John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes (born June 5, 1883 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England – died April 21, 1946 in Firle, Sussex), English economist, journalist and financier, best known for his economic theories (Keynesian economics) on the sources of too much unemployment. His most significant work, The General Theory of Employment, Money, and Interest (1935-36), advocated a treatment for economic recession based on a government-sponsored total employment policy.
While the tone of Keynes’s key writings in the 1920s was sometimes suspect, it did not immediately challenge the traditional wisdom of the period that favored laissez-faire, only somewhat tempered by public policy, when the best of all arrangements potential social Two of Keynes’s views foreshadowed the theoretical revolution that began in the 1930s. In 1925, he opposed Britain’s return to the gold standard on the dollar-pound ratio before the war, and well before the war. Great Depression, Keynes expressed concern about the chronic unemployment of British coal miners, shipyard employees, and textile workers. Reconciled at this particular moment with Lloyd George (who would never take office again), he supported the Liberal Party’s public works call to get the unemployed off welfare into worthwhile jobs. But “respectable” economists still hoped that instant free-market changes would fix these problems, and Treasury was convinced that public works had been ineffective because any increase in the federal government deficit would likely cause an identical decrease in private investment. . Although Keynes was unable to provide a theoretical rebuttal to the views of his colleagues, he nonetheless agitated in favor of public works.
It was only later, in the General Theory of Employment, Money, and Interest, that Keynes offered an economic basis for government employment schemes as a solution to high unemployment. The General Theory, as it has come to be called, is actually one of the most important economics courses in history, yet its lack of clarity has economists debating “what Keynes was really saying.” He seemed to recommend that a decrease in wage rates would not decrease unemployment; rather, the key to reducing unemployment was to increase government spending and run a budget deficit. Governments, many of them looking for excuses to increase spending, wholeheartedly accepted Keynes’ views. Most of his pro-colleagues also recognized his views. Interestingly, Keynes thought that the kinds of policies he advocated would work best in a totalitarian society.
The long-term effect of Keynes has not been as substantial as his short-term impact. The Keynesian element was a fundamental part of economics textbooks from the late 1940s to the late 1980s. But as economists have become increasingly concerned with economic growth and much more informed about unemployment and inflation, the Keynesian model has lost ground.
The General Theory was Keynes’s last great written work. In 1937 he suffered a severe heart attack. Two years later, though not fully recovered, he returned to training at Cambridge, wrote 3 influential articles on war financing entitled How War Can be Financed and served once more in the Treasury as a multi-tasker. In addition, he had prominent work at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. But the institutions that resulted from that convention, the International Monetary Fund and also the World Bank, were much more symbolic of the theories of the United States Treasury than of the of Keynes. thought.
His last notable public service was the negotiation in the early winter and fall of 1945 of a multi-million dollar loan from the United States to Great Britain. Keynes died the following year.