they held that contemporary political philosophy must inevitably be centred on the analysis of capitalism, but also because they held, following Marx himself, that the Marxist analysis of capital must constantly be transformed and adapted to new conditions. Thus, while certain aspects of Marx's analysis disappear from Capitalism and Schizophrenia, they are supplemented by the addition of new concepts adequate to the contemporary state of capitalism. The paper concludes, then, with an analysis of the role played by the concepts of flow, code and stock in Deleuze and Guattari's political philosophy.

Keynes and Anchorless Banking

1998 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Rymes
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Monetary Theory ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Monetary Economy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Working Out ◽  
Theory Of Production ◽  
Special Case

In The General Theory, John Maynard Keynes broke with the quantity theory of money, not just in working out a monetary theory of production but, as he says, in arguing the case for a monetary theory of value. Keynes writes (CW, 7, pp. xxii-xxiii):A monetary economy, we shall find, is essentially one in which changing views about the future are capable of influencing the quantity of employment and not merely its direction. But our method of analyzing the economic behaviour of the present under the influence of changing ideas about the future is one which depends on the interaction of supply and demand, and is in this way linked up with our fundamental theory of value. We are thus led to a more general theory, which includes the classical theory with which we are familiar, as a special case.

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