The Essential Keynes

John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist, and one of the most influential thinkers, of the twentieth century. This book presents a selection of Keynes' writings on economics, philosophy, social theory and policy.

Edited with an introduction by ROBERT SKIDELSKY 'Many of the greatest economic evils of our time are the fruits of risk, uncertainty, and ignorance' John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist, and one of the most influential thinkers, of the twentieth century. He overturned the orthodoxy that markets were optimally self-regulating, and instead argued for state intervention to ensure full employment and economic stability. This new selection is the first comprehensive single-volume edition of Keynes's writings on economics, philosophy, social theory and policy, including several pieces never before published. Full of irony and wit, they offer a dazzling introduction to a figure whose ideas still have urgent relevance today.

ldquo;The essential Keynes cannot be sketched in a chart or mechanized, and we are the worse for it. But Robert Skidelsky has done us a service by putting it in a handy book.” – The Times Literary Supplement

Auteur

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) is widely considered to have been the most influential economist of the 20th century. His key books include The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919); A Treatise on Probability (1921); A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923); A Treatise on Money (1930); and his magnum opus, the General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936).

Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at Warwick. His three-volume biography of Keynes received numerous awards, including the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize.

Résumé

Edited with an introduction by ROBERT SKIDELSKY

'Many of the greatest economic evils of our time are the fruits of risk, uncertainty, and ignorance'

John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist, and one of the most influential thinkers, of the twentieth century. He overturned the orthodoxy that markets were optimally self-regulating, and instead argued for state intervention to ensure full employment and economic stability. This new selection is the first comprehensive single-volume edition of Keynes's writings on economics, philosophy, social theory and policy, including several pieces never before published. Full of irony and wit, they offer a dazzling introduction to a figure whose ideas still have urgent relevance today.

Échantillon de lecture

PENGUIN CLASSICS THE ESSENTIAL KEYNES JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883–1946) is widely considered to have been the most influential economist of the twentieth century. His key books include The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919); A Treatise on Probability (1921); A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923); A Treatise on Money (1930); and his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936).

ROBERT SKIDELSKY is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at Warwick. His three-volume biography of Keynes received numerous awards, including the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize.

John Maynard Keynes

THE ESSENTIAL KEYNES Edited and with an Introduction by
ROBERT SKIDELSKY
One: THE PHILOSOPHER

Two: THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHER

Three: THE ECONOMIST

Four: THE POLICY-MAKER

Five: THE ESSAYIST

‘Economics is a very dangerous science’

        John Maynard Keynes,
     ‘Thomas Robert Malthus’

Preface

I have arranged the selected material in such a way as to help the reader rather than for strict consistency. Almost all the excerpts are taken from The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, published in thirty volumes between 1971 and 1989. They are numbered sequentially and are identified by the volume number (CW, 10), title and date of original publication. The page numbers of the volumes of the Collected Writings from which they are taken are included in square brackets, marking the end of the page they refer to. I have grouped together some excerpts under the following topics: The Great Depression, Policies for the Slump, The New Deal and Full Employment Policy. Those readers who want a quick education in Keynes as an analyst of, and policy-maker for, slumps should turn to excerpts 18, 28–31 and 33.

This collection would not have been possible but for the magnificent Collected Writings. Elizabeth Johnson was the first editor; she was succeeded by Donald Moggridge. I would like to thank the Royal Economic Society for permission to publish excerpts from these volumes; King’s College, Cambridge for permission to publish excerpts 1, 2, and 3 from the unpublished papers of J. M. Keynes; Paul Davidson, Meghnad Desai, Geoff Harcourt, Pete Mills and Rod O’Donnell, for their comments on sections of the draft; King’s College archivist Patricia McGuire in helping me locate some handwritten notes in the Keynes Papers; and my impeccable copy editor, David Watson. My research assistant Pete Mills was invaluable in downloading the material I selected from the electronic edition of the Collected Writings.

List of Abbreviations

CW The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes

EB Essays in Biography

ECC ‘The Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill’

ECP The Economic Consequences of the Peace

EP Essays in Persuasion

EPG ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’

GT The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

JMK John Maynard Keynes

KP Keynes Papers, King’s College, Cambridge

ICU International Clearing Union

QTM Quantity Theory of Money

RT A Revision of the Treaty

TMR A Tract on Monetary Reform

TM A Treatise on Money

TP A Treatise on Probability

Introduction

‘Keynes’s ideas will live so long as the world has need of them’

Robert Skidelsky I There are hardly any single-volume selections of Keynes writings, and no comprehensive ones.1 This selection aims to make them much more accessible to both students of economics and the general reader perplexed and confused by the war of economists which broke out afresh with the economic collapse of 2008. By this time Keynes’s star had long been in eclipse. A new orthodoxy had arisen which cut economics off from the rest of life, claimed that market economies were naturally stable, and that the only macro-economic task of government was to maintain sound money. Robert Lucas, the high priest of the new classical economics, is said to have told his students at Chicago University, ‘We need spend only ten minutes on Keynes; we know it doesn’t work.’ The things which worked were unimpeded markets.

Keynes had set out to destroy the argument of ‘classical’ economics that a competitive market economy would always ensure full use of potential resources. He invented almost singlehandedly a new branch of economics, macro-economics, to show why this was not true, and to justify active fiscal and monetary policy. The task of overturning orthodox theory seemed all the more urgent in the wake of the Great Depression of 1929–33. The result was The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, whose publication in 1936 is conventionally taken to be the start of the Keynesian Revolution. Its main policy fruit was the commitment, till the mid-1970s, by most Western governments, to maintain high and stable levels of employment. The charge that Keynes failed to provide secure micro-foundations for his macro-theory, as well as the contentious implications of that theory for the role of state, led to the view that …